Wirral Council published two key focus plans
In the next step in its improvement journey, Wirral Council has published two key plans to set out its areas of focus for the next 12 months.
An update to the current Wirral Plan, and an Improvement Plan, will be on the agenda for discussion by councillors at the meeting of the Policy and Resources (P&R) Committee on Monday 27 June.
The two plans complement each other – the Wirral Plan outlines key priorities for the borough including how the council aims deliver the best possible service for residents, communities and businesses over the next five years.
The Improvement Plan sets out how the council will improve its internal workings to allow the Wirral Plan to be delivered efficiently and to meet the needs of residents.
There are five key themes in the Wirral Plan covering economy and regeneration, health, education and training, the environment and travel, and communities.
For example, it outlines how the council will deliver a huge range of services, based on what people have said matters most to them:
- neighbourhood services (such as bins and street cleaning)
- helping people live healthier lives
- tackle health inequalities,
- improve educational attainment,
- respond to the climate emergency
- protect the environment,
- regeneration
- supporting jobs and businesses
This one-year refresh of the Wirral Plan highlights new short-term actions the council needs to focus on for the next 12 months. They are based around economic and social regeneration and tailoring the delivery of council services to the differing needs of local communities.
The two plans set out Wirral’s response to the external reviews* commissioned by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) in summer 2021 which included reports on governance and finance in addition to the Local Government Association Corporate Peer Challenge carried out in March 2022.
The external reviews were commissioned by DLUHC in response to the council’s request for a capitalisation directive from Government to ensure it could balance the authority’s budget for 2022-23.
The Corporate Peer Challenge was carried out by a team of experienced councillors and senior officers working elsewhere in the local government sector, the make-up of which carefully planned in line with the council’s requirements.
Their report, which is also to be considered by P&R committee, says the team examined a wide range of aspects of Wirral Council’s work and identified “strong and genuine appetite across the council for improvement” but said the local authority is still at the “start of a long-term journey of improvement”.
