Development Service Directorate:

Staffordshire's Economic and Environmental Champions

The County Council's Development Services Directorate is the driving force synthesising economic and environmental prosperity for the people of Staffordshire.

Economists, ecologists, archaeologists, historians, landscape specialists, engineers, planners, transport specialists, safety experts, technologists and scientists, statisticians and researchers, educators, campaigners, actors and accountants … all these professionals are working together as part of the Development Services team to improve the quality of life for the people of Staffordshire.

Together we are making Staffordshire a great place to live, work, visit and invest.

Watch (6 min 05 secs) Richard Higgs Corporate Director (Development Services) introduce some of the services his Directorate provides.

DSD Ahead of the pack

DSD is the most diverse of Staffordshire's Directorates, and is growing fast, leading the way in delivering a wide range of top performing services for the people of Staffordshire.

Over the last five years the DSD team has scored some astounding successes, pushing the agenda for change locally, regionally, and nationally.

Only a couple of months ago national ITN news came to Staffordshire to focus on our highway team gearing up to deal with the winter weather. This shows just how we are increasingly regarded as a natural model of how to deliver front line public services.
The latest CPA (Comprehensive Performance Assessment) has delivered another coup for the DSD team, showing that we are an outstanding service. In the Environment Category of the assessment, which includes planning, waste management and transport, we were declared a top ranking four star operation.
Our Planning Team are recognised as one of the top performers in the UK. Transport Planning has been invited by the Government to become a Centre of Excellence.
The Staffordshire Highways team is a national leader in innovation. Our Waste Strategy approach is a model project for the Region.
Economic Regeneration is also a top performer - last year gaining the prestigious "Impact on Enterprise" award.

Our internal Progress Report - benchmarking DSD operations against comparative Councils nationally - shows that the majority of our activities are performing way above average and things are continuing to improve.

Over the last four or five years DSD has transformed itself. We have grown by over 60% and taken into the family a host of complementary operations including Countryside Services, Schools Transport, County Fleet Care, County Farms, Central Print and Design, and Shugborough Estate.

Thanks to radical reorganisation our operations are even more clearly structured to achieve maximum interconnectivity and synergy, focusing on delivering ever more efficient services for the people of Staffordshire.

The DSD success story continues. We have delivered more for less and set the pace of change for the rest of the County Council to follow.

Last Modified: 21/08/2008 10:17:05
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