Corporate Plan 2025 - 2030
Corporate Plan 2025-2030 - Action Plan
- Purpose of the Corporate Plan
- How we will deliver our Corporate Plan
- What we achieved in 2024/25
- Our priorities
- What we will deliver in 2025/26 to achieve our Corporate Plan objectives
We want to make Gateshead a place where everyone thrives. We want it to be a great borough, with vibrant communities, where businesses can grow, residents feel supported and live fulfilled lives, and our environmental impact is minimised.
Purpose of the Corporate Plan
This plan sets out our strategic approach and priorities for 2025-2030 so that employees, councillors, residents, partners and other stakeholders understand:
- the strategic priorities of the council - so that resources, delivery plans, strategies and operational activity can be aligned to them; and
- how the council will continue to transform and drive improvement in services to deliver our priorities and operate in the most effective, productive, and impactful way
Our Corporate Plan outlines our priorities for the next five years and aims to address inequality, whilst championing fairness and social justice in Gateshead. This is our action plan to set out how we will take our strategy forward in the next year and what we expect to deliver.
How we will deliver our Corporate Plan
Our pledges set out our focus for the next five years in five key areas and outline what we are going to deliver. We have also identified six priorities which will support how we deliver our plan and how we work as an organisation.
The Strength of Gateshead is the People of Gateshead - Gateshead Council Corporate Plan 2025-30
Our pledges: |
|---|
1. People Gateshead Putting people and families at the heart of everything we do |
2. Fair Gateshead Tackling inequalities, so people have a fair chance |
3. Communities Gateshead Supporting our communities to support themselves and each other |
4. Prosperous Gateshead Investing in our economy, to provide sustainable opportunities for employment, innovation and growth |
5. Future Gateshead Working together and fighting for a better Gateshead |
| Our priority areas |
|---|
| Good customer service |
| Inclusivity |
| Sound financial planning |
| Good governance |
| Continuous improvement |
| Culture |
What we achieved in 2024/25
To progress our Corporate Plan pledges and priorities we delivered the following achievement in the past financial year:
People Gateshead
- Ofsted reviewed Gateshead's children's social services in December 2024 and judged the council to be 'Good' across all areas and our Adult Learning and Skills Service received a 'Good 'rating from Ofsted.
- We approved a new Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) strategy, with positive progress made including delivery of events to show support available for CYP (Children and Young People) with SEND.
- We opened nine multi agency Family Hubs to support access to early help within local communities.
- We increased the number of health visiting reviews with families from the nationally required five reviews to eight. This now includes additional reviews at three-to-four months, six months and school readiness contact at age three-to-five.
- The Care Quality Commission recently inspected our adult social care services, where we have been rated as 'Good' in meeting our statutory responsibilities and duties to ensure people have access to adult social care and support.
- We reduced waiting lists for adult social care assessments, including social work and occupational therapy, and increased capacity in reablement so more people could have support to help them regain their independence.
Fair Gateshead
- Our Director of Public Health's annual report focused on the impact of lives lost in Gateshead to alcohol, drugs and suicide, allowing the voices of people with lived experience to be heard, and showing the urgent need for action to support those suffering.
- The Health Determinants Research Collaboration in Gateshead played a key role in a study by Lancaster University, which proved our planning policy on preventing new hot food takeaways had been linked with reducing childhood obesity levels.
- Increasing numbers of people are accessing specialist drug and alcohol treatment in Gateshead.
- We established a new regional Local Drug Information System to act on emerging/immediate threats from substances and communicate with partners, and have a new Rapid Review process for suspected drug- and alcohol-related deaths.
- We increased take-up of free school meals (FSM) through targeted promotion including within all council Tax bills to eligible benefits recipients and other channels, and have expanded the rollout of the Holiday Activities and Food programme to FSM families.
- We have developed a sexual health training model within the Gateshead Recovery Partnership (GRP) to improve contraceptive access for women in recovery services.
- Improved support is now in place for children impacted by the substance use of others through the children and young people's substance misuse service.
Communities Gateshead
- We showcased the best practice work of our Armed Forces Outreach Service (AFOS) partnership project with a visit by the Minister for Veterans and People. Led by Gateshead Council AFOS offers support and guidance to veterans, serving reservists, spouses and their family members.
- We launched our 'East Locality' innovation site; as part of our community-based support approach, to introduce convenient talking points into locations close to where people live.
- We commissioned and implemented our new all-age caregivers service and recommissioned our home care contracts and review of our placements sourcing activity and capacity.
- Our partnership with GLL to deliver leisure services in Gateshead was launched following a full procurement process.
- We implemented Gateshead Exchange, a new service designed to bring suppliers, together with voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) groups, to provide social value to the communities of Gateshead. We have delivered £1.25m of social value through procurement activity.
- We awarded over £1m in grants to VCSE organisations in Gateshead to support the health and wellbeing of residents.
- We launched the Gateshead Food Partnership via our first Food Summit event, and secured accreditation as a 'Sustainable Food Place'.
Prosperous Gateshead
- Over 1,000 businesses received support from the council. As a result, 31 start-ups are newly trading, 60 existing businesses have completed investment projects, and we have had five inward investment successes. This delivered £14.65m of private investment into Gateshead, creating 575 new jobs and safeguarding 321.
- We provided over 1,000 residents with employment-related support, 420 of whom were helped into work, achieving 475 job starts.
- We appointed a town centre manager for Gateshead to work in partnership with the private sector to support local businesses.
- We achieved Silver in the Investors in the Environment accreditation.
- We have reduced our measured operational carbon emissions by 74% from 2010 levels and will deliver our tree planting target of 100,000 trees by 2030.
- We secured £365,000 from the North East Combined Authority (NECA) to deliver an events programme for Gateshead Quays and the Railway Quarter.
- We have secured £53m of funding from NECA, including £40M for transport improvements.
Future Gateshead
- Work started on a new joint venture housing scheme, transforming the quality and choice of homes across Gateshead. A development of 49 family homes is to be built by Gateshead Regeneration Partnership, on the site of the former Hookergate School, at High Spen.
- We made progress in acquiring properties on Gateshead High Street to enable a future regeneration scheme.
- Formal governance arrangements are now in place to deliver a joint vision for expansion of the MetroCentre and the MetroGreen development.
Our priorities
Our focus has remained on our council priorities of: good customer service, inclusivity, sound financial planning, good governance, continuous improvement, and culture. We have:
- Achieved improved face-to-face customer service at the Civic Centre with a joint customer service and housing reception point, a meet-and-greet service, digital services, enhanced security presence and monitoring of face-to-face contact.
- Launched a new digital tool, "Do I need planning permission", and have reviewed our pre-application planning processes with feedback from service users.
- Increased the number of digital contacts and self-service and improved our online services, with high satisfaction rates from customers.
- Established a new Women and Girls' Committee, led by elected members, that aims to raise awareness of and tackle gender inequalities and the impact they have on the lives of women and girls in Gateshead.
- Supported Out North East to successfully deliver a festival of Pride in Gateshead during August 2024. The programme included talks, discussions, celebrations and exhibitions to raise awareness of, and pride in, our LGBTQ+ communities.
- Have agreed to treat care experience as a protected characteristic in Gateshead, acknowledging the significant inequalities and stigma faced by people who have been in the care system.
- Set a balanced budget for 2025/26, including an investment programme of £620m over five years, to address residents' priorities of new homes, jobs, green spaces and investment in the local environment.
- Undertaken a review of internal governance and decision-making, supported by the Local Government Association (LGA), to enable improved ways of working across the organisation, in order to deliver additional savings and improve our customer service.
- Worked with the LGA to undertake a corporate peer challenge that presented the council with a feedback report and key recommendations. We have developed an action plan to address these recommendations and will welcome the LGA back later in 2025 to demonstrate progress against their findings.
- Delivered an employee survey in 2024 working in partnership with Best Companies. Employees across all of our teams and departments had the opportunity to share anonymously how they feel about working for the council. Questions covered themes including leadership, pay and personal development. We were named as one of the best organisations to work for in 2024, and we are working to develop action plans with all services to further improve our employee experience.
- We launched a new Integrated Impact Assessment tool to ensure new policies and key decisions address issues such as equality, diversity and inclusion, socio-economic disadvantage and health and wellbeing as soon as possible in their development.
What we will deliver in 2025/26 to achieve our Corporate Plan objectives
1. People Gateshead
Our pledge to put people and families at the heart of everything we do.
Council Lead Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Children's Services | Supporting an integrated Early Help system so children get the right help at the right time | Further strengthen our early help offer through a new locality-based multi-agency Family Help model. Improve access to high quality childcare provision for our pre-school children to help them achieve a good level of development by age five. Enhance opportunities and social inclusion for all children in our local communities, with a focus on those with SEND. Develop and implement the young carers strategy and action plan. | Children's Social Care and Education, Schools and Inclusion |
Children's Services | Support all children to access high quality inclusive education with the help they need to succeed | Improve school attendance and reduce levels of exclusions and suspensions, through support for inclusion and our early help offer. Develop a framework to support inclusive education in mainstream schools for all children. Extend our Alternative Education Provision strategy to ensure a wide rand and choice of educational provision options for children and young people. Launch a new Post 16 education and training strategy. to increase choice and options for Post 16 provision and pathways. | Education, Schools and Inclusion |
Children's Services | Support children to live safely within their families and communities | Strengthen and embed our trauma-informed practice principles across the service. Expand our family-led decision making and support to children so that they can remain living within their families or safely return home from care. Strengthen our support to vulnerable teenagers where there is risk outside of the home. | Children's Social Care |
Children's Services | Being the best Corporate Parent for children in our care | Ensure we have sufficient local homes for our children in care and our care leavers. Strengthen our multi agency local offer for care experienced young people and deliver our commitment to treat care experience as a protected characteristic in Gateshead. | Children's Social Care |
Integrated Adults and Social Care Services | Prevent, reduce and delay the need for care and support | Support Adults with social care needs to be as independent as they can be by increasing the number of people accessing Direct Payments, supporting adults with Learning Disability into paid employment and increasing the use of technology enabled care. Redesign our adult social care pathways, focusing on prevention and early intervention. Develop online care assessment functionality, so that those people who are able to, can self-serve. | Adult Social Care |
Integrated Adults and Social Care Services | Supporting caregivers | Improve information and advice and support to caregivers. Implement and monitor the delivery plan of the Adult Caregivers Strategy. | Adult Social Care |
Public Health and Wellbeing | Deliver public health programmes to support children to have the best start in life | Commission and contract manage our statutory targeted public health services, including: 0 to 5 Healthy Child Programme - Health Visiting and School Nursing; Integrated Sexual Health Services; National Child Measurement Programme; and smoking in pregnancy interventions. | Public Health |
2. Fair Gateshead
Our pledge to tackle inequalities, so people have a fair chance.
Council Lead Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Public Health and Wellbeing | Health and Wellbeing Strategy - deliver our policy objectives | Refresh our Health and Wellbeing Strategy in 2025, to include the two new Marmot Principles (tackle racism, discrimination and their outcomes; and pursue environmental sustainability and health equity together). Develop an anti-poverty strategy and plan with partners. Deliver the benefits uptake campaign. Develop a suicide prevention plan. | Public Health co-ordination with all council services supporting delivery |
Public Health and Wellbeing | Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach | Undertake a collaborative review and development of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. Develop a quality improvement framework to measure progress on embedding action to reduce health inequalities into council planning and decision-making. Launch and embed the HiAP toolkit and staff training. | Public Health |
Public Health and Wellbeing | Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) | Increase capability and capacity of council employees to deliver and engage with value added research, supported by HDRC team and resource. Increase stakeholder involvement in research, through collaborative research activity with residents, community organisations and strategic partners. | Public Heath - Knowledge and Intelligence: HDRC |
3. Communities Gateshead
Our pledge to support our communities to support themselves and each other.
Lead Council Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Integrated Adults and Social Care Services | Voice of our Communities | Develop our engagement and coproduction strategy and framework in partnership with our coproduction group. Embed local VCSE organisations in prevention, planning and delivery, to be a central focus of our community-based support offer. Develop new engagement and feedback mechanisms with people with lived experience, partners and staff. | Adult Social Care |
Children's Services | Voice of our Communities | Strengthen participation, engagement and coproduction with our children and young people. | Children's Social Care |
Integrated Adults and Social Care Services | Commissioning | Commission new care delivery with providers that improves service availability and efficiency. Develop a new quality pathway for contract and quality management for providers. Implement an Autism Strategy delivery plan. | Commissioning Performance and Service Development |
4. Prosperous Gateshead
Our pledge to Invest in our economy to provide sustainable opportunities for employment, innovation and growth.
Lead Council Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Economy, Innovation and Growth | Attract and support investment in our economy | Launch our inclusive economic development strategy, developed and designed with key stakeholders, partners and communities. Publish our Local Economic Assessment. Consult on a new local plan vision and spatial strategy with an updated Statement of Community Involvement Prepare and consult on a submission - draft Area Action plan (AAP) for MetroGreen. Develop and launch our regeneration strategy supported by a new regeneration and placemaking partnership. Demolish the Gateshead Highway flyover and continue to secure funding and partners to progress the regeneration of our town centre. Maximise external funding from NECA and other investment partners for strategic developments to accelerate regeneration. Develop a creative spaces partnership to develop the rural, visitor, local and creative economies and raise the profile of Gateshead, using our iconic, cultural institutions. Animate our spaces to attract people and temporary uses, increasing footfall and audiences through an events programme. Reform our business support services including: a new service to provide specialist support to rural businesses; targeted support to high growth sectors; and deliver our digital-tech sector plan. Develop a local response to Department for Work and Pension's Connect to Work supported employment programme; and NECA's Economic Inactivity Trailblazer. Develop a new 'fast track' Working Gateshead service for residents at risk of redundancy to respond to economic shocks. | Economic Development and Regeneration
Business, Employment and Skills |
| Improve our environment, ensuring environmental sustainability | Develop and launch a climate adaptation strategy to support our communities in developing climate resilience. Publish, then progress, our ambition for community-wide zero carbon heat networks using geothermal energy sources and extend our heat network to connect Trinity Square.
Launch a new £2.5m grant-funded energy efficiency scheme for social and private housing. Adopt a local nature recovery strategy for the South of Tyne and Wear (Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland). Deliver £48m of capital schemes to improve out transport infrastructure and connectivity. Publish and implement our local cycling and walking infrastructure plan and develop an active travel strategy. | Climate Change, Compliance, Planning and Transport |
5. Future Gateshead
Our pledge to work together and fight for a better future for Gateshead.
Lead Council Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Housing, Environment and Healthy Communities | Creating and maintaining thriving places we can all be proud of | Deliver our Housing Development programme through a Housing Delivery group. Launch the significantly extended Accredited Landlord Scheme to cover 5400 homes in the borough. Complete and launch our environment strategy and implement the action plan. Refresh our approach to improve our local environment through our environmental volunteers' accreditation and monitoring framework. Complete and launch the sports development review and related delivery plan. Complete the key highway structures review. | Strategic Housing and Residential Growth
Environment and Fleet
Highways and Waste |
Housing, Environment and Healthy Communities | Strong and resilient communities and partnerships to deliver thriving places | Implement a new high-rise living operational model and related investment in safety and security (including caretaking outcomes). Secure partnership commitment to strategic regeneration frameworks (Felling and Gateshead town centres). Complete and implement the Gateshead Regeneration Partnership review. Relaunch our Homelessness Charter. | Neighbourhoods, Housing and Homelessness |
| Deliver effective and affordable services which are accessible, popular and efficient | Launch a new damp and mould service to our housing tenants. Improve our repairs service for our tenants with the goal of reducing out-of-time repairs to less than 15% of annual repairs. Implement our specialist and supported housing plan. Launch a new independent living services operational model. | Property and Assets
Construction Services
Strategic Housing |
Priority Area - Good Customer Service
We are committed to:
- put our customers at the heart of everything do
- provide a consistent quality of service to our customers
- reflect customer feedback in the design and delivery of services
- continue to adopt a digital by default approach, enabling self-service where achievable
- co-design and collaborate with partners where possible, to deliver for local communities
- effectively communicate and engage residents and partners in the work of the council
| Lead Council Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Resources and Digital | Customer Contact Review | Deliver our Corporate Review of Customer Contact to drive improvement including: redesigning processes around the customer and transforming customer access; maintaining and expanding our digital services; and developing and delivering training for our workforce with a customer-focused culture. | Review Lead - Customer Experience and Digital and Housing services |
Priority Area - Inclusivity
We are committed to:
- embed our organisational values and behaviours
- promote, champion and advocate diversity
- demonstrate inclusive leadership, partnership, and a clear organisational commitment to be a leader in equality, diversity, and inclusion
- involve and enable our diverse communities in our decision-making processes
- encourage and build a skilled and diverse workforce to build a culture of equity and inclusion in everything we do
| Lead Council Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Office of the Chief Executive | Pride in Gateshead | Delivering our agreed commitments within the corporate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) policy via a council-wide work programme. Establish an EDI Board to coordinate the implementation of the Corporate EDI Policy and Workforce EDI Strategy and Policy. Deliver the Pride in Gateshead month-long celebration event with our partners at Out North East in August. | Office of the Chief Executive |
Priority Area - Sound financial planning
We are committed to:
- ensure effective and prudent use of the council's resources
- provide value for money through efficient and effective service delivery
- provide services without the use of reserves
- continue to identify and develop new and appropriate income generating opportunities that are in keeping with our Vision
- maintain an investment strategy that preserves and improves the financial resources available to the council
- rigorously manage the council's risks
- have sound governance arrangements in place
| Lead Council Area | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Resources and Digital | Maintain financial sustainability through effective strategic planning and delivery | Achieve a balanced budget for 2026/27 with early identification and delivery of robust savings proposals, with councillor engagement. Support the financial sustainability of maintained schools. Update and enhance the effectiveness of our medium-term financial strategy by September 2025, ensuring optimal use of financial resources to achieve corporate priorities and outcomes. Forecast demand to anticipate financial requirements of future service needs. Review our approach to the capital programme for greater transparency and alignment with priorities by December 2025. Increase financial awareness and performance reporting into scrutiny throughout 2025/26. Improve the monitoring and reporting of planned prevention outcomes and invest to save impacts, focusing resources into key areas and monitoring their impact. | Financial Management |
Priority Area - Good governance
We committed to:
- review the council's constitution to ensure it is accessible, comprehensive, and meets the needs of the council in the delivery of this Corporate Plan
- promote awareness of the seven principles of public life ('the Nolan principles') and ensure effective application of the respective codes of conduct for councillors and employees
- review the council's overview and scrutiny function to ensure it is robust, challenges constructively, and contributes continually to the delivery of this Corporate Plan
- ensure the revenue budget and capital programme remain balanced and sustainable over a rolling five-year period
- maintain a programme of reviews for our services to ensure they are delivered efficiently and effectively
Council Lead | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Corporate Services and Governance | Governance review | Undertake a comprehensive review of how decisions are taken, including a review of the effectiveness of scrutiny. Review the council's constitution including: accessibility; scheme of delegations; council procedure rules; and standards and codes of conduct. | Legal and Democratic Services |
Corporate Services and Governance | Procurement Act 2023 implementation | Deliver new procedures and reporting requirements (including enhanced spend data) to comply with additional transparency requirements to meet emerging demands of the new Procurement Act. Rollout our new procurement IT system (OPEN) and develop further functionality. Implement improved approach to contract management including KPIs. | Corporate Procurement |
Resources and Digital | Strategic and corporate risk management | Review of our approach to risk management; to ensure that risks to achievement of all council objectives are adequately identified, assessed, managed and risk is embedded in decision making. | Financial Management |
Priority Area - Continuous improvement
We committed to:
- review and strengthen our performance management framework, including regular reporting and clear accountability
- develop a clear programme of transformation and improvement activity
- recognise and celebrate good performance and address poor performance through a strengthened Appraisal and Development framework for employees
- develop a council-wide awareness and culture of continuous improvement in every aspect of council activity
Council Lead | Priority Action | Key Deliverables | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Office of the Chief Executive | Promote, support and champion our great borough | Re-establish the Gateshead Strategic Partnership as part of a refreshed approach to partnership working. Agree and deliver a new communications strategy, with a clear campaign led approach including a programme of engagement events and opportunities to learn from feedback from our residents and stakeholders. Develop co-produced place and organisational narratives, which are fully consulted upon and engage with key stakeholders and based on best local evidence. Deliver a residents survey to understand how our services are perceived by the people of Gateshead and to provide a benchmark to compare with others. | Office of the Chief Executive |
Office of the Chief Executive | Establish a Corporate Programme Management Office | Programme manage our corporate reviews: IT Systems Optimisation; Building Blocks of Health and Wellbeing; Community Based Support; Data, Insight and Learning; Corporate Customer Contact; Commissioning; and Modern Ways of Working. | Office of the Chief Executive |
Office of the Chief Executive | Review our Performance Framework | Deliver a new accessible Performance Management and Improvement Framework to embed a performance culture. | Office of the Chief Executive |
Priority Area - Culture
We committed to:
- ensure our refreshed core values are incorporated into how we work and everything we do
- continue to embed our Workforce Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy across the council
- promote communication and transparency
- welcome challenge and learn from our mistakes
Council Lead | Priority Action | Key Deliverables (next 12 months) | Responsible Service |
|---|---|---|---|
Corporate Services and Governance | Workforce strategy | Develop and launch a refreshed set of organisational values and design a values-based behaviour framework. Complete the job evaluation review and propose a new pay framework. Develop an organisational development/leadership and development programme to enable a strong future workforce and succession planning. | Human Resources and Workforce Development |