Council publishes Improvement and Recovery Plan

The Council has submitted its first Improvement and Recovery Plan to its Ministerial Envoys.

In May 2024, the Council was reviewed to assess if it was performing to a satisfactory level, through what is known as a Best Value Inspection. This review concluded that the Council was failing in its Best Value duty, particularly with regard to leadership, governance and financial management.

After this review ended, the former Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution decided to appoint four Ministerial Envoys to help the Council take forward a number of widespread improvements. The Minister also gave clear instructions on what changes and improvements the Council needs to make, through a series of Ministerial Directions. One of the Ministerial Directions was for the Council to prepare an Improvement and Recovery Plan.

The Council will need to significantly change how it operates, and will ultimately need to provide fewer services, in order to become well-run and financially sustainable. The Council’s Plan will help to guide how it works to address its Ministerial Directions and ensure it can become a modern and efficient organisation that operates within its means.

Split into eight key themes, the Plan contains a series of actions and timescales that the Council is committed to delivering on.

ℹ️ You can read the Improvement and Recovery Plan on the Council’s website.

Following the submission of its Improvement and Recovery Plan, the Council will be moving quickly to its next key phase, through a comprehensive transformation programme. This will support the council to completely redefine how it operates.

A first step to ensuring widespread change

Leader of the Council, Cllr Hans Mundry, said: “The submission and publication of our Improvement and Recovery Plan is an important early step in demonstrating to our residents and partners that we’re committed to addressing our Ministerial Directions.

“The most pressing issue at present linked to our improvement plan is the need for financial sustainability. At our Cabinet meeting in December 2025, we identified a £90 million four-year budget gap, and are also looking at implications from our commercial portfolio and the need to sign off a number of years of unaudited accounts.

“Both of these issues will have further impacts on our medium-term budget. We will continue to work on our budget proposals, and these will be reported to Cabinet and Scrutiny Committee in February.

“To address all of this, we will need to make some significant and very difficult changes. We will ultimately need to resize the organisation, becoming much smaller in parts, focusing our resources on services with the greatest impact on supporting residents to live good, healthy lives. Our Improvement and Recovery Plan will support our work to achieve this.

“Through this work, there will be opportunities to redefine what services we deliver, and how we can work with and involve our communities and neighbourhoods in future service delivery.

“We know we have a long way to go, and we need to address the consequences of a lot of decisions of the past. We want to deliver the best outcomes we can for our residents and communities. I am confident that through this Plan and wider transformation work, and with support from the envoys, we will be able to rebuild trust with our residents and deliver the best value that is expected of us.”