(a)

consultation on Corporate Improvement Priorities (CIPs) had taken place as part of the Place Survey, at Area Committees and at a stall in the Drake Circus Shopping Mall;

(b)

Area Committees were used as part of the consultation on CIPs to ensure that both councillors and members of the public were aware of the current CIPs as well as to gain peoples’ views on areas for improvement;

(c)

the Drake Circus Shopping Mall consultation event during November 2009 received over 400 responses and provided other benefits including –

(d)

the results gathered were relatively similar across the three consultation exercises with Value For Money (VFM) being seen as the area needing most improvement, whilst raising achievement in schools and colleges was being seen as delivering;

(e)

the Corporate Plan was influenced by and developed following the consultation and made reference to the results highlighting key points gathered from the Place Survey;

(f)

VFM had been identified to be at the centre of the council’s planning framework and a number of key areas had also been targeted including –

(g)

there was a great deal of work being undertaken to improve consultation and engaging local communities with surveys. A system, called Limehouse, was used across the council to ensure that consultation and engagement processes were easy to monitor;

(h)

this system would be accessible to councillors by the end of August 2010 and it would alert councillors to any consultation that was happening in their wards or in a policy area that they indicated they were interested in;

(i)

Limehouse has been used in the Development Directorate and is utilised as a resource for the Local Development Framework and the Local Transport Plan.

(j)

as part of the Queens Speech a number of bills had been drafted that could greatly impact on the way the council conducts its business and delivers services;

(k)

14 schools across Plymouth had been awarded an “outstanding” rating from their last OFSTED inspection; these schools included 10 primaries and four secondaries, and were now able to apply for academy status.

(l)

Bills were yet to become law and local authorities would be consulted on them before they were implemented into legislation;

(m)

in 2009 the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) signed a Compact which contained codes of conduct on how the council and other bodies should consult with residents;

(n)

ward boundaries would be reflected on the Limehouse system and it was hoped that members would involve themselves in locality working, which provided an opportunity to get all partner organisations together in one forum;

(o)

locality working would be reviewed in one year’s time.