Find out what was discussed at the Warwickshire County Council Cabinet meeting on Thursday 11 April 2024.
Making sure that there are sufficient high-quality settings to give all of Warwickshire’s children the best start in life and a plan to drive ambitious and sustainable economic growth and create employment opportunities across all of Warwickshire’s communities were among items discussed at today’s Cabinet meeting.
The Warwickshire Education Strategy sets out the four pillars where the council is looking to give children and young people the best start in life – best start, SEND, sufficiency an admissions and, lastly, strong systems for developing high-quality education. This now goes to full Council for approval, following Cabinet’s endorsement.
Cabinet also approved a Strategic Economic Plan which has three main pillars; ambitious growth, inclusive growth and sustainable growth. It will inform a delivery plan of actions that will be presented to members later in the year.
These items came after an updated Council Delivery Plan was approved. This working document sets out how the key actions agreed by the council in 2022 will be delivered. Alongside the seven previous areas of focus, the new delivery plan also has the commitment that creating opportunities, essentially addressing the balance so that all of Warwickshire’s communities have the opportunity to flourish, be at the heart of all that the council does.
Also, among items agreed were service estimates where members considered how each service area within the County Council plans to use the resources allocated in 2024/25 to meet the ambitions of the Council Plan.
Cllr Yousef Dahmash, portfolio holder for Customer and Transformation, said: “The Council Plan has sharpened our focus on nine key areas and given us a real sense of purpose and direction. It was good to see several of these key areas of focus so prevalent in the education and economic strategies which we considered and the opportunities they will create across the county, in every one of our communities.”
Cabinet also agreed to renew licenses for Microsoft 365 which will continue to encourage agile working and help the council achieve efficiencies while reducing travel and the subsequent carbon emissions.
An Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education, proposed by the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education, received Cabinet approval. The syllabus had the input of four groups representing the main religions across Warwickshire and must be followed by the majority of the county’s schools.