Successful cities, with healthy, safe and confident communities, are built on a bedrock of excellent public services. As a Council, we will continue to focus on getting the basics right and on the delivery of good performance that we have seen over the past five years, ensuring that, when residents use our services, they receive the best possible customer experience.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a period of great challenge and great innovation in our public services. The complexity of the issues we were grappling with reached across service and organisational boundaries. Technical experts and managers from multiple disciplines, working in a range of organisations, needed to work together to solve problems on a daily basis, often using digital technologies in new ways. We will take this culture of innovation into the work of recovery and renewal, with digital technologies, skills and leadership to the fore.
We will also continue to use the full size and scale of the Council as a force for social and environmental good, setting the standard for all other organisations to follow. This will mean maximising the social impact of our spend, accelerating the move to net zero and leading the way as a ‘Fair Work’ employer.
We will:
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Build on the change and innovation of the past two years to continue to modernise the way the Council operates.
- Close the budget gap over the next four years and support services disrupted by the long-term impact of Covid to adapt to new sustainable ways of working.
- Deliver hybrid working as ‘business as usual’ across all areas of the Council, providing a more responsive and flexible service for staff and citizens while driving down the Council’s assets, energy and transport costs.
- Place renewed focus on the citizen experience of our services in our service planning and performance, and set high standards for customer care across all Council departments.
- Increase the number of Council services available to citizens via digital platforms and, where appropriate, ensure digital and automation solutions are used to give digital ‘end to end’ services.
- Deliver the Council’s Data Strategy, making the best use of Council data to support performance improvement, solve problems and enhance evidence-based decision-making.
- Continue to champion the Real Living Wage across all sectors and employers, increasing the number of accredited living wage employers in the city to 260 by April 2024.
- Ensure Cardiff Council is a ‘Fair Work’ employer and reduce further our use of agency staff by transferring them onto permanent contracts.
- Deliver the recommendations of the Race Equality Task force, supporting career progression routes for ethnic minority employees and ensuring an inclusive and engaged workforce that reflects the great diversity of Cardiff’s communities.
- Decarbonise the Council’s supply chains by reviewing the carbon imported through our procurement programme.
- Strengthen our Socially Responsible Procurement Strategy to keep Council spending local and more accessible to SMEs (Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises), while generating new training and employment opportunities.
- Use our purchasing power to drive up workers’ rights and improve environmental standards.
- Support staff wellbeing, placing a particular focus on supporting mental health.