A forward-looking and resilient Council

We're always looking to make services more efficient and sustainable and better meet people’s needs, and will carry on looking at ways to develop our services and change the way we work in the future.

As a large County Council we have a range of central services that work across the whole of the Council to provide and support our day-to-day services for residents.

This includes our customer service centre, legal and governance teams, finance, human resources, procurement, communications, IT and business support.

These services are the 'engine room' of the Council and help us provide and deliver our customer-facing services, ensuring we have the resources we need to work efficiently and adapt for the future.

Colleagues in our central teams also make sure that we work in a lawful and transparent way, reducing any risks, and making the best use of resources to protect services while delivering value for money for local people.

Our staff stepped up during the pandemic and worked hard to adapt services and protect the most vulnerable. We want to continue to support them by giving them the skills and knowledge they need and providing a positive, inclusive culture. We'll also continue to develop new and innovative ways of working, including some which came out of the pandemic, like hybrid home/office working, and using 'virtual visits' to connect social care staff and residents. We're always looking to make services more efficient and sustainable and better meet people’s needs, and will carry on looking at ways to develop our services and change the way we work in the future.

We’ll keep developing our technologies to reach those in isolated communities, and make it easier for people to communicate with us and access our services. We’ll create effective, easy-to-use systems and processes to ensure we get it right for residents first time, every time. And, we’ll keep listening and using residents’ feedback and other data to make services better, working closely with partners to get the best for people.

Finally, we’re working hard to secure more powers and resources for Nottinghamshire. We know this would help us improve our services, support local businesses, create jobs and attract much needed investment for infrastructure and the economy. We are doing this by collaborating with other councils in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, and our many partners, all of whom share in our ambition. We’re talking with Government about our proposals, and how they link to our broader ten-year vision, and the national levelling up agenda.

Over the next four years, we’ll focus on:

Delivering our Council-wide Improving Residents Access Programme, to give people better access to information and services, develop technology that helps people access our services more easily, and empowering vulnerable people to be as independent as possible.
Maintaining the financial sustainability of the authority through our Medium Term Financial Strategy, allocating resources appropriately to achieve the ambitions in this Plan and working with partners and the Government to maximise the resources available.
Developing our Council-wide approach to service transformation. This will help us to identify and develop new ways of delivering services that create the best possible long-term outcomes for people. It will find better ways of managing costs and demand.
Managing the transition from our current Committee system to a Cabinet system of governance that will help speed up and improve our decision making.
Continuing to develop our hybrid-working model to enable staff to deliver services in new ways, whilst reducing our carbon footprint from staff travel and reducing our property costs.
Continuing to invest in supporting and developing our workforce, so that our staff are resilient, adaptable, and equipped to face the challenges of changing services and workplaces.
Ensuring that the way we work with our partners, residents and with each other across the Council reflects the values we set out in this Plan.
Joining up our commissioning activity across Council services to achieve financial benefits and improve services for people.

Success means:

People can access Council services more easily
Resident satisfaction with the Council improves
The Council has a balanced budget and valued services are protected
The County Council retains and recruits a highly talented workforce.

In 2023-24, to achieve this, we will deliver the following actions:

Refresh our planning and performance framework to further strengthen performance management, including using performance to drive continuous improvement in a consistent and integrated approach.
Publish a Data Strategy, including the review and development of secure, integrated data systems, so that we are able to strengthen our ability to make decisions based on robust data and analysis.
Strengthen the processes we use to choose how to provide services for residents by developing our approach to ‘strategic commissioning.’ This will ensure that our funding is used effectively to meet identified needs, services demonstrate good value for money and our procurement procedures are both sustainable and compliant.
Develop the ways in which we engage with residents including the use of consultation, co-design and coproduction where possible, so that the views of Nottinghamshire’s communities are informing both the decisions we make, and the design and delivery of the services we provide.
Design and deliver a Resourcing and Retention Strategy so that we can maintain a diverse and sustainable skills pool to deliver the services that matter most to residents. This will include seeking opportunities for joint workforce planning with key public service partners where possible.
Design and implement a new approach to employee engagement to ensure colleagues, including our self-managed groups, have a voice, feel listened to, and involved in the decisions and changes that impact them. This will also include a review of our approach to workforce Health and Wellbeing, focussing on staff wellbeing and resilience so that they are fully supported to be fit and well at work.
Continue to invest in our staff development by extending the Nottinghamshire Way and investing in our culture and leadership capability at all levels.
Continue to manage the Council’s finances and resources effectively, so that we can continue to invest in delivering or commissioning services that make a difference for our residents and communities.
Develop plans for ICT resources that will support the delivery of technical and digital developments across the Council. The Digital Strategy is in place and will be utilised in the delivery of services to provide a positive experience to all.
As part of wider organisational development, we will refine and reshape our portfolio of cross-cutting transformation programmes. This will ensure the organisation is fit for purpose and has the capacity to deliver the Nottinghamshire Plan over the longer term.
Work collaboratively across the Council and with partners, to continue the development and delivery of our cross-cutting transformation programmes. This will help us to work together to test new and improved ways of working, service delivery and systems. It will also create the conditions to enable us to deliver coordinated and integrated transformation, that makes a difference for the County’s communities and residents.
Strengthen our capacity to continue to develop our approaches to managing risk, and business continuity, so that we have the strategies, systems and processes that enable us to identify and target improvements, plan and respond to incidents and mitigate risks effectively.
Following implementation of our new governance system from a committee system to a Leader and Cabinet model, we will continue work with members and officers to review our new arrangements, develop the Council’s approach to Scrutiny and to embed understanding and good practice across the organisation.
Undertake work to explore future delivery and service design options for Catering and Facilities Management Services, so that we are working efficiently and effectively, whilst making best use of the Council's resources.

To find out more about what we’ve got planned for the current year, you can read our full Annual Delivery Plan 2023-2024 [PDF].