Annual report

Welcome to our Annual Report for 2019-20.

It brings together our priorities and performance and our key achievements across all of our services. It also shows how we have managed our budget over the year and sets out some of our future plans.

The importance of maintaining close partnerships with local businesses, organisations and neighbouring local authorities has come into sharp focus in midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which began to take hold as this financial year came to a close. This started to have a major impact on how we plan and deliver our services in the borough through February and March, and this has continued since then.

Many of these partnerships drive the delivery of our services and enable us to work effectively on behalf of everyone. Only through a coordinated and collaborative effort have we adapted and refocused our services in these very challenging times for everyone.

This work has included working to keep our residents safe and healthy, protecting and enhancing our local environment, meeting the borough's housing needs, helping build a thriving local economy, engaging with our communities, and providing value for money. You can read more about this work in the objectives and achievements section in this report.

Our budget summary in this report and explains how your money has been spent in a breakdown of our capital and revenue programmes across all of our services. Do also have a look at the #OurFuture section at the end of this report which sets out our ambitious plans to modernise the council so we can continue deliver effective and efficient local services within a sustainable council budget.

We always value your feedback so we can together make Welwyn Hatfield a great place in which to live, work and study. We hope you find this report useful and informative.