Corporate Plan derive from a number of different sources, they may have started life as “Best Value Improvement Plans” or CPA improvement Plans, or they may be an amalgam of a lot of disparate plans and policies that your council has joined into one. They normally follow a similar format, an introduction about the council and about the area, links with community objectives, often listed, something about past performance and achievements, and the council’s plans for service delivery and future projects.
They normally reproduce performance indicators to show how the council is performing overall, and list measures to be taken to address any areas of weakness. The councils core values will be enshrined in the corporate Pplan. These can be a mixture of outward looking values, for example around service to customers, and inward looking, for example, being a good employer. They will therefore often reflect community plan aims and aspirations, but they go a bit further and try to address the how, as well as the what. Many corporate plans include action plans, with target dates, again these can include discreet projects, or can talk about reaching levels of performance or quality standards.
The Audit Commission look at corporate planning as part of the CPA process and results of their inspections can be found on their website.
Your corporate plan says a lot about how the council sees the importance of your service, compared with all the other things it wants and needs to do. Very few council actually base their revenue budgets on the corporate plan, but many are starting to try and reflect the priorities in their budget setting.
See Value for Sport
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