Corporate Plan 2022 to 2027: introduction and financial context

The Corporate Plan responds to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the national Well-being Goals. Our own goals have been developed with consideration of these national Goals, an assessment of Well-being in our County, and of the objectives of our partners too. It is also underpinned by a raft of supporting service plans and strategies that capture the operational detail of what it is we are delivering from day-to-day. The Corporate Plan is not a compilation of everything that we do as a council, but should be viewed as our big to-do list of key improvement activity, helping to keep everything organised and moving in the right direction.

Our Corporate Plan 2022 to 2027 acknowledged that there would be difficult times ahead, and that we would regularly review our goals (or ‘citizen outcomes’) in light of increasing costs and the rising demand for services facing all councils. These pressures have been driven by the cost-of-living crisis, fuel and energy prices, interest rate rises, and the lasting impact of the pandemic.

We are now presenting our revised Corporate Plan for 2025 to 2027. Although we have made changes to reflect our reduced budgets, this plan still reflects our commitment to delivering good-quality services to those most in need, and to provide support to our community, despite the economic pressures that we face. We have carefully reviewed our goals to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our most vulnerable residents while maintaining financial responsibility.

Our revised plan puts financial resilience front and centre and outlines a clear path forward, focusing on innovation, efficiency, and collaboration to navigate these challenging times, and so that we can build a sustainable future for future generations. However, with some 70% of our funding coming from external sources, our financial resilience is not entirely within our control, and we may even during the course of this revised plan need to make difficult decisions and prioritise some areas over others.

It's important to distinguish between the services that we provide through our annual budget, and those services that are funded by external grants. ‘Core services’ like waste management, social care, and education are (in the main), covered by the council's yearly budget. However, some core services and services like financial support for local businesses rely heavily on external grants, such as those replacing the UK Government Shared Prosperity and Levelling Up grants. Similarly, major construction projects like building new schools and flood defence schemes need significant funding from the Welsh Government. The availability of these grants affects how much support we can offer in certain areas and has unfortunately led to pausing several key projects. We will continue to work with the Welsh and UK governments whenever possible to ensure that Conwy benefits from any available external funding.