Addressing systemic inequalities and making Cumberland a fairer place.

Inequality is a significant challenge for Cumberland and continues to hold people back from reaching their true potential. Whilst on the face of it many of Cumberland’s statistics can look quite ‘average’ compared to national figures, we know that this masks some stark differences across our communities. And these have real day to day impacts on peoples’ lives and livelihoods.

We will work with residents and partners to challenge entrenched issues in areas such as health, education, life expectancy and deprivation. We will also take a proactive approach to delivering the public sector equality duty.

Our areas of focus for the next 2 years will be on:

• working in partnership and joining up services
• improving public transport - providing access to employment, education and services
• supporting individuals and families with income maximisation and equality of outcomes
• community cohesion across Cumberland
• Achieving quality education outcomes

Key performance indicators

Outcome measures for addressing inequalities theme

• a reduction in the percentage of children living in relative low-income families
• key stage 2 - reduce the gap between the proportion of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils achieving expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined
• key stage 4: attainment 8* - reduce the points gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils
• a reduction in the percentage of children eligible for free school meals
• fewer households in fuel poverty
• a reduction in anti-social behaviour rates

Supporting the transition to a strong, inclusive and green economy by focusing on our businesses, our people and our assets.

We want to enable the move to an economy that builds wealth locally and offers opportunities for everyone and people have the skills to take them. Overall Cumberland’s unemployment rate is below the national average, but there are significant variations across our area in both unemployment rates and weekly earnings, with serious ‘cold spots’ of worklessness and deprivation. Cumberland’s workforce challenge is significant – our declining working age population presents a major labour supply challenge and we have a limited pool of higher level skills spread across a large geographical area. The rural nature of our area creates accessibility challenges in terms of having the right infrastructure to link communities with employment opportunities. But we have some significant opportunities, not least our outstanding natural environment and landscape providing key current and future resources for the UK in recreation, green energy and food production, and the potential for future major investment in clean energy.

As a major employer in Cumberland we want to make the most of our influence - we want to achieve greater social value in public sector procurements, exploring more ways of retaining wealth within our community. We will seek to utilise our assets as a catalyst for economic activity, generating opportunities for residents, businesses, social enterprises and the community and voluntary sector alike.

Our areas of focus for the next 2 years will be on:

• enabling people to develop and build the right skills for the future
• developing the small business community
• progressive procurement outcomes from anchor institutions
• increasing affordable housing across Cumberland
• our town centres are vibrant, and we have a positive approach to culture and leisure

Key performance indicators

Outcome measures for local economies that work for local people theme

• increasing numbers of new businesses
• productivity gap to UK is reduced
• an increase in working age population
• fewer people who are long-term unemployed
• improved skills levels with more people gaining NVQ3 and NVQ4
• a reduction in the percentage of residents earning less than the living wage
• an increase in the proportion of all schools rated good or outstanding
• number of new homes completed
• number of affordable homes delivered

Enhancing environmental resilience by reducing emissions, supporting biodiversity, and transitioning to a green economy.

We are already seeing the impact of climate change locally, responding to and recovering from the devastating effects on our communities from severe weather and unprecedented flooding in recent years. The repercussions of inaction will be significant for our local economy, the health and wellbeing of our communities and for our services. Biodiversity loss is another key area of global concern and we need to work to protect our extensive natural capital and landscape. We know how important our open spaces and green infrastructure are for exercise and wellbeing and we will continue to make sure our neighbourhoods and open spaces are clean, tidy and safe, take enforcement action where necessary, and work to improve and protect those spaces.

As a council we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint as quickly as possible, but we know that we have limited direct control over carbon emissions in our area. This is where we need to work with others to identify opportunities, and to help businesses and residents manage resources better, including waste. We recognise that the impacts of climate change will impact our communities in different ways and want to help the most vulnerable with issues such as fuel poverty and the impacts of extreme weather.

Our areas of focus for the next 2 years will be on:

• increasing recycling rates
• taking enforcement action when it's needed
• creating an infrastructure for electric vehicles
• protecting and preserving green spaces
• utilising land to grow food locally

Key performance indicators

Outcome measures for climate emergency and environment resilience theme

• reduction in district wide emissions per person
• reduction in carbon emissions from transport
• reduction in fly tipping incidents (percentage change on same month a year ago)

Efficient, inclusive and sustainable public services.

We want Cumberland to be a high performing council. We want our residents to benefit from excellent, efficient, and enterprising public services. In the first 2 years of the council we have focused on integrating four councils into one, ensuring that our services continue to be delivered effectively for all of our communities and partners, and on beginning our transformation of services. This has given us strong foundations for the next phase of work to help us move towards our goal of achieving long-term financial sustainability, and delivering high-performing services. We are implementing our operating model, shifting to prevention and early intervention and utilising new technologies and approaches to help us.

Our areas of focus for the next 2 years will be on:

• keeping residents and staff informed and engaged
• the harmonisation of services across Cumberland
• continuing to develop the Cumberland culture within the council
• people can access services easily
• our staff have the right skills and we help build the workforce of the future using apprentices

Key performance indicators

Outcome measures for delivering excellent public services theme

• increase satisfaction with the way the council runs things (Residents Survey)
• Increase satisfaction with the way the Council keeps residents informed about the services and benefits it provides (Residents Survey)