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Hertfordshire County Council

Taken from our Annual Report, we've highlighted some of the key things we've achieved throughout the year.

Read the full Annual Report (PDF 2MB)

 

Our vision for a cleaner, greener, healthier Hertfordshire is outlined in our Corporate Plan, which was launched in early 2022. Over a year on, we have much to be proud of despite the challenges we face.

Below are some highlights of the key things we've achieved throughout the year, please see the full report for further detail..

 

How we spend council tax to fund services

We spend one billion pounds every year to deliver over 500 county council services, which benefit every resident, business and community in Hertfordshire. We understand that times continue to be difficult for everyone due to the rising cost of living, and we’re working with more people who need our support than ever before. Every penny of your council tax contributes towards delivering excellent council services for all and looking after those who need us most.

Some of the key highlights include:

  • We spend over a million pounds a day providing care to adults that require our support.
  • We are spending £102 million this year from the county council’s capital budget on the county’s highways, including on more than 1,000 maintenance and improvement schemes across Hertfordshire’s 3,200 miles of roads and 3,500 miles of pavements and cycleways.
  • We support almost 300,000 children and young people by providing them with early years education, a place at a good school and we’re currently supporting over 11,000 children and young people to help meet their special educational needs.
  • We’re helping to establish 1.8 million trees and working to make our operations carbon neutral by 2030.
  • We provide a fire and rescue service that responds to 10,000 emergency calls each year, a resilience team that prepare us for major incidents, and a Trading Standards team who deals with around 7,000 complaints about dodgy dealers, counterfeit products and scams annually.
  • Our services help people to make healthy choices and lifestyle changes, reducing their risk of long-term illness and helping them to live a long life well.
  • Our libraries continue to see an increase in visitors, who borrow around five million items each year.

 

A cleaner and green environment

  • Recently opened in September 2023, Buntingford First School is the first net zero carbon school in the county, providing school places for 300 pupils, plus a 30-place nursery. Since the declaration of a climate change emergency in Hertfordshire, all new school developments have adopted design specifications to deliver new buildings to net zero carbon in operation standards, with Avanti Brook Primary School in Bishops Stortford and the Valley Special School in Stevenage also due to open in 2023.
  • As part of our commitment to demonstrate environmental leadership in the county, it is important that our services are ready and resilient in the face of extreme weather. Tuesday 19 July 2022 was one of the busiest days in the history of Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS). In testing circumstances, crews from across the county responded to an unrelenting stream of large-scale incidents including road traffic collisions, fires close to major motorways, as well as crop fires and field fires. In the six-week period from 4 July to 15 August 2022, our services responded to a total of 871 fires.

 

Healthy and fulfilling lives for our residents

  • Our Step2Skills serviceprovides opportunities for adults in Hertfordshire to get involved in learning and employment. Step2Skills also organise inclusive employment job fairs to help match employers with people with learning disabilities. The latest Inclusive Employment Job Fair in Watford was a tremendous success, with 32 employers exhibiting, over 600 visitors, 46 job offers to people with disabilities, one supported internship agreed and four local employers signing up to the Disability Confident Scheme.
  • Over the last year, our Public Health Services have funded 15 local voluntary and community groups to deliver physical activity sessions to improve the mental wellbeing of Hertfordshire residents, with activities ranging from football and yoga to gardening and Nordic walking.
  • Since March 2022, Hertfordshire has welcomed 2,100 Ukrainian refugees into the county, sponsored by over 1,000 hosts. Over half of the guests have already left the scheme, either moving on to private rented accommodation, returning to Ukraine, or travelling to other countries; we now have under 880 guests supported by just under 400 hosts. The majority of guests have integrated into the community extremely well, with many already in work and the children established in schools.

 

Sustainable, responsible growth in our county

  • In the last year, we have been working closely with partners to progress ambitions for sustainable developments such as the regeneration of Harlow-Gilston Garden Town. Plans allocated as part of this adds up to a total of about 24,000 new homes over the next twenty years. Central government have given Harlow ‘garden town’ status to reflect the scale of this ambitious growth agenda and the aim to shift towards walking, cycling and public transport for a more sustainable Hertfordshire.
  • In 2021, the government released a new strategy aiming to improve bus services in England. Our existing Enhanced Partnership (the first in the country) in Hertfordshire means that we have been able to build on our existing ambitions through the development of our Bus Service Improvement Plan. In April 2022, the Bus Service Improvement Plan was able to secure funding of £29.7 million in total for the delivery of the plan, which will be delivered over three years.

 

Excellent council services for all

  • Following the Ofsted inspection which assessed some of our Children’s Services earlier this year, our Children’s Services are rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.
  • We have pledged to double the number of potholes fixed and protect roads from damage before the next winter, using new multi-million-pound funding. The allocation of nearly £4 million from the government’s Pothole Fund will fund up to 20,000 additional pothole repairs across the county, taking the total number of repairs to an expected 40,000 this year.
  • We understand the vital role that modern technology will have in meeting future challenges in areas such as Adult Social Care. Over the last couple of years, we have been conducting a pilot on the use of assistive technology. The results of the pilot study have provided sufficient evidence to support the incorporation of assistive technology into business as usual over the next year. An additional £1.8 million has been allocated to further develop this approach across Hertfordshire.
  • Our Easter and summer holiday activity programmes (HAPpy) made a big difference to the lives of young people, whose families may be struggling financially with the current cost of living. Sessions took place in all 10 districts across the holiday period, with a total of 202 sessions across all HAPpy 2022 projects. Many of the sessions were delivered by local partners, including charities and local police.

 

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