Central to our whole-authority programme of transformational change is our new mantra of Social Heart and Commercial Head. This recognises our commitment to public service and the needs of our citizens, but also demonstrates our desire to explore commercial opportunities where appropriate, to generate additional income to reinvest in services to help them remain resilient.
The Council provides ‘cradle to grave’ services to local residents. It supports local enterprise and investment, educates our young people, protects vulnerable people, and is the steward of our environment and infrastructure. Social justice and fairness are at the centre of everything we do.
However, this is a new era for local government, and whilst we will be maintaining our focus on our customers and essential services, we will need to seek out innovation, find alternative ways of delivering services and adopt a more commercial approach to Council business. We will find and articulate the right balance between our public sector ethos and commercial practices.
As a large local authority we have been able to protect services to a greater extent than many other local authorities in Wales. However, we are on the cusp of a new era for the County Borough and our operating practices must alter so that we can deliver what is needed for our residents and, particularly, our future generations.
The Council must be more commercial and will seek opportunities to generate additional income, and explore investment opportunities to achieve returns that can help secure future service delivery. We are not considering the largescale outsourcing of services, but will instead focus on a more business-like approach to take advantage of commercial opportunities for the services that we provide.
We will develop a new Commercial and Investment Strategy to create new economic and social networks to recycle economic benefit back to delivering quality services to our communities i.e. Profit for Purpose. This will require new thinking and may be the most challenging aspect of our transformation strategy.
Adopting an entrepreneurial approach will require different skills and attitudes, and we must change our culture to increase our resilience. To facilitate this we will foster and embed an innovative and commercial culture, through a commercial development programme across the Council
We will also seek nominations for a Cabinet Member to be the Council’s Commercial Champion and establish a Commercial Panel that will consider commercial opportunities.
This new thinking will take us beyond income generation into the marketing of our services. The Council, and the professionalism of our staff, are a trusted brand that we will explore as part of the #TeamCaerphilly transformation programme. As part of this process we will look at potential trading vehicles that will provide the appropriate platform for us to trade with other public sector organisations and beyond.
Our commercial approach will also involve a review of our current Treasury Management Strategy. This will focus on exploring prudent investment opportunities beyond our traditional approaches, to improve returns that can then be reinvested in services to help them remain resilient.
| KEY ACTIONS | TIMESCALE |
|---|---|
| Nominate a Cabinet Member as the Council’s Commercial Champion | 12th June 2019 |
| Commercial and Investment Strategy to be drafted and approved by Cabinet | Cabinet approval by 31st October 2019 |
| Establish a Commercial Panel | 30th November 2019 |
| Undertake a review of the Council’s portfolio of investments | 31st December 2019 |
|
Explore potential trading vehicles that
would allow us to trade with other public
sector
organisations and beyond |
31st March 2020 |