Council Plan Action Plan 2025 to 2027

16. Better engagement with local businesses, employers and Council contractors to support the creation of good jobs and other employment opportunities.

• Implement of a proposal to support the ambitions of the Employment and Skills review by Autumn 2025.
• Develop a multi-strand engagement plan across businesses, employers and with identified contractors.
• Transform informal local employer connections into a structured engagement network, with clear actions and protocols for both council staff and external partners focused specifically on creating employment pathways.

• An increased number of good job opportunities identified and shared with employment support providers helping residents into work.
• More meaningful work placements or experience opportunities created or identified and shared with employment support providers.

17. New Homes Programme.

• Deliver 600 new homes for the borough with a minimum of 300 social rent to directly address community’s urgent housing needs
• The New Homes Programme continues to make progress, with a total of 94 new homes scheduled for completion:
  • Silchester Arches – September 2025 (11)
  • Barlby Road – June 2026 (83)

• Increasing the supply of affordable housing is crucial for addressing the borough's long-term housing needs.
• Promotion of sustainable environmental standards for new homes ensures that the development is both eco-friendly and beneficial for the community.

18. Review all Council-owned sites to identify how the Council can further enhance its excellent adult social care services.

Continue to review how the Council’s portfolio of sites can increase the specialist accommodation offer.

Following its initial plans for the Maxilla site, the Council will identify an alternative location for its learning disability day centre at St Mark’s Road, ensuring it meets service users’ requirements and continues to offer high-quality adult social care services. The Council will complete its review of locations in Summer 2025 with a view to making decisions about the St Mark’s service by Autumn 2025, and it will then work with service users and their loved ones to ensure that the selected option meets their needs. While this happens, we will also carry out essential repairs to the Day Centre at St Mark’s Road over 2025/26 to ensure that it is safe for staff and service users.

In parallel, we are also exploring options for the St Helen’s site. As part of this, we will work to secure additional funding from partners like the GLA and deliver further value for money.

Lots Road

Progress the design and delivery of our 65-bed extra care scheme at Lots Road.

• Final Design Session 15 April 2025
• Development partner to submit planning application - Target June 2025.
• Planning approval for the scheme with Mount Arvil preparing to mobilise on site Q1 2026.

Kingsbridge

Prepare next steps for the project to improve Kingsbridge House for learning disabilities.

• Kingsbridge options appraisal completed, and capital investment secured.
• Following this, delivery route to be agreed and then progress planning, design and build.
• Rehousing of the current services in temporary alternate site will be secured, followed by build.

Lots Road

Plans developed for a new high-quality extra care facility for older residents at Lots Road.

Kingsbridge

• Modernised short break facilities for adults with learning disabilities and also provide support for carers. As well as potential for additional supported living units.
• An increased availability of specialist accommodation for adults with learning disabilities in borough.
• An increase in the menu of options of services for adults with learning disabilities and their families.

• Progress detailed design as a specialist supported housing scheme for homeless people and gain planning consent (now to end 2025).
• Procure contractor and start-on-site (end 2025 to March 2026)
• Complete the development of the scheme and have the building ready for occupation (March 2026 to early 2027).

• A reduction in rough sleeping and providing suitable accommodation to residents and significant support for those that are homeless, providing positive outcomes for some of the borough’s most vulnerable residents.
• Creating more stability for residents through the creation of supported housing for vulnerable residents owned and managed by the Council.
• Reducing the use of temporary accommodation to an extent, by providing suitable accommodation to residents who may otherwise be placed in temporary accommodation or reside in accommodation which is not as suitable for their needs.

• Establish and run the Youth Empowerment Grant Programme in partnership with Young K&C by April 2025 (and then annually for the small grants):
  • Launch the partnership programme with Young K&C. This will replace the current Council's commissioned contracts for youth services and community adventure play.
  • Young K&C have committed to match fund £750k of investment across these grants, over the next 5 years.
  • Involve young people in decision making.
  • Once grants have been awarded, work with successful organisations to mobilise new services and projects.
  • Monitor and report on grants using our monitoring framework.
• Strengthen the offer for, and uptake of, youth and play services from under-represented groups (April 2027).

The Youth Delivery Programme 2025 - 2027 will strengthen partnerships across our Voluntary and Community Sector, create more opportunities for young people to have their voice heard and better promote services to children and young people as part of the refreshed vision.

The delivery programme responds to best practice from the National Youth Agency and is themed around the priorities identified through the consultation and engagement with children, families, and the sector, specifically; ‘inclusivity and accessibility’, ‘learning and employment’, ‘physical and emotional wellbeing’, ‘safe and secure spaces’, and ‘celebrating and strengthening the sector’.

For example, this includes strengthening pathways into employment, placements, and training, strengthening the relationship between Leisure Services and the youth sector and strengthening pathways between Early Help, Schools, and Youth Services to identify the most vulnerable children and integrate them into the youth offer.

The North Kensington Social Justice Archive will contain documents and records that will amplify local voices and enable the permanent preservation of local events, people and other significant moments in the history of North Kensington for future generations to learn from. Community collections are often dominated by those who have existing relationships with the archive and the privilege of time and resources to proactively collect and deposit them in an archive. Rarely are these fully representative of their communities. There will be an element of proactive collecting taking place with this archive, giving local people guidance and training to empower them with the skills to bring together their records and be present in the recorded history of North Kensington. Without this, these voices will continue to be forgotten, and the narratives of history will remain biased.

Key actions include:

• Launch a Community Steering Board in May 2025.
• North Kensington Social Justice Archive access point at North Kensington Library in December 2025.
• Development of a Website in March 2026.

• An increased representation of communities in the archives collection and permanently capturing stories.
• Upskilling and increasing the knowledge of residents in North Kensington.
• Celebrating community identity of North Kensington residents.
• Rebuild trust between RBKC and residents in North Kensington.

Key actions include:

• Publication of the Fairer Action Plan in May 2025.
• Delivery of a new employment and skills model that includes more direct support to those identified as living in deprivation by Autumn 2025.
• Commission community led research to understand the drivers of deprivation and solutions for implementation by the end of 2025.
• Establishment of a route for the disabled community in the borough to share their lived experiences of council services and bring emerging issues and concerns to the council directly by Spring 2026.
• Deliver monthly surgeries lead by Senior Officers and Ward Councillors across the borough by the end of 2025.

The overall impact of the Fairer Action Plan will be to address issues of inequality in the borough and deliver tangible solutions that are meaningful to our residents and staff to help alleviate this inequality. In particular:

• Better support for those living in our most deprived wards through addressing income and employment deprivation.
• Council services that are shaped around the lived experience and data about our residents that better meets their needs.
• Increased cohesion and celebration of diversity in the borough.
• A more informed and better supported workforce that is made up of local people and better able to work with the diverse needs and circumstances of our local community.

Work in partnership across education, Special Educational Needs, Social Care and schools to deliver the inclusion strategy action plan for 2025/26.

Review of progress with Inclusion Strategy action plan for 2025/26 undertaken and actions set for 2026/27(January to March 2026).

• Deliver targeted attendance support to schools to improve school attendance guidance.
• Action plan formally agreed with schools at the Education Partnership Board (April to June 2025).
• Forum for regular communication with schools regarding inclusion activity is established (April to June 2025).
• Tangible progress made on Inclusion Strategy commitments (July to December 2025), for example:
  • Guide to behaviour outreach published on local offer.
  • Work with funders to support local community organisations working to improve inclusion.
  • Intervention plans in place at Ormiston Latimer.
  • Inclusion best practice sharing forum established with schools.
  • Review of opportunities for young people to access vocational pathways as an alternative to exclusion to be completed.
  • Guide to evidence-based approaches to supporting behaviour available.

Review of progress with Inclusion Strategy action plan for 2025/26 undertaken and actions set for 2026/27(January to March 2026).

• The number of children suspended from primary and secondary schools in RBKC will decrease.
• Attendance rates in primary and secondary schools in RBKC will increase.