Corporate Plan - not customer focused (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

Corporate Plan - not customer focused

February 10, 2009 9:08 AM
By Cllr Janet Godden in County Council

Let's look for a minute at the now familiar five priorities on p.5:

World Class economy

Healthy & thriving communities

Environment and climate change

Reducing inequalities

Better public services

W, H, E, R, B. An acrostich of this list as an epitaph for this administration might run: Why Hasn't Everyone Reaped Benefits? Because not everyone has, and the answer may lie in the fact that this plan is not sufficiently customer-focused.

For a start, the first three priorities are not part of the core remit of this council. And the aims under these priorities, which are mainly about partnerships, are not about proper joint working, which we can do so well, but give the impression of a determination to hitch this council's wagon to other people's stars and share the credit for the light, rather than focusing on services closer to home.

Among the other two priorities, 'Reducing inequalities' has as one of only two strengths the fact that we have a clear analysis of where inequalities and deprivation are most serious. We've had that analysis for over 10 years to my certain knowledge, and all partner agencies have had it too. Not much progress there, then. And we note that Reducing Inequalities has only 2 targets compared with 10 for A World Class Economy.

Under 'Better Public Services' we see that one of our strengths is a 'Strong track record in external inspection' - coupled it seems with a strong collective amnesia over last year's Ofsted inspection of our education service and the loss of an Audit Commission star.

Finally, the Oxfordshire Partnership itself is confusingly glorified as being both an over-arching strategy and a golden thread running through the rest - a bit reminiscent of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". No harm in "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". No harm in being ambitious. But the golden thread ought to be the recognition that it is hard to combine lower taxes, real choice and value for money without some people being short-changed, and 'choice' ceasing to be 'real'. That is why I think that this plan is not sufficiently customer-focused, that is where this council should be concentrating its efforts and until it is allowed to do so it will never find the crock of gold at the foot of the rainbow.