Summary of the City's Main Priorities

‘The Council has taken the decision to move to a structure of Strategic Directorates’

Cabinet and Corporate Priorities
We need to build on the improvements made to the city centre and spread that success to other areas of the city so that our vision of a city of flourishing neighbourhoods becomes a reality. We need to drive forward real, hard improvements in many council services, learning from where we do well, as in our successful approach to education, and from others who currently do things better than us. Above all else our priorities are:

To develop Birmingham as a city of flourishing neighbourhoods
Neighbourhoods where people feel safe, live in harmony with each other, where there is economic prosperity and a thriving community. Flourishing neighbourhoods have well managed services which link together and meet people’s needs and are places where people feel proud to live, feel they matter and have a say in their future.

To achieve these twin objectives we have to change, fundamentally, the way the council works and the way services are organised. We will therefore be introducing major changes to localise service delivery and decision-making and to offer local communities real involvement in the decisions affecting their neighbourhoods.

The whole Cabinet and staff across the council will be responsible for these priorities and will put their energies into making sure we are successful.

Vibrant Urban Villages
To reverse the decline in poorer neighbourhoods and help build flourishing neighbourhoods across the city in the coming year, we will:

• Start to localise services to District level so that the management of local services is ‘joined up’ and easy for people and communities to use.
• Drive forward the Housing Commission recommendations, reorganising our housing around communities of interest.
• Put the things residents tell us are important, like street services, facilities for young people and leisure services, at the heart of our policies and ensure that local community planning is built around local decision-making and local neighbourhoods.
• Ensure that we provide services where local people can take pride in their community and have quality facilities that meet their needs.
• Work with our partners and the community to meet government targets for renewing neighbourhoods, with lasting improvements to services and by kick-starting community-based projects.
• Tackle the problems of those neighbourhoods which suffer from low income and employment, poor health and weak community leadership, and where people do not feel part of their local communities.
• Set up District Strategic Partnerships and work with them to deliver actions that meet the needs of their neighbourhoods.
• Expand the city’s programme of events as a major factor contributing towards community cohesion in Birmingham.

‘There are more people in work in Birmingham than at any time in the last twenty years’

Service Improvements
To bring real improvements to our services in the coming year we will:

• Ensure, by putting in place the recommendations of the Housing Commission, that we are a better housing landlord and better at planning future housing needs.
• Strengthen the whole council’s approach to race equality in our services and as the city’s largest employer.
• Meet targets we have set and agreed with government: to drive up standards in schools; improve services to children in our care; increase recycling; improve highway maintenance; improve fire safety; help cut crime; cut employment; make more information and services available online; be more cost efficient.

Jobs and Wealth Creation
In the last few years, Birmingham has gone through an unprecedented period of change for the better. Significant transformation has been taking place in the physical and economic fabric of the city, bringing greater prosperity for the people of Birmingham.

• The city has attracted millions of pounds of investment.
• There are more people in work in Birmingham than at any time in the last twenty years.
• Transformation of the city centre with developments such as the new Bull Ring, Masshouse Circus and Eastside that will create over 6,000 new jobs.
• Need to ensure that the city’s prosperity is enjoyed by everyone. We will therefore extend the city centre renaissance into the suburbs and make real our commitment to vibrant urban villages.
• We will work with local partners to target the most deprived areas of the city and ensure more local jobs for local people.
• Launch a new Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy through the City Strategic Partnership and use the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund to secure long term, sustainable change in the most deprived neighbourhoods and close the equalities gaps.

Social Services and Health
We are improving social services in a number of important ways:

• Introducing a radical restructuring which will enable greater partnership working with our health colleagues as we have appointed Area Directors matching the Primary Care Trust areas.
• We are putting the full weight of the Council, at both Member and officer level, to turn the department around, from zero to at least one star or more, drawing on recognised expertise and providing strong leadership to ensure sustainable change.
• Along with colleagues in the social care sector, we will work to ensure that adequate levels of resources are allocated to meet longer-term demands.
• Adopting a long-term approach to address the current shortfalls in service delivery and budget to tackle health inequality in the city.
• Continuing to take action to bring benefits Under Control
• The Council implemented the Benefits and Verification Procedure ahead of government deadlines and this has assisted in reduction of overpayments and tackling fraudulent claims.
• Using the Housing Benefit database, the Welfare Rights Team has been able to identify ‘under claiming’ of benefits by the more vulnerable members of society. For instance, Pensions Benefits campaigns bring millions of pounds into the economy. So, we are reducing fraud levels in the city and ensuring benefit is targeted to the most needy.

Bringing down Sickness Absence
We are committed to:

• Implementation of a new Managing Attendance Policy (launched in October 2001) in order to continue to reduce sickness absence levels, to bring them in line with those in other authorities and the private sector.