Cabinet considered the report regarding the new Corporate Plan for the period 2021-2026.

The Chairman said they had discussed this paper previously, and it went to a very productive and useful meeting of the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel. He gave his thanks to all Members of that Panel for playing their part in shaping this document and putting forward a series of recommendations, which will we will discuss in due course. But overall, he thought that was a very productive and indeed useful meeting in terms of shaping this critically important document for the council going forward.

The report shared the new Corporate Plan for the period 2021 to 2026 currently titled Building a Borough of Opportunity and Innovation. The plan sets out the council's overarching objectives and specific goals to be achieved in support of those objectives. Over the course of the plan, period, it has been designed to crystallise focus on where the council needs to focus most to drive the change that we need, and also to help us guide and indeed inspire an allocation of resources and energies to deliver that change.

It replaces the interim strategy, which was adopted back in the summer of last year, which was developed as a temporary plan for the response to the pandemic. This new plan went out to public consultation for a period of six weeks, which ended in September 2021, it was discussed by the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel on the 11th of October 2021 in what we deemed to be a formal challenge session.  He asked Cabinet to consider the comments made by Scrutiny.

There were six agreed recommendations plus two additional comments that have come forward both in scrutiny and a Member of Cabinet. 

Recommendation 1 put forward by Cllr Werner to rename the main overarching aim of the Corporate Plan to Creating a Sustainable Borough of Innovation and Opportunity.  This was seconded by Councillor Jones, and indeed, agreed unanimously by the O&S Panel. Cabinet were very happy with that sensible and pragmatic amendments to the title of the Corporate Plan that reflected the longer term and wider ambitions around not only climate change, climate resilience, but also economic sustainability, health, sustainability, and all the other metrics of sustainability we will be using going forward. The recommendation was approved.

Recommendation 2 was put forward and agreed unanimously at the Panel was that the Corporate Plan be reviewed by the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel, or indeed whatever successor body may replace that panel in in due course, after two years following the plans, adoption.  the motion was proposed by Cllr Jones and seconded by Cllr Hassler. Cabinet feel that this was a very prudent move as It gives the opportunity to potentially amend and refine that Corporate Plan to reflect not only real life implementation, but also to reflect external changes to the organisation. The recommendation was approved.

Recommendation 3 was proposed by Cllr Clark to increase both walking and cycling by 50%. This was duly seconded and indeed agreed unanimously by the by the Panel. Cabinet were receptive in principle to including walking in the goal, it was noted that the Cycling and Walking Action Plan also include an emphasis on walking.  Cabinet did have concerns about how this could be measured and if the target was achievable.  Cabinet agreed the additional target in principle but recommended that for the first year it would be to set a baseline, once established a target could be set.  Cabinet noted the proposal and recommended that officers set a baseline during year one.

Recommendation 4 put forward targets to improve air quality and ensure that communities were able to access green spaces within a 15 minute walk. That motion again was unanimously agreed by the Panel.  Cabinet were in favour of adding the goal posed on air quality. However, there were some concerns raised about how to define green space and about the 15 minute walk as a measure.   Cabinet recommended that the target could be to access quality green space without the 15 minute walk measure.  Cabinet approved the amended recommendation.

Recommendation 5 was motion put forward by Cllr Jones to remove reference to the name ‘Windsor public realm’ and the reference to the Desborough site in the  goals. This was seconded by Cllr Werner.  There was broad consensus amongst cabinet that these were major programmes, and it was helpful for accountability to retain reference to the specific schemes within the goals. Cabinet noted the recommendation.

The final approved recommendation from the Corporate O&S Panel was put forward by Cllr Jones to reword the goal on lobbying Government over the lifetime of the Corporate Plan, with the Executive Director of Resources to refine the wording.  Cabinet approved this recommendation.

The Chairman said Cabinet had accepted the majority of recommendations put forward but he would also like to note the minority recommendations made where the O&S Panel were not in agreement as they could be considered in future refinments.  He also said that there was a Cabinet Member who also wanted to put forward another amendment. 

The Lead Member for Public Protection and Parking informed that within the Corporate Plan, we have in the text commitments we will make sure that residents and visitors feel safe on streets with a particular focus on women and girls and the night-time economy. We take a zero tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and actions which damage our environment and we will build in safety by design.  He believed this was very important and needed to be further stated and reinforced within the Corporate Plan.  He proposed that they add an additional goal to the plan, where we concentrate that goal purely on our zero tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour. The wording would need to be carefully considered by officers to something that was achievable and measurable.  This recommendation was approved by Cabinet.

The Deputy Leader of Council, Corporate & Residential Services, Culture & Heritage and Windsor   said she was please to second the report as in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, we were incredibly lucky. It was an amazing place to live, work and visit. There was so much for us with our heritage of Windsor Castle, fantastic businesses, green space, but also a brilliant Council, which was excellent providing its statutory services. This plan went beyond that and it showed residents how seriously we took building a sustainable borough of opportunity and innovation. We were concentrating on thriving communities, inspiring places, and through the whole plan we are tackling climate change and the consequences.

The Lead Member for Finance and Ascot said that the new Corporate Plan had a lot to recommended it, especially the headline of building the borough of opportunity and innovation demonstrated the council's long term ambitions in housing, climate change, infrastructure and much more. The Audit and Governance Committee met last Thursday and reviewed the draft capital strategy which will form part of the 2020 to 2015 budget setting papers, you may ask what is the got to do with the corporate plan? Well, it's much more than you think. Our first capital strategy was published in 2019/20. Budget and some tidying up has been done since then. But the document is very process driven, it does sit outside investment priorities and we introduced a capital Review Board, but it lacked that sense of direction. The 2022/23 version incorporated the corporate strategy, as a consequence becomes aligned with that vision, a clear direction travel and borrow vision. He had to say the Corporate Plan was going to have a positive impact on all aspects of the council business.

The Lead Member for Climate Change, Sustainability, Parks and Countryside said that she wished to thank all those that took part in the consultation, it became obvious how our residents cared about sustainability and biodiversity and our drive for climate change.  This is a document were we have listened to our residents and she commended it.

Cllr W Da Costa said that the message was clear from Cop 26 that if we do  not take drastic action now, we will fail. Our standards of living will plummet, social stability will fall off the scale and health and life expectancy will also reduce.  He said 50% of the public disagreed with the expectation of the plan, which is more than twice as many as those who actually agreed with it. The public said that the top issues that the council was not addressing in order of priority number one was environment, climate and biodiversity. More than half the people responded to that saying that this was not being considered appropriately, which was 10 times more than people who said that we our housing strategy was wrong. A second highest concerned democracy and decision making, but five times more people said we are not getting the climate and environment and biodiversity right.

Cllr Da Costa said that every decision that we take from now on every regulation that we create, including our special supplementary planning, development has to put the environment the climate and biodiversity front, left and centre. He said that the plan presented today does not reflect the overwhelming views of public of the public or scientists.  He urged Cabinet to re write the plan. 

The Chairman replied that there would be an opportunity to debate the merits of the plan at Council where he hoped it would be adopted.  He said we do view climate change and sustainability as being a key part in the new fundamental parts of our agenda, we had set up the Climate Partnership and demonstrated real leadership.  He mentioned that the Council had to operate within a national legal and policy framework. We also had to reflect upon the fact that a as the local authority, and not as elected representatives, but as a local authority, the key function was also to provide first class public services, especially including the most vulnerable within the society, to whom we have not only an ethical and moral duty, but also a fiscal duty.  We had to be financially secure to deliver these important services.  because otherwise we would not t be able to deliver on core business such as adults, children services, keeping our roads safe, but also delivering upon our climate and sustainability objectives, as well.  He said that we do have a duty to the most vulnerable in society, we do have a duty to provide opportunity, we do have a duty to continue to foster innovation, but without a strong economy we will not have the financial to pay for this innovation and this technology that we are so dependent upon to tackle climate change.

Cllr Davey said that with regards to climate change not many people had heard of Cop 26 and not many placed any importance on it.  This was a challenge for Cllr Stimson, Cllr Da Costa and Cllr Davies in getting the word out.  With regards to the Corporate Plan he was concerned by the comment that with regards to infrastructure establish a testbed and small cell rollout of 5G.   He said that the following questions about 5g were asked by a resident that he had put to the scrutiny challenge but there had been no response apart from health and safety investigations were being conducted.  He questioned by whom and could the public see the results.  Who decided the distances on the mass where the matter would be placed, what health and safety evidence was there and would the Leader sign off accountability for the project. 

Cllr Davey said that one of the responses said it related to a planning application and they should look at the planning portal, however he felt that these were holistic questions.  He felt that this was not a sufficient answer and there was no opportunity to question this at the O&S meeting.  He said that the NHS has said each council should do its own due diligence into 5G, establishing a testbed for 5G rollout in the paper did not help build trust in the council.  He requested that the Leader support the hosting of an enquiry into 5G and invite experts in to debate.

The Chairman replied that he was not in a position to speak for telecoms operators and associated government structures.  But any installations would have to be in compliance with national and international legislation.  He did not support that the council conduct an inquiry into 5G as this was a competence of national government and thus he recommended lobbying the local MPs. 

Cllr Werner said that the scrutiny review had been a very productive session but it ran out of time and thus some items got lost.  He mentioned that the O&S Chairman was excellent but given the importance of this paper more time was required.  One of the things that was not included in the O&S recommendations, but we had a big discussion about was wellbeing. And we were advised at the time that it was not really possible to measure wellbeing. However, he had since been shown that there are many ways of measuring it and this included information from the Office of National Statistics. He therefore asked that Cabinet asked officers to look at introducing a wellbeing target.

Cllr Werner mentioned that another topic discussed at O&S was eco houses, and how, as the council owns some of the land that is proposed to build on, then we could set really high environmental standards for those houses.  He asked Cabinet to include stronger targets to ensure this happened.  There was no point in declaring a climate emergency if we continue to build houses that do not help towards our goals.  He said that in conclusion, wellbeing and climate change needed to be given far more emphasis and a corporate plan with more ambitious targets.

The Chairman replied that with regards to wellbeing we placed a strong influence on all areas of wellbeing and mental health.  However he said that this was a fair challenge and that was why they had agreed the O&S recommendation to review the plan in a couple of years.  With regards to eco homes he agreed and referred to the latest Government paper, that included local authorities reducing carbon emissions by 75%.  There was a drive to improve standards in the private sector especially around new build and existing dwellings.  He was supportive of eco homes but only where they could be delivered. 

Cllr Hassler said that as the Corporate O&S Chairman that he was grateful for the contributions of Cllr Werner and Cllr Jones at the meeting.  He said that all members had been given an opportunity to submit questions and answers were provided, they then could ask their groups representative on the Panel to raise any other issues.   With regards to carbon neutral homes planning could not refuse on this basis without legislation.  He thanked Cabinet for taking on board O&S comments. 

Cllr Baldwin asked Cabinet that in light of Cllr Cannons proposed new targets and reference to zero tolerance were they aware of legislation regarding the use of zero tolerance before progressing.  In reply he was informed that any proposed targets and associated actions would be in line with legislation and the legal framework.  Zero tolerance was about not turning a blind eye to any appropriate action; this could be education or fines. 

Cllr Carroll mentioned that with regards to wellbeing the Health and Wellbeing Board already gave consideration to this and that there was the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.  The HWB Board also produced an annual report that references mental health.   

Cllr C Da Costa said that with regards to zero carbon and aligning this with the plan that it was an ambition but would not go into the plan as it was not part of national legislation.  Cllr Stimpson said that yes that was the case and the Chairman said that targets in the plan had to be achievable.

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)               Considers the recommendations from the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel as set out in Table 2, and any Officer advice;

ii)             Agrees that the Corporate Plan (including any revisions) is referred to Full Council on 23 November 2021 for adoption.