Working in partnership

We are responsible for delivering a wide range of services to our residents, people who work within our district and visitors. Some of these services we provide directly, but many are delivered in partnership with other organisations. These include public bodies such as the police, with private sector companies for services like waste collection and with the voluntary sector who are often used for the provision of specialist services.

Vale Sustainable Community Strategy and Local Development Framework

The council approved a Sustainable Community Strategy in November 2008 called "Working together for a better Vale". It was prepared by the Vale Partnership, which brings together representatives from the public, private and voluntary sectors in the Vale. This long term plan will address current issues, but will also look to improve the quality of life in the Vale in the years ahead.

Underpinning the actions in the strategy is the need for sustainability. This is generally defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The partnership's vision for the future is for a sustainable Vale:

• With prosperous, inclusive and thriving communities that have good access to a range of housing, jobs and services.
• Where everyone can feel safe and enjoy life.
• Where our needs can be met without compromising the natural and built heritage or the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

The strategy is a commitment by the Council and its partners to work together with available resources to provide services that will help to improve quality of life and maintain communities where people want to live and work, now and in the future. Some of the issues will be tackled through policies and proposals in the Local Development Framework (LDF). This is an important plan which will help shape the future of the Vale up to 2026. It contains a Core Strategy which sets out a long term vision and key objectives for the district up to 2026. Major new sites for housing, employment and retail development will be identified in the plan, as will the infrastructure needed to support them.

The Oxfordshire Local Area Agreement 2008-11

The Oxfordshire Local Area Agreement This link will take you to an external website... is a three year agreement between the Government and a wide range of key partners across Oxfordshire. The aim is to develop partnership working which will lead to improvements in service delivery. The agreement is being managed by the Oxfordshire Partnership This link will take you to an external website... which is the county wide local strategic partnership. The key priorities of the agreement are, in part, measured by performance against 35 National Indicators. Targets have been agreed with the government and if these are met the partnership will share reward grant at the end of the three year period. There are direct links with many of the national Indicators included in the agreement and our corporate priorities. Full details can be found on our page Key targets, actions and measures per priority.

Working with South Oxfordshire District Council

The two councils have a long history of joint working together, and more recently, shared services. For example, a shared finance service has been in place since 2006. This includes a joint revenues and benefits contract with Capita and internally provided accountancy, finance client side, benefit fraud and audit services. We will be extending joint working further with the introduction of a joint waste collection and street cleaning service in 2010.

Both councils have agreed to create a shared management team. Substantial savings will arise from having a reduced number of senior managers. These savings will help both councils address budget challenges for later years identified in their respective medium term financial plans. Councils are under increasing financial pressure through reducing government grants, limits on Council Tax increases and increasing expectations from customers. These pressures are heightened by the Government¿s expectation of further efficiency savings from every council. Both councils face challenges to set balanced budgets for 2009/10 and later years whilst seeking to improve frontline services in our priority areas.

The creation of a shared management team will lead to annual joint savings of around £750,000. In addition, there are a number of non-financial benefits which are equally important. Best practice will be encouraged across both councils. Having a common senior management structure will make it easier to achieve joint delivery of services in areas where the two councils positively decide that they wish to do this where a single service delivery arrangement could deliver financial and operational benefits. Finally there is a potential set of benefits around the profile that will result from shared working. The new management team is responsible for delivering services to a population of nearly 250,000, larger than any single district council in the country.