Council priorities
In July 2023, the Council's Cabinet agreed to prioritise three 10-year missions:
- Reduce inequality – make Swindon a fairer place, reduce disadvantage and eliminate big disparities in life expectancy, education levels and social justice
- Build a better Swindon – create a town ready for the challenges of the coming decades. Where possible, lead town centre improvement and create more affordable housing in partnership with the private sector.
- Achieve net zero – fully play our part as a Council and a town in combatting climate change. Work with communities to find new ways of doing things that help, not hinder, the natural environment.
In addition, the Council is focussed on five shorter-term priorities, identified through feedback from residents.
These are:
- get Swindon moving
- keep Council Tax as low as possible
- develop a stronger local economy
- get tough with developers
- keep residents safe and fight knife crime
These were outlined in the Cabinet Paper ‘Priorities of the new Administration’ (July 2023).
The Council intend to engage directly with residents, parish councils, businesses, charities and community groups during 2023 and 2024 to seek their input to identify the key activity to progress the three Swindon missions over the next ten years and the five shorter-term priorities.
It is intended that these long-term missions and shorter-term priorities will underpin the work in the future and will drive everything the Council does.
Progressing each of the three missions is being supported by a specialist Policy Development Committee, made up of a cross-party group of 13 Borough councillors.
Each Committee agrees a work programme setting out the topics it wishes to look into during the coming year, with the aim of producing evidence-based policy recommendations for Cabinet to consider.
These will be informed by public open forums, consultations, task and finish groups, peer reviews and reviewing good practice elsewhere.
Find out more about the work of the Reduce Inequality Policy Development Committee, Build a Better Swindon Policy Development Committee and Achieve Net Zero Policy Development Committee.