About Dudley Council
Dudley Council serves more than 320,000 residents and manages a net budget of £235 million. It is a predominantly urban local authority located in the West Midlands conurbation and is made up of four main towns. The Council employs just under 8000 members of staff, 3000 of which are based in schools, many of which live within the borough.
Forging a future for all is a shared vision for Dudley borough built around seven aspirations and developed with key partners and stakeholders.
In 2030 we would like the Dudley borough to be…
-
An affordable and attractive place to live with a green network of high quality parks, waterways and nature reserves that are valued by local people and visitors
-
A place where everybody has the education and skills they need, and where outstanding local schools, colleges and universities secure excellent results for their learners
-
A place of healthy, resilient, safe communities with high aspirations and the ability to shape their own future
-
Better connected with high quality and affordable transport, combining road, tram, rail, and new cycling and walking infrastructure
-
Renowned as home to a host of innovative and prosperous businesses, operating in high quality locations with space to grow, sustainable energy supplies and investing in their workforce
-
A place to visit and enjoy that drives opportunity, contributing to its ambitious future while celebrating its pioneering past
-
Full of vibrant towns and neighbourhoods offering a new mix of leisure, faith, cultural, residential and shopping uses
Future Council 2030
The Future Council programme will help to enable the council to deliver the objectives and outcomes of the Council Plan and in turn the Borough Vision.
The programme reflects the need to build a dynamic and sustainable organisation, through developing our workforce, improving our service delivery through digital innovation and investing in our facilities to ensure they are fit for purpose. The programme will be reviewed every 3 years as part of the Council Plan refresh.
The Future Council programme incorporates everything we do, it sits at the heart of the Council Plan enabling our services. The comprehensive programme ensures the council is ‘fit for the future’. The programme has four key themes which include:
People
We will be an employer of choice, our values and behaviours will define how we work together, development opportunities to acquire new skills and our smaller, diverse and agile workforce will reflect the population of Dudley.
Managers will have developed new competencies to lead and support their staff in a much more agile working environment. Our values and behaviours will define how we work together, with elected members, with partners and with the public. Automation and self-service will significantly change staff roles but there will be development opportunities to acquire new skills in areas like data analytics.
Delivered through the People Strategy and links to and supports the council's strategic priorities by identifying what the workforce needs to look like and how it needs to operate to deliver outcomes for the residents of Dudley borough.
Digital
We will do things smarter by utilising technology, data insight and analytics will be fully utilised, and we will transform wellbeing and care through digital technologies, delivering improved outcomes for service users.
All transactions will be automated, self-service, cashless and paperless except where individuals need personal support. The use of artificial intelligence, robotics, low carbon and smart solutions will be the norm in tackling urban challenges such as traffic congestion, pollution and remote service support. We will transform wellbeing and care through digital technologies, delivering improved outcomes for service users.
This theme will be delivered via the Digital Roadmap . The roadmap includes:
-
Initiatives specific to directorates
-
Initiatives to modernise our technology architecture
-
Corporate initiatives including assessing requirements for future workplace and deploying solutions as per the business case approved spending and roll-out timeframes
-
Initiatives to develop a digital front door including assessing and reaching an agreement on the platform for digital front door
-
Borough wide initiatives including agreeing a strategy to deploy fibre across the borough and 5G technology.
Place
Our buildings and facilities will be safe, fit for purpose, low carbon and embracing the latest smart technology. We will make our buildings available as provider shared spaces for communities to come together. With improved public transport and cycling facilities, there will be reduced reliance on private cars.
Our smaller and increasingly agile workforce will require significantly less office accommodation. Centralised in Dudley Town Centre it will be flexible, providing touch down, hot desk and meeting spaces, shared with partners where appropriate. With improved public transport and cycling facilities, there will be reduced reliance on private cars.
Delivered through the Corporate Estates Strategy, that represents a framework aligning policy principles, strategy, and work plan to ensure the Council vision is delivered and in doing so commits the Council to a rigorous and business-like approach to the management of its estate. Property is the Council's most important non-people resource and property costs are usually the second largest cost after staff. Whilst individual properties may have been associated for many years with a particular Directorate or function, they are, above all, corporate assets that the Council needs to manage on behalf of the Council as a whole.
Process
We will strengthen our governance, processes and procedures to take informed and transparent decisions, managing risk, setting clearly defined functions and roles and ensuring robust accountability whilst upholding high standards of conduct and behaviour.
Support for this theme is given across multiple policies and procedures. It relates to governance, performance, risk and audit, with strong links to our values and behaviours.
Financially sustainable
In addition to these four core priorities the Future Council programme also aims to ensure we are financial sustainable and fit for the future. Driving value for money underpins everything we do and is delivered through the Commercial Strategy, Procurement Strategy, Social Value Policy and Medium-Term Financial Strategy.
Council Plan
Our Council Plan sets out our vision and priorities under four core priorities.
The plan is refreshed every three years, mapping out our journey to achieving the aspirations of Future Council 2030 and the borough vision.
The plan gives our commitment that the Council will constantly strive to improve the way we deliver services to meet the needs of local people and to ensure that we can measure and demonstrate our achievements. The plan on a page shows the four main priority areas and the five objectives within each priority. The four priorities in the Council Plan 2022-25 are for Dudley to be:
-
The borough of opportunity
-
The safe and healthy borough
-
The borough of ambition and enterprise
-
The destination of choice
Democratic Structure
Dudley Council is a Conservative administration, which operates a cabinet and leader system of governance.
The cabinet members who are responsible for the development of strategy, policy and decision-making are:
-
Councillor Patrick Harley - leader of the Council
-
Councillor Paul Bradley - deputy leader of the Council, communities & economic development
-
Councillor Steve Clark - cabinet member for finance, legal and HR (including equality, diversity and inclusion)
-
Councillor Matt Rogers - cabinet member for adult social care
-
Councillor Ian Bevan - cabinet member for public health and wellbeing
-
Councillor Ruth Buttery - cabinet member for children and young people
-
Councillor Phil Atkins - cabinet member for corporate strategy (digital, customer services, commercial & procurement including the operation of halls, leisure centres, Himley Hall and Brookes Bistro)
-
Councillor Rob Clinton - cabinet member for waste management and climate change
-
Councillor Damian Corfield - cabinet member for highways and environmental services
-
Councillor Laura Taylor-Childs - cabinet member for housing and safer communities
Senior Management Structure
The Council's senior management structure reflects the commitment to building stronger, safer and more resilient communities in line with the Dudley vision and to protect our residents' physical and emotional health for the future.
Our Values and Behaviours
Dudley’s six core values outlined below underpin everything we say and do, how we work and behave. Essentially core values are the organisation’s guiding principles that should be lived through the actions of everyone representing Dudley Council.
Accountability
By being accountable for everything we do and being transparent and open about why we do it
Determination
By being determined to get it right for our residents
Empowerment and Respect
By listening to and empowering residents and staff and by acting with respect in everything we do
Excellence
By striving for excellence in everything we do
Simplicity
By communicating clearly and reducing bureaucracy
Working Together
By collaborating as one Council and one borough
Leadership Accountabilities
Our leaders have an important role in helping us achieve Dudley’s aspirations and our journey to excellence. Ten core capabilities have been identified for leaders at Dudley known as leadership accountabilities.