The Surrey Way explains the way we do things at the council. It breaks down our ambitions and objectives, and provides us with a clearer, more joined up picture of what our ways of working should be across three key areas:
- Our purpose: what we are trying to achieve, our vision and priorities
- Our organisation: what sort of organisation we need to be to achieve our purpose
- Our people: what culture and behaviours we will need to live in order to support this.
No One Left Behind
Our purpose – what are we trying to achieve
Our purpose as a council is to tackle inequality and make sure that no one is left behind.
This purpose flows from the Community Vision for Surrey 2030. Created with residents, communities and partners, it sets out how we all want Surrey to be by 2030. The Council plays a big part in the joint effort to realise this vision through the delivery of services and through partnerships such as the Health and Wellbeing Board.
Our purpose should inform our decisions and all that we do in our work. No matter what your role, your input will help us to meet our aims. Your work may directly help us to reach 1 or more of our 4 priorities. Or it may help us to be a high performing council, delivering excellent council services for all.
Our main duty as a council is to deliver high-quality and sustainable services for all, with a focus on supporting our most vulnerable residents.
Transforming how our organisation operates and the culture and behaviours our people embody will enable us to add more value, make a greater impact and improve services so they deliver the best possible long-term outcomes for residents while balancing our budget and better managing demand.
EDI is at the heart of how we are going to deliver on our organisational purpose; it is how we will deliver on the promise of ‘no one left behind’.
In order to improve equality of opportunity for our residents, we need services that understand the diversity of needs in our communities and have the right staff in post to deliver them in inclusive ways. This is the right thing to do, and it will make our services more effective, efficient and responsive.
We work to 4 equality objectives and have an annual EDI action plan that helps us measure the progress we are making. We are developing a longer-term EDI Strategy that will help us continue to develop this work alongside the Community Vision for Surrey.
Organisation strategy
These reflect where we think we can most improve outcomes for people in Surrey:
Our guiding principle: No one left behind
Our Priority Objectives
- Growing a sustainable economy
- Tackling health inequality
- Enabling a greener future
- Empowering communities
The change we hope to see
We have a clear purpose at Surrey County Council (SCC) which sets the ambition of what we want to achieve.
How we do things as an organisation and the culture and values we possess represent how we’re going to get there.
Our organisation – what sort of organisation do we want to be?
Our organisation’s ways of working shapes how we work and how we organise ourselves.
- We organise ourselves around outcomes and make it easy for others across Surrey to collaborate with us.
- We help people and communities to help themselves and devolve decisions and service design as close to them as we can
- The ‘Make it Happen’ campaign is a great example.
- We maximise the potential of digital and data to transform the way we work and improve accessibility
- For example, check out the SCC Data Strategy.
- We seek out preventative, commercial and efficient approaches to help us be financially sustainable
Our people – what culture and behaviours will we need?
These are our culture commitments, and they describe how it should feel to work at SCC. They sit alongside the values which show what we care about.
- We are an inclusive and compassionate place where we value diversity and can be ourselves at work
- Being an inclusive employer is crucial to helping us deliver on our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) goals.
- We are a collaborative and inviting place where we are open, trust each other, and work as one
- We are an ambitious and outcomes-focused place where we are passionate about our purpose and take accountability for delivering great results.
- We are an inventive and dynamic place where we promote a learning mindset and adapt to new insights and opportunities
- By embodying these culture commitments, we can become the kind of organisation we need to be (our organisation) to achieve our purpose.