Ipswich City Council has adopted a new five-year corporate plan, entitled iFuture, that will become its leading strategic plan.
Mayor Teresa Harding said from 1 July, iFuture will guide decisions made around council’s future projects and services, during the annual planning process.
“iFuture is a fantastic outcome of meaningful and representative engagement with members of the community, council employees, council’s executive leadership and our elected representatives,” Mayor Harding said.
“While council has an existing community plan (Advance Ipswich) and corporate plan, we decided to expedite the development of a new corporate plan to better align with the unprecedented change within both Ipswich and council over the past few years.”
The new corporate plan provides council with a consolidated 20-year vision for Ipswich as well as a five-year roadmap and will replace the current plans.
The plan has been based off extensive internal and external engagement, which followed a three-phase approach to building iFuture.
Council engaged directly with 2,017 participants between August 2020 and February 2021 to build the plan. This included 1,530 community members, all nine elected representatives and 478 council staff.
“We also know that at least 18,000 people were informed of the project, providing them with direct opportunities to participate. Community feedback was instrumental in helping us achieve many of the directions in the plan and city vision,” Mayor Harding said.
“Council’s corporate plan sets out the strategic outcomes we want to see by 2026 that will ensure we play our part in achieving the community’s vision.
“It signifies a huge milestone not only for us as new councillors but the city with the realisation of major city shaping projects and advocacy.”
Mayor Harding said looking towards 2041, the themes that will guide our roadmap for the future are:
- Vibrant and Growing
- Safe, Inclusive and Creative
- Natural and Sustainable
- A Trusted and Leading Organisation
Acting CEO Sonia Cooper, who presented the iFuture document to council yesterday, said the community vision and council corporate plan were more important than ever.
“If we have plans in place now for the next two decades, then we are already ahead of the curve and will be well prepared for the next challenges that comes our way,” Ms Cooper said.
“The plan provides clear guidance on where we are now, where we want to be in five years’ time, how we are going to get there and how we will measure our progress.
“It will allow us to design our operations annually while we continue our journey to be leading practice in local government.”
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