The full Annual Report for 2015/16 from Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) has been collated giving a summary of what HCC has done during the year.
The Leader of HCC, Robert Gordon CBE said:
Hertfordshire County Council recognises the importance of our accountability to the people of our county for the stewardship of vital local public services – and taxpayers’ money. As part of this, we continue to publish an annual report, giving an overview of the previous year and a brief insight into the challenges ahead.
I am particularly keen that the report reaches the wide range of partner organisations with which we share responsibility for Hertfordshire, its people and communities. The full report for 2015-16 is available at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/annualreport – and I hope that you will find time to have a look at it.
A key highlight from the year includes:
- Through partnership with the NHS, the council created one of the UK’s biggest pooled funds for health and social care (£230m). A number of joint projects, aimed at helping people lead independent lives, have been delivered this year, including a national pilot of a training scheme for care homes.
Despite facing a challenging financial situation, the council has been able to balance the books with minimal impact on the services we provide. In our recent residents’ survey 78 per cent of the people asked thought that council services had stayed the same or got better.
We have achieved this by continuing to find efficiencies, by being innovative in the way we deliver services, by working better and more closely with our partners and by intervening early to prevent problems before they arise.
We are well placed to carry on working with our partners and local communities in the coming years to ensure we continue to be the County of Opportunity.
Through working in partnership with Hertfordshire County Council and the NHS, HCPA have access to this pooled funding, enabling us to further support our members. ‘The Better Care Fund’ funds many of HCPA’s projects that are based around integration.