People and Culture Strategy 2024 to 2028

Perth and Kinross is one of the most diverse local authority areas, spanning some of the most remote areas in Scotland with many villages and towns across the region and Perth city at its heart. The Council is high-performing and ambitious putting residents, communities, businesses and employees at the heart of everything we do.

Our Corporate Plan 2022/23 to 2027/28 sets out our vision for a Perth and Kinross where everyone can live life well, free from poverty and inequality.

Within this, we have identified seven interdependent priorities which, underpinned by our key principles, will determine our delivery plan over the period:

• Tackling poverty
• Developing a resilient, stronger and greener local economy
• Protecting and caring for our most vulnerable people
• Tackling climate change and supporting sustainable places
• Enabling our children and young people to achieve their full potential
• Supporting and promoting physical and mental wellbeing
• Working in partnership with communities

We are committed to making the best use of public resources and ensuring that we build upon our successes to provide the best services we can. We're also committed to enhancing the quality of life, not just for the people we serve, but also for the people who make our achievements possible: our dedicated and driven employees.

We recognise that they are fundamental to the delivery of our corporate priorities and achievement of our vision within the context of a very challenging financial landscape. This is reflected in one of the principles underpinning the Corporate Plan:

• Supporting our workforce to be the best, ensuring they are well-trained and empowered to make decisions

Our Transformation and Change Strategy is designed to ensure that we have the right capacity and people in the right places working to deliver our corporate priorities, within the resources available to us. Both the Transformation and Change Strategy and the People and Culture Strategy reflect the principles set out in the Financial Strategy and recognise that one of the main drivers for change is key budget decisions taken by Council that influence the size, shape of our workforce and what services will be delivered in future.

We developed our Values and Behaviour Framework through extensive engagement and consultation with our workforce. The framework describes the way we do things; our values are drivers of our behaviours as an organisation and as individuals, influencing the way we work with each other as well as the people and communities we serve. They are woven through our practices from being a key element of our recruitment process to a part of our annual performance and development discussions.

We have structured this strategy using our organisational values of Ambition, Compassion, Integrity, to ensure that it delivers direction not only on what we need to do but also why, where and how we should be delivering that activity.