Corporate plan

Our Corporate Plan outlines our ambitions and priorities for Buckinghamshire Council. Overall, our aim is to create positive changes for local people, communities, visitors, and businesses. This refresh builds on the original plan from when the Council was formed in April 2020 and reflects the ever-changing world around us. We remain committed to making Buckinghamshire the best place to live, raise a family, work, and do business. We want our county to be a place everyone can be proud of, with excellent services, thriving businesses and outstanding public spaces for everyone. We want our residents, regardless of background, to live healthy, successful lives and age well with independence.

You will no doubt be aware that councils across the country are under acute financial pressure and Buckinghamshire is no different.

Although inflation is showing signs of coming back under control, the embedded high inflation over recent years and cost of living pressures continue to present a significant challenge to our residents and council services. Demand for our services continues to rise each year due to factors such as population growth, demographic changes, and increased pressure on services such as children’s social care, adult social care, home to school transport and temporary accommodation. Our income in certain areas such as parking remains reduced and is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels due to changing patterns of behaviour.

However, we are committed to continuing to be a well-run, financially prudent, efficient and value for money council. The escalating costs of providing the critical services that serve our most vulnerable residents have forced us to make difficult decisions when assessing our medium-term financial plans. We have taken steps to reduce our overhead costs and implement a financial programme that has already delivered substantial savings since we became a unitary authority. We continue to identify opportunities for savings and efficiencies, which will be delivered over the next few years. This will allow us to continue building a strong foundation for Buckinghamshire’s long-term future.

Our vision for Buckinghamshire is one that aims to allow all Buckinghamshire residents to access the opportunity to succeed and thrive. One where growth will be carefully planned and managed, so that all residents benefit. This includes welldesigned, more affordable homes in thriving communities, providing excellent education opportunities for our young people, developing a skilled workforce with access to great job opportunities in highly productive sectors, and a world-class physical and digital infrastructure to support our businesses to flourish

We also want to play our part in tackling climate change. Examples of how we plan to do this include planting over 500,000 trees, increasing recycling and improving our environment.

Throughout the challenges of recent years, we have seen how people from across the county have stepped up to help those in need and look out for their family, friends, and neighbours, as well as help refugees temporarily settle in the county. The public sector and community services continue to work together to find ways to support those that rely on them, thinking innovatively through the challenges. Some of these new ways of doing things have worked well and have demonstrated how we can make improvements to the way we deliver our services.

We remain focused on the importance of a local approach and will continue to engage with our communities, offering opportunities for our residents, businesses, and partners to influence innovative approaches to their local places and services. There is no better example of this than our Opportunity Bucks initiative where we are targeting resources to ensure residents can access what they need to succeed.

Buckinghamshire’s Strategic Vision for 2050 will help us deliver a lot of these ambitions to benefit Buckinghamshire’s residents and the local economy.

The refreshed Corporate Plan provides the building blocks to our success and sets out the Council’s strategic priorities and how we aim to achieve these. It will be used to inform cabinet portfolio priorities, service, and team planning – setting out the challenges and vital opportunities we will focus on to support the county to build resilience and continue to grow.

A number of strategies and policies underpin this plan including details about how we evaluate our success and how we use benchmarking information to ensure we measure success and best practice. Buckinghamshire will continue to face challenges in the next few years, but we also have unique and exciting opportunities to improve our services and accelerate the county’s success and prosperity, including through devolution from central government. We recognise that our staff are our greatest asset, and it is important that we acknowledge their ongoing hard work, dedication, and resilience during times of unprecedented demand.

By seizing opportunities available to us now and working on our ongoing commitments, such as our objective to achieve net carbon zero for Buckinghamshire by 2050, we can avoid over burdening future generations and ensure that current residents benefit from positive changes in the years to come

Martin Tett, Leader
Rachael Shimmin, Chief Executive