In the Local Government Finance Settlement for 2024/25 Councils were required to produce productivity plans. On 16 April 2024, the Minister (Simon Hoare MP) required those plans to address the four themes of:

How the Council has transformed the way services were designed and delivered and to better use resources.
How technology and data could improve decision making, service design and resource use.
How wasteful spend was being driven out of systems within the Council
The barriers preventing progress and the ask of Government to reduce/remove those barriers.

The productivity plans needed to be submitted by 19 July 2024.

That, following endorsement by the Leader of the Council to its content, the productivity plan for the Council be submitted to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government within the deadline set for submission of the plan.

Not submitting the productivity plan was considered and discounted given the linkage of the funding through the Local Government Finance Settlement and the submission of the productivity plans by Councils.