Council Plan presentation
Speaker: Councillor Andrew Lewer, Leader of Derbyshire County CouncilHello, I'm Andrew Lewer. I'm the Leader of Derbyshire County Council and I'm here to talk about the Council Plan. The consultation period that we had is over and many thanks to all of you who provided some input into that − both organisations and individuals.
It was a real consultation in the sense that the initial document has been changed in many ways to reflect some of the views and input that people made. The main themes remain, but some of the detail has been improved as a result of that consultation and I think that makes for a better Plan overall.
That revised Plan has now been endorsed by the full council here and the Plan is now in full effect. Plans are often thought of as rather dry documents and in fact, I've described it myself as "not exactly 'book of the month'." But it is readable, it's clear and I think people will get a lot out of having a look at it and finding out a bit more about our plans for the years ahead 2010 − 2014.
The Plan reflects our priorities at Derbyshire County Council but it can only be fully realised in partnership. And that means partnership with organisations like the Primary Care Trust, like the district and borough councils and the voluntary sector organisations we work with; the police, the fire [and rescue service], Peak District Park etc. But also with the individuals of Derbyshire, the 750,000 people who make up our community, here in the county.
I think we need to be clear with people that there are very serious financial pressures upon the county council in the same way that there is upon the whole public sector and also serious demographic pressures with the aging population that we have here in Derbyshire in particular. Those cannot be ignored and we need to be very straight and clear with people about the pressures that that places us under.
And although that means we need to achieve efficiencies, efficiencies are not only an opportunity to save money, but an opportunity to deliver services in a more innovative and a more interesting and a better focused way that reflects modern needs and expectations.
So within the Plan we have five main themes which I shall try and explain a little bit about to you all.