Welcome to our third annual Best Value Performance Plan (BVPP), which shows how the Council is planning improvements to meet its priorities over the next few years.

The overarching framework for the BVPP is the Community Plan (revised in April 2002) which defines 5 priorities:

• Strengthening Our Economy
• Education And Life long Learning
• Developing Communities & Tackling Crime
• Sustaining Our Environment
• Caring for People

To these is added the overall Council priority.

Quality Services and Value for Money
It is these Community Plan priorities, reflecting local requirements, which have driven the priorities for the Council and are cascaded through the Best Value Performance Plan to the Business Plans of the Council’s Business Units

From 1 April 2002, the Council set up a new modernised political structure under a system of Leader/Cabinet decision-making with six portfolio holders in its nine Member Cabinet.  These portfolio themes and those of the six Scrutiny & Review Panels are aligned to the six Council priorities. Further details of the new political structure can be found elsewhere in the Best Value Performance Plan.

We have also split up the BVPP into separate sections – one for each Council portfolio theme which, I hope, will help increase the usefulness of the Plan to all Members, our partners and the public.

Whilst we are facing severe budget pressures to meet the ever-increasing expectations of Central Government, of residents and of visitors, we are committed to continuous improvement.  Our new political structure and the Best Value Performance Plan provide us with the opportunity to realise this by directing our resources to the Council’s corporate priorities.

Leader of the Council