Oh man, you've absolutely nailed this. I filled in the consultation and it was impossible to say that any of the suggested goals were less than 100% important because they were so universally positive and lacking in specificity. It felt absolutely pointless.
In keeping with the tone/approach of your suggested goals, I might suggest SOMETHING to do with centralising the 'history of football' in the marketing narrative, despite not being a football person myself and being aware that plans are already afoot and possibly maxed out in their current form.
More important to me personally (as a documentary filmmaker), I'd say that a goal to invest in cultural infrastructure which boosts Sheffield's visibility on the world stage while also improving the day to day of the city's residents. Doc/Fest and Warp Films are our only real cultural giants in the film/media space at least and neither are as actively engaged in the life of the city as they once were I don't think. The Sheffield People's Theatre thing is fantastic and I wish some of that quality and energy could be duplicated within a film/TV production and exhibition context.
I'm glad you've written this piece. As someone who has been involved in City Goals for a while it stings but if Sheffield has any chance of achieving any goals then we need to have the tough conversations.
Before offering some thoughts.
I'm involved in the Chamber of Commerce. Through circumstance I found myself sitting on the Sheffield City Partnership when I ended up running the Chamber during the pandemic. I have been involved in the Working Group for City Goals that you can read about here: https://www.sheffieldcitygoals.uk/city-goals/
Some might ask. Who picked you? Who put you in charge. Answer - no one and I'm not.
Rather as a son, husband and father with a family in Sheffield I got fed up feeling despondent and frustrated. So I rolled up my sleeves a couple of years ago to try make a positive difference. I got involved in the Chamber as I am involved in running a business in the city.
I am not posting to rebut the points in the article. I've also read all of the comments so far. I hope they keep on coming. The more people who start talking about the Goals the better. The city can't achieve much without more people coming together to design solutions to the challenges we face.
Put another way. If everyone was happy. If no one cared. Then I think we'd have a problem.
Still here are a few reflections and lessons I've learned after reading the piece.
1. More needs to be done to explain the complexity these goals are responding to. They are so broad and 'wordy' because Sheffield, like many cities, faces some incredibly complex interwoven problems. Stark inequality, more extreme and unpredictable weather, cost of living, tension in society.
I'd love simplicity in the goals but I've learned that's not possible. As an example, in one of the comments, I really liked the suggestion "bring hate crime to zero" until recognising that, for so many in the city, that's not enough. We need to combat racism in all its forms. Not just hate crimes.
The weaknesses in the UK's democratic system, and the way cities work, mean currently no one has the authority to set really hard priorities that can last for decades. The City Goals are not and can never be picked by solely the Council. Tribune picked clean air? Why. What about the other environmental commons? As soon as a city starts picking and prioritising I think we fall into the trap of compartmentalising problems and arguing forever about what to pick.
Why no launch of the Goals? Are we embarrassed? On the contrary. I think a big launch of some Goals sets the wrong impression. Writing the Goals was always the easy bit. That doesn't need launching and celebrating. What needs launching and celebrating is when the city decides how decision-making needs to change (not just in the Council) and power moves further towards communities. That's when we all start to make some noise. Real change is what deserves a launch.
I've heard people say these goals are just apple pie and motherhood. I get that, but ask what's wrong with apple pie and motherhood? I'm proud to live in a city that won't compromise and wants the best for everyone. For me there is something for everyone in the goals. That's the point. Everyone must have the potential to play a role in the goals.
Last but not least. Some gave up on the survey. Some did not like the questions. Some now dislike the Goals. I get that.
But still 1,000s of people got involved - from a really diverse range of communities. 100s of people from across the city got involved in telling the consultants what to write and what they did and did not like. It's not perfect but 1000s of voices were heard in this process. Hopefully tonight those people can see their ambitions, their hopes and their ideals reflected in the Goals.
That's why I'm sticking with this City Goals work - even if it is is tough and uncomfortable. I feel I owe it to those people who did complete the survey and who did turn up to the endless workshops and wrestled with the tough questions about the city we are and what we want to be. They set the goals. Now starts the hard work of how we deliver on them.
So what next?
1. Those of us involved in Sheffield City Goals need to do more to explain how we've got to this point and what happens next. That's on us. We need more coms.
If you reading this. Grumpy, despondent, disillusioned as I was, then get in touch at contact@sheffieldcitygoals.uk or at the Chamber. I'm in no position to tell you what to do. All I can say is I feel better trying to make a difference, working alongside others who also are also trying their best.
As for friends at Tribune. As a massive fan of this new form of publishing I wish you'd reached out to those you know who have been working on City Goals. We would not have asked you to pull your punches. We should be challenged. But if we'd had opportunity to share more you might have had an even richer piece.
Perhaps you might think about making City Goals the topic for your next Members event? There are number of us involved in the City Goal work that would be up for sharing more, debating and discussing how the city gets this right.
Because it's not possible to get this right without the tough conversations.
Thanks for holding your hand up and being clear and honest about your situation and involvement.
Definitely agreen with the sentiment of getting involved rather than moaning. But I think that's part of the issue here, I think a few people reading this including me will have engaged with the project and spent some time contributing thoughts and being involved in discussions, only to see none of these mentioned, or watered down enough to be meaningless. Personally I am less interested in the actual goals and more interested in how they read and can be understood to result in something tangible.
Honestly speaking, and with genuine appreciation of your direct voluntary involvement, I've worked in in roles working with managers to help them set meaningful goals/objectives, and one of the pitfalls is what you've mentioned here: thinking that if you mention something in particular then it comes across as not being interested in the wider issues.
In reality ending up with broader goals results in the exact opposite: being specific about something in particular makes it easy to communicate and link things to related goals, whereas being too generic comes across like there's no serious interest or intent in anything, and makes it hard to focus on any of those intentions you mention when trying to link the goals to future projects. Specifics engage people; generics switch people off.
£55k for that load of nonsense? This is the stuff that gets Sheffield a bad name. Your own attempt is much clearer, focused, and detailed. The partnership should resign and let The Tribune lead the way in articulating what the City should aim for ( I'd add reclaim and reuse every vacant building in the City Centre, by the way)
Loved the article on goals and the obvious lack of them. I agree with the writers suggested goals as a starter and those suggested in the comments from other readers.
How about setting a goal for the number of new build social and affordable homes and another one to cover an improved or public ownership bus and mass transport system.
Setting goals or targets is such a basic part of management and Im amazed our highly paid management team at SCC has missed a trick on this one, or perhaps Im not amazed at just another show of ineptitude.
I like it. The council does have a target around building council houses, but more could be done. And absolutely around public transport - another where they're sort of doing it anyway so why not give yourself a big goal to help you get it done
Council cant build more houses as Right To Buy has not been abolished so they would effectively be subsidising discounted (at tax payers expense) private ownership.
I have been following this story since 2021 when Sheffield Council contracted New Constellations to do consultation work towards the direction the city should take. This was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. From what I can see after a few rounds of consultations with movers and shakers in Sheffield the work was not complete. It seems that Dark Matters Labs have been paid 55k to tidy it up.
I responded to the online consultation on the draft ‘North star’ goals, and like the article my main comment was that the goals were self evidently desirable, but they led nowhere. There was no plan, no targets, no measurement of success.
Agreement from me too on the vagueness of the goals. We were asked for comments too, and I did put a few in, but after the first few questions, you were referred to some documents. Some of these were many pages long. No way am I going to read all that unless I’m undergoing a bout of insomnia!
I am finding it difficult to take 'Sheffield City Goals' seriously but if I was to have a punt at some achievable goals I would make them far more snappy by boiling every goal down to three words, as in the wildly successful - but divisive goal - Get Brexit Done. My top five. Get Houses Built. Get Streets Clean. Get Busses Running. Get Roads Fixed. Get Neighbourhoods Safe.
I was equally disappointed with the City Goals. The problem - as your piece and the comments received so far seem to show - is that it has never been really clear what they are for, or even who they belong to. Are they about the kind of practical (and very sensible) outcomes such as those you suggest? But there are plenty of plans and strategies already that are supposed to do exactly that, so why would another one be needed? Are they meant to be our shared values or aspirations? But there's something grimly functional in what has come out. There's much about the availability and accessibility of adequate services and places (most of which surely barely even needed stating), but very little about feelings, or hope, or belonging. For all the humane language, there doesn't seem to be much actual humanity.
The Goals are a Council initiative, but were never meant to be Council goals (they already have their own objectives), and it was the Sheffield City Partnership that was responsible for creating them; but that "for everyone" part of the message has got entirely lost. The final public consultation showed that nothing has been learned about previous consultation failures, with the usual closed questions about approving each goal (was anyone ever seriously expected to say "No, I disagree, we should be bit more racist?") and an insulting 250 characters (including spaces) allowed for comment on each group of three goals.
If you go to the website https://www.sheffieldcitygoals.uk/ and look for "Sheffield lived experiences [Sentiment Cards]" you'll find something slightly better. The "Sheffielders are talking about…" phrases are a better expression of sentiment than the goals themselves, but even then you have to imagine what people might have actually said before it got translated into consultant-speak.
The Goals seem to be confused between stating what we want to be done and attempting to answer that eternal question "What kind of city do we want to be?" The former seems too obvious to need re-stating; and to the latter I increasingly find myself answering "The city that we already are."
Thanks Robin. I suppose you could argue that some of the bigger practical things need many different orgs to achieve them. E.g. "clean air" would require: The council to run a clean air zone, the police to enforce existing regulations, businesses to switch to electric vehicles, universities to carry out research on air quality across the city, residents to plant trees, everyone to lobby for an end to moorland burning, etc.
Absolutely agree right down to the confusion about why none of them are even the slightest bit Sheffield-specific.
Would like to know further about what happened if you can follow up on this. When the draft goals were published, all the senior council staff and councillors were heavily publicising it online and asking for further input, strongly implying that they agreed it needed to become something more worthwhile and there was plenty of focus to be developed. However the final goals - link hidden away exactly as you say - appear identical to the draft ones.
So either the senior people in the council bizarrely don't seem to have much influence in the decisions of deciding upon their own strategic goals, or (hopefully more likely) this was simply a strangely communicated PR piece that doesn't seem to have been targeted at any group in particular, and possibly ran out of time and internal interest to do something useful with it after the initial buzz. Happy to consider other more positive possibilities if anyone knows more.
Hoping the current 'mapping sheffield neighbourhoods' project doesn't end up in a similar way.
Interesting John - we'll keep an ear to the ground. I do know that the project also took longer than initially suggested - possible they ran out of funds?
Everything is running out of funds these days so that's got to be baked into any project! But if you launch something with great fanfare and raise hopes of doing something exciting and meaningful, you have to have everything set up to follow through with an exciting and meaningful result. People aren't bothered about a regular council strategy document being bland, but this was hyped up as something more than that.
In a similar vein see also the SYMCA 'Year of active travel', which has generated hope which has quicky decenced to criticism since the main publicised part of this - promoting Parkrun - appears to be nothing directly to do with active travel.
Tldr Don't work hard to make people exited about stuff just to let them down!
Brilliant. Just what a journalist's opinion piece should be. Short, to the point, with a clear recommendation of how to correct things. The £55K spent on the Council's was very poorly spent - vision by committee, ugh!
But no direct comment from the Council? Was that for want of trying to get one?
Given these are published by the council (as part of the SCP grouping) we're taking the goals themselves as their comment on what the city should be aiming for. But we can get back to them in a year's time and ask how they've used them - it'll be interesting to know
Good point - but given current Govt failures re house-building and Labour flip-flopping on policies generally might be better to build anyway and expect to lose some!
It's great that this article has inspired so many responses. It strikes me that the 18 statements classed as "goals" really represent our aspirations for our city - what might be termed a (rather wordy) "vision statement", which needs to be packed up by strategies , plans and resources; actions by organisations and individuals. And yes, GOALS that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based.
It's a start, and good to see a revitalised City Partnership taking a lead on this.
But of course, if you had clear (and measurable) goals then you could be held to account fornot acheiving them. And ACCOUNTABILITY is what Sheffield City Council does NOT do. Its what is raised by staff ALL THE TIME. But at least it was reassurring that the Tribune's assessment of these goals matched my own feedback that I sent to the Council when they asked ;-)
I thought i was going mad when i first read them, they were SO badly written!
We paid how much for that crap?! No wonder we're going bust! Name the officer that approved that spend and the poorly drafted contract that allowed them to claim it wasfulfilled...
Yes, I can only agree, those goals are terrible. I looked at the consultation page and I actually can't remember if I ended up submitting a response or not, I think I gave up! The Tribune's goals are miles better. I'd add "raise the quality and quantity of affordable housing in the city" - a couple of people below have suggested similar. Not sure about the football one personally ( ducks quickly...)
Always find a comments box and add your views. If in doubt click disagree with all of them if they are so vague they arent reallygoals. FYI disagreeing often produces comments boxes on surveys.
Thanks for this info, Pookie. I've frequently refrained from doing my bit with surveys on the assumption that my views wouldn't be heeded. Seems I was wrong! I will henceforth amend my conduct. Thank you for inspiriting me 🤗
Thanks Tribune. So I’m not completely mad in thinking the draft goals were fatuous motherhood and apple pie.
They’re worse than that now as each one isn’t so much a specific goal as a kind of vain claim about what we already are doing or have achieved. It certainly avoids awkward questions like have our training institutions been doing the right things well? Or not?
When Sheffield has the education, training, skills and resources to benefit ourselves and others regionally, nationally and globally will the next challenge be our intergalactic reputation?
Oh man, you've absolutely nailed this. I filled in the consultation and it was impossible to say that any of the suggested goals were less than 100% important because they were so universally positive and lacking in specificity. It felt absolutely pointless.
In keeping with the tone/approach of your suggested goals, I might suggest SOMETHING to do with centralising the 'history of football' in the marketing narrative, despite not being a football person myself and being aware that plans are already afoot and possibly maxed out in their current form.
More important to me personally (as a documentary filmmaker), I'd say that a goal to invest in cultural infrastructure which boosts Sheffield's visibility on the world stage while also improving the day to day of the city's residents. Doc/Fest and Warp Films are our only real cultural giants in the film/media space at least and neither are as actively engaged in the life of the city as they once were I don't think. The Sheffield People's Theatre thing is fantastic and I wish some of that quality and energy could be duplicated within a film/TV production and exhibition context.
Thanks Ed. The football thing is interesting, I see someone else has commented upon it. Potentially a big tourist draw
I'm glad you've written this piece. As someone who has been involved in City Goals for a while it stings but if Sheffield has any chance of achieving any goals then we need to have the tough conversations.
Before offering some thoughts.
I'm involved in the Chamber of Commerce. Through circumstance I found myself sitting on the Sheffield City Partnership when I ended up running the Chamber during the pandemic. I have been involved in the Working Group for City Goals that you can read about here: https://www.sheffieldcitygoals.uk/city-goals/
Some might ask. Who picked you? Who put you in charge. Answer - no one and I'm not.
Rather as a son, husband and father with a family in Sheffield I got fed up feeling despondent and frustrated. So I rolled up my sleeves a couple of years ago to try make a positive difference. I got involved in the Chamber as I am involved in running a business in the city.
I am not posting to rebut the points in the article. I've also read all of the comments so far. I hope they keep on coming. The more people who start talking about the Goals the better. The city can't achieve much without more people coming together to design solutions to the challenges we face.
Put another way. If everyone was happy. If no one cared. Then I think we'd have a problem.
Still here are a few reflections and lessons I've learned after reading the piece.
1. More needs to be done to explain the complexity these goals are responding to. They are so broad and 'wordy' because Sheffield, like many cities, faces some incredibly complex interwoven problems. Stark inequality, more extreme and unpredictable weather, cost of living, tension in society.
I'd love simplicity in the goals but I've learned that's not possible. As an example, in one of the comments, I really liked the suggestion "bring hate crime to zero" until recognising that, for so many in the city, that's not enough. We need to combat racism in all its forms. Not just hate crimes.
The weaknesses in the UK's democratic system, and the way cities work, mean currently no one has the authority to set really hard priorities that can last for decades. The City Goals are not and can never be picked by solely the Council. Tribune picked clean air? Why. What about the other environmental commons? As soon as a city starts picking and prioritising I think we fall into the trap of compartmentalising problems and arguing forever about what to pick.
Why no launch of the Goals? Are we embarrassed? On the contrary. I think a big launch of some Goals sets the wrong impression. Writing the Goals was always the easy bit. That doesn't need launching and celebrating. What needs launching and celebrating is when the city decides how decision-making needs to change (not just in the Council) and power moves further towards communities. That's when we all start to make some noise. Real change is what deserves a launch.
I've heard people say these goals are just apple pie and motherhood. I get that, but ask what's wrong with apple pie and motherhood? I'm proud to live in a city that won't compromise and wants the best for everyone. For me there is something for everyone in the goals. That's the point. Everyone must have the potential to play a role in the goals.
Last but not least. Some gave up on the survey. Some did not like the questions. Some now dislike the Goals. I get that.
But still 1,000s of people got involved - from a really diverse range of communities. 100s of people from across the city got involved in telling the consultants what to write and what they did and did not like. It's not perfect but 1000s of voices were heard in this process. Hopefully tonight those people can see their ambitions, their hopes and their ideals reflected in the Goals.
That's why I'm sticking with this City Goals work - even if it is is tough and uncomfortable. I feel I owe it to those people who did complete the survey and who did turn up to the endless workshops and wrestled with the tough questions about the city we are and what we want to be. They set the goals. Now starts the hard work of how we deliver on them.
So what next?
1. Those of us involved in Sheffield City Goals need to do more to explain how we've got to this point and what happens next. That's on us. We need more coms.
If you reading this. Grumpy, despondent, disillusioned as I was, then get in touch at contact@sheffieldcitygoals.uk or at the Chamber. I'm in no position to tell you what to do. All I can say is I feel better trying to make a difference, working alongside others who also are also trying their best.
As for friends at Tribune. As a massive fan of this new form of publishing I wish you'd reached out to those you know who have been working on City Goals. We would not have asked you to pull your punches. We should be challenged. But if we'd had opportunity to share more you might have had an even richer piece.
Perhaps you might think about making City Goals the topic for your next Members event? There are number of us involved in the City Goal work that would be up for sharing more, debating and discussing how the city gets this right.
Because it's not possible to get this right without the tough conversations.
Thanks for publishing and thanks for reading.
Thanks for holding your hand up and being clear and honest about your situation and involvement.
Definitely agreen with the sentiment of getting involved rather than moaning. But I think that's part of the issue here, I think a few people reading this including me will have engaged with the project and spent some time contributing thoughts and being involved in discussions, only to see none of these mentioned, or watered down enough to be meaningless. Personally I am less interested in the actual goals and more interested in how they read and can be understood to result in something tangible.
Honestly speaking, and with genuine appreciation of your direct voluntary involvement, I've worked in in roles working with managers to help them set meaningful goals/objectives, and one of the pitfalls is what you've mentioned here: thinking that if you mention something in particular then it comes across as not being interested in the wider issues.
In reality ending up with broader goals results in the exact opposite: being specific about something in particular makes it easy to communicate and link things to related goals, whereas being too generic comes across like there's no serious interest or intent in anything, and makes it hard to focus on any of those intentions you mention when trying to link the goals to future projects. Specifics engage people; generics switch people off.
I am sorry but the length of your reply highlights the problem with these goals and the lack of direction they offer.
We would be better with five simple missions that such a diverse place as Sheffield can get behind.
£55k for that load of nonsense? This is the stuff that gets Sheffield a bad name. Your own attempt is much clearer, focused, and detailed. The partnership should resign and let The Tribune lead the way in articulating what the City should aim for ( I'd add reclaim and reuse every vacant building in the City Centre, by the way)
Thanks! Our reign will be benevolent... Good goal as well, that would focus some minds
Resign AND repay the monies as they clearly did not fulfil the contract!
Loved the article on goals and the obvious lack of them. I agree with the writers suggested goals as a starter and those suggested in the comments from other readers.
How about setting a goal for the number of new build social and affordable homes and another one to cover an improved or public ownership bus and mass transport system.
Setting goals or targets is such a basic part of management and Im amazed our highly paid management team at SCC has missed a trick on this one, or perhaps Im not amazed at just another show of ineptitude.
I like it. The council does have a target around building council houses, but more could be done. And absolutely around public transport - another where they're sort of doing it anyway so why not give yourself a big goal to help you get it done
Council cant build more houses as Right To Buy has not been abolished so they would effectively be subsidising discounted (at tax payers expense) private ownership.
I have been following this story since 2021 when Sheffield Council contracted New Constellations to do consultation work towards the direction the city should take. This was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. From what I can see after a few rounds of consultations with movers and shakers in Sheffield the work was not complete. It seems that Dark Matters Labs have been paid 55k to tidy it up.
I responded to the online consultation on the draft ‘North star’ goals, and like the article my main comment was that the goals were self evidently desirable, but they led nowhere. There was no plan, no targets, no measurement of success.
This link shows an early communication about this project. I think it is a note to council members. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a_request_for_information_about_4/response/2116768/attach/3/New%20Constellations%20note%20for%20Members%2008.09.21.docx?cookie_passthrough=1
Thanks for this Joanne. The fact it's taken as long as it has, and this is where we've ended up, is even worse
We will communicate clearly.
We will stop using consultants.
Punchy
Agreement from me too on the vagueness of the goals. We were asked for comments too, and I did put a few in, but after the first few questions, you were referred to some documents. Some of these were many pages long. No way am I going to read all that unless I’m undergoing a bout of insomnia!
Thanks. Whitworth's cartoon sums it up!
Hope you send the article and all thesecomments directly to Kate Josephs...
I am finding it difficult to take 'Sheffield City Goals' seriously but if I was to have a punt at some achievable goals I would make them far more snappy by boiling every goal down to three words, as in the wildly successful - but divisive goal - Get Brexit Done. My top five. Get Houses Built. Get Streets Clean. Get Busses Running. Get Roads Fixed. Get Neighbourhoods Safe.
Have you considered a role in comms?
I was equally disappointed with the City Goals. The problem - as your piece and the comments received so far seem to show - is that it has never been really clear what they are for, or even who they belong to. Are they about the kind of practical (and very sensible) outcomes such as those you suggest? But there are plenty of plans and strategies already that are supposed to do exactly that, so why would another one be needed? Are they meant to be our shared values or aspirations? But there's something grimly functional in what has come out. There's much about the availability and accessibility of adequate services and places (most of which surely barely even needed stating), but very little about feelings, or hope, or belonging. For all the humane language, there doesn't seem to be much actual humanity.
The Goals are a Council initiative, but were never meant to be Council goals (they already have their own objectives), and it was the Sheffield City Partnership that was responsible for creating them; but that "for everyone" part of the message has got entirely lost. The final public consultation showed that nothing has been learned about previous consultation failures, with the usual closed questions about approving each goal (was anyone ever seriously expected to say "No, I disagree, we should be bit more racist?") and an insulting 250 characters (including spaces) allowed for comment on each group of three goals.
If you go to the website https://www.sheffieldcitygoals.uk/ and look for "Sheffield lived experiences [Sentiment Cards]" you'll find something slightly better. The "Sheffielders are talking about…" phrases are a better expression of sentiment than the goals themselves, but even then you have to imagine what people might have actually said before it got translated into consultant-speak.
The Goals seem to be confused between stating what we want to be done and attempting to answer that eternal question "What kind of city do we want to be?" The former seems too obvious to need re-stating; and to the latter I increasingly find myself answering "The city that we already are."
Thanks Robin. I suppose you could argue that some of the bigger practical things need many different orgs to achieve them. E.g. "clean air" would require: The council to run a clean air zone, the police to enforce existing regulations, businesses to switch to electric vehicles, universities to carry out research on air quality across the city, residents to plant trees, everyone to lobby for an end to moorland burning, etc.
But thats for the detail. Not the GOAL.
Absolutely agree right down to the confusion about why none of them are even the slightest bit Sheffield-specific.
Would like to know further about what happened if you can follow up on this. When the draft goals were published, all the senior council staff and councillors were heavily publicising it online and asking for further input, strongly implying that they agreed it needed to become something more worthwhile and there was plenty of focus to be developed. However the final goals - link hidden away exactly as you say - appear identical to the draft ones.
So either the senior people in the council bizarrely don't seem to have much influence in the decisions of deciding upon their own strategic goals, or (hopefully more likely) this was simply a strangely communicated PR piece that doesn't seem to have been targeted at any group in particular, and possibly ran out of time and internal interest to do something useful with it after the initial buzz. Happy to consider other more positive possibilities if anyone knows more.
Hoping the current 'mapping sheffield neighbourhoods' project doesn't end up in a similar way.
Interesting John - we'll keep an ear to the ground. I do know that the project also took longer than initially suggested - possible they ran out of funds?
Everything is running out of funds these days so that's got to be baked into any project! But if you launch something with great fanfare and raise hopes of doing something exciting and meaningful, you have to have everything set up to follow through with an exciting and meaningful result. People aren't bothered about a regular council strategy document being bland, but this was hyped up as something more than that.
In a similar vein see also the SYMCA 'Year of active travel', which has generated hope which has quicky decenced to criticism since the main publicised part of this - promoting Parkrun - appears to be nothing directly to do with active travel.
Tldr Don't work hard to make people exited about stuff just to let them down!
Brilliant. Just what a journalist's opinion piece should be. Short, to the point, with a clear recommendation of how to correct things. The £55K spent on the Council's was very poorly spent - vision by committee, ugh!
But no direct comment from the Council? Was that for want of trying to get one?
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Given these are published by the council (as part of the SCP grouping) we're taking the goals themselves as their comment on what the city should be aiming for. But we can get back to them in a year's time and ask how they've used them - it'll be interesting to know
How about building 30,000 affordable houses and flats across the city?
Not until Right To Buy abolished
Good point - but given current Govt failures re house-building and Labour flip-flopping on policies generally might be better to build anyway and expect to lose some!
It's great that this article has inspired so many responses. It strikes me that the 18 statements classed as "goals" really represent our aspirations for our city - what might be termed a (rather wordy) "vision statement", which needs to be packed up by strategies , plans and resources; actions by organisations and individuals. And yes, GOALS that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based.
It's a start, and good to see a revitalised City Partnership taking a lead on this.
But of course, if you had clear (and measurable) goals then you could be held to account fornot acheiving them. And ACCOUNTABILITY is what Sheffield City Council does NOT do. Its what is raised by staff ALL THE TIME. But at least it was reassurring that the Tribune's assessment of these goals matched my own feedback that I sent to the Council when they asked ;-)
I thought i was going mad when i first read them, they were SO badly written!
We paid how much for that crap?! No wonder we're going bust! Name the officer that approved that spend and the poorly drafted contract that allowed them to claim it wasfulfilled...
Yes, I can only agree, those goals are terrible. I looked at the consultation page and I actually can't remember if I ended up submitting a response or not, I think I gave up! The Tribune's goals are miles better. I'd add "raise the quality and quantity of affordable housing in the city" - a couple of people below have suggested similar. Not sure about the football one personally ( ducks quickly...)
Thanks Celia. Yes, affordable housing is definitely another one. Sorry to hear you gave up on the consultation - that in itself is pretty concerning
I gave up on responding too, I felt it was leading and there was no scope to add my actual views.
Always find a comments box and add your views. If in doubt click disagree with all of them if they are so vague they arent reallygoals. FYI disagreeing often produces comments boxes on surveys.
Thanks for this info, Pookie. I've frequently refrained from doing my bit with surveys on the assumption that my views wouldn't be heeded. Seems I was wrong! I will henceforth amend my conduct. Thank you for inspiriting me 🤗
Great idea to link up with the Showroom
Thanks! Do please book to see a film through the link as we're trying to see how much demand there is for this
Wouldbe good to have discount for Trib subscribers?
Thanks Tribune. So I’m not completely mad in thinking the draft goals were fatuous motherhood and apple pie.
They’re worse than that now as each one isn’t so much a specific goal as a kind of vain claim about what we already are doing or have achieved. It certainly avoids awkward questions like have our training institutions been doing the right things well? Or not?
When Sheffield has the education, training, skills and resources to benefit ourselves and others regionally, nationally and globally will the next challenge be our intergalactic reputation?
You're welcome Mick.
To infinity, and beyond!