Introduction from the Chief Executive and Leader of the Council

Our Council Plan sets out our vision for Solihull, the direction that we want to go in as a Council, how we aim to travel along that journey and what we want to see at the end of it. 

This Plan for 2025-30 is based on a new vision ‘Solihull: a great place to live, work, invest and enjoy’, which seeks to capture what is best and most unique about Solihull. It builds on strong foundations and makes the most of what Solihull has to offer our residents, our partners, and our businesses. 

Our new plan contains seven key ambitions for the next five years and beyond. These reflect our aspirations for Solihull and its people and our commitment to ensuring that everyone in Solihull is supported to thrive and achieve the best possible outcomes. They also reflect our commitment to sustainable economic growth and climate change action, whilst maintaining the unique character of our borough. All seven ambitions are equally important as a thriving economy, health and wellbeing, and environmental sustainability go hand in hand. 

We pride ourselves on being a Council that is small enough to care, but big enough to make a difference. We have ambitious plans for Solihull, including the UK Central Hub and the East Birmingham and North Solihull Strategy, which will ensure that economic growth delivers lasting benefits to local people.

Being ambitious for Solihull children remains central to all our work as a Council. Children and young people are our future, and we will not let up in driving to improve outcomes for them. A full Ofsted inspection, due in autumn 2025, will give us a measure of our progress. 

We know we will have to operate differently to be able to ‘live within our means’ going forward. A focus on prevention and intervention, supporting people to live well and independently, will be integral. A more joined-up approach to public services is needed – and the Council will play a leading role, working with our partners from health, education, and the emergency services. 

We serve a range of communities, and we have unfunded spending pressures facing us in the next few years due to rising demand for services and other pressures. Our application to government for exceptional financial support was successful in February 2025. However, we continue to press the point that we do not receive sufficient funding to cover the increasing costs of Adult Social Care and Children’s Services. 

To tackle our spending pressures over the coming years, our Corporate Delivery Board is driving forward the delivery of £23.2 million of savings in 2025/26 and will need to identify further savings beyond this

Over the last few months, we have invited residents, employees, local businesses, parish and town councils, voluntary groups and partners to help us to shape our new plan for 2025-30. Overall, people told us that our vision resonates with them and that the seven ambitions we have outlined focus on the right things. They also told us we need to set out clearly what we plan to do to achieve the ambitions and how we will report on progress. We have tried to reflect this in the plan. 

This plan will only achieve what it needs to through the combined efforts of our employees, elected members, partners, and our local communities. We look forward to working together to achieve our vision which will ensure that economic growth delivers lasting benefits and opportunities to local people.

Next page: Solihull and its people