1  Foreword

Our core purpose is to support sustainable and resilient communities across the County Borough. For the last few years we have managed the tension between reduced funding and the growing demands for services. The disparity continues to increase, and to thrive within this new environment, demands a new way of thinking. We are a strong, resilient Council with a detailed knowledge of our people and place, so we are well placed to rise to the challenge and seize the opportunities our journey of transformation will bring.

We need to be assured that we are providing services that meet the diverse needs of our people, which are sustainable, efficient and effective with the full support of our communities. We must also find our place within an ever more complex set of relationships which are now needed between the public and private sectors, community and place.

We provide over 800 services to the citizens of Caerphilly and there are many demands placed upon them: -
• The financial challenge and the need to deliver more with less;
• Our ageing population who want to be able to live in their own homes whilst managing complex health needs;
• Our varied communities and the gap we have between poverty and prosperity underlying the need for high quality jobs and an attractive local environment;
• Climate change and increasing energy costs, which demands a focussed approach to green energy; and finally
• The fast pace of digital technology, which can offer so many opportunities to change the services we provide and how we work with our communities.

A simple response to these challenges might be to reduce service provision and staff numbers - an approach we are trying to resist. Our current organisational operating model is described as “traditional”, but it has served us well. However, we now have to stretch ourselves, to think about the future and how our County Borough will look in the next decade and beyond.

The challenge is big but the opportunities to re-purpose and re-shape the Council and the County Borough are even greater!

Our transformation journey must happen at scale and at pace, and our core principle that underpins this movement is a Council that has a Social Heart and a Commercial Head.

We must be bold and brave. We must be able to anticipate future opportunities and be ready to make the most of them. We need to ensure we are ready for the challenges facing us.

This ‘whole organisation’ new operating model is being launched as #TeamCaerphilly - Better Together. It has a clear purpose: “to create capacity and foresight to develop solutions to some of the County Borough’s biggest challenges, ensuring the Council understands and responds to the changing needs and priorities of our communities”.

The programme takes us initially to our first key milestone of 2022 (to coincide with the current administration) and then beyond. It will consider everything we do and how we will do it in the future.

Real impact can only be made if we are all working towards the same objectives together and this is where the power of #TeamCaerphilly will really work. We all love and cherish our County Borough and we all have an equal role to play in shaping it - whether you are an individual, a business, a school, a community group, a Councillor, or Council official - we each have a vested interest in making our people and place successful.

This is our collective call to action and we’re confident that through working together as #TeamCaerphilly, we have a real opportunity to thrive.

Picture of Cllr David Poole and Christina Harrhy

Cllr David Poole Leader
Christina Harrhy Interim Chief Executive