Progress made on delivering North Ayrshire Council Plan
Posted on 29 Aug 2024
North Ayrshire Council is already delivering on its commitment to its residents with significant progress made on the Council Plan priorities agreed with our residents.
A report presented to Cabinet (Tuesday, 27 August) showed that a number of milestones had already been reached in the first year of the five-year plan.
The Council Plan is seen as the Council’s contract with its communities and lays out the priorities for the areas over the coming years and how the authority will work with partners, including communities, to deliver these.
The plan was approved by Cabinet last year, following consultation with residents, with four main priorities driving the delivery of the services we provide – Wellbeing; Communities and Local Democracy; Climate Change; and A Sustainable Council.
The report shows that the Council has made strong progress across all four priority areas. In addition, performance relative to similar local authorities is strong and the Council will continue to learn from others to improve the lives of our people in North Ayrshire and ensure a North Ayrshire that is fair for all.
Among the main highlights are:
- The establishment of a Financial Inclusion Partnership to increase access to financial advice and support for our residents.
- 36,366 trees planted as part of our 2030 Woodland: A Tree Planting Strategy
- £560,509 in financial gains delivered to parents through our School Welfare Rights Officer (over £1.6m since the project began), who provides financial advice and assistance to parents and carers. As a result, two additional posts were approved this year.
- Provision of a £50 clothing grant to all eligible three and four-year-olds in Early Years during the 2024/25 school year to help with the cost of living.
- 378 empty homes have been brought back into use during 2023/24 - significantly above the annual target of 200, while 384 new homes are reaching completion, significantly above the annual target of 295.
- £130,000 funding awarded to four community renewable projects through the Community Renewable Energy Generation Fund
- Construction now under way on the Council’s two solar PV farm developments at Shewalton and Nethermains.
- Figures show that 68% of our 33 Local Government Benchmarking Framework priority indicators with data available have improved in the past year. In addition, 60% have improved over three years and 93.75% have improved over the last 10 years. This shows continuous improvement within the Council.
- Our first Best Value Thematic Audit showed the Council “continued to demonstrate a strong culture of continuous improvement” with engagement with our communities in creating our Council Plan highlighted. This is the strong foundation on which our services are based.
North Ayrshire Council Chief Executive Craig Hatton said: “The Council Plan is our commitment to our residents.
“It sets out what we want to achieve in partnership with our communities and how we will go about doing that.
“Although this is a five-year plan, it’s very pleasing to see strong progress that has been achieved in its first year.”
The Council Plan and progress reports are available to view on the Council websitehttps://www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/performance.