Beyond planning: how local government strategy teams can work regionally to drive mission-led change

What if strategy teams weren’t just planning for the future — but actively shaping it, together?

Across the UK, local government strategy teams are navigating unprecedented complexity — balancing financial constraints, service transformation, climate resilience, and economic renewal, all while trying to plan for an uncertain future.

Yet, despite these shared challenges, councils often develop strategies in isolation, creating separate policies, economic plans, and climate frameworks — even when the issues they tackle cross council boundaries.

Instead of every local authority writing its own strategy, what if we designed the future of places together — co-investing in shared data, aligning strategic priorities across a region, and developing cross-council, mission-led approaches to the biggest challenges?

At Adur & Worthing Councils, we’re already embedding a mission-based approach to strategy, ensuring that planning isn’t just about setting direction, but about mobilising people, resources, and investment to deliver real change.

This blog explores how local government strategy teams can move beyond traditional, siloed planning — learning from global models and regional collaboration to build more adaptive, participatory, and mission-led approaches to strategy.

🔍 The challenge: why strategy teams need a radical rethink

Strategy teams in local government are facing more complexity than ever — but too often, they are stuck in outdated planning models that are slow, rigid, and disconnected from delivery.

Right now, councils are trying to:

✅ Align financial strategy with transformation — ensuring budget decisions enable, rather than constrain, change.
✅ Plan for long-term climate resilience — embedding net-zero and sustainability into infrastructure and policy.
✅ Rethink economic development — moving beyond inward investment to community wealth-building and regenerative approaches.
✅ Strengthen cross-sector collaboration — ensuring local government works in sync with businesses, universities, and communities.

But the system isn’t designed for strategic collaboration. Instead:

❌ Each council develops its own strategies — even when regional collaboration would be more effective.
❌ Planning cycles are slow and disconnected from real-time data — making it harder to respond to fast-moving challenges.
❌ Strategy is often separate from delivery, meaning ambitious plans fail because they aren’t connected to action.

To create more adaptive, participatory, and mission-driven places, we need to rethink how strategy teams operate locally and regionally.

🛠️ How Adur & Worthing are embedding mission-driven strategy locally

At Adur & Worthing Councils, we are already moving beyond traditional strategy models, embedding a mission-led, participatory, and place-based approach to planning for the future.

1. ‘Our Plan’ — a mission-driven approach to strategy

Our Plan is not a static strategy document, but a living framework for change — focusing on big, shared missions that bring together councils, communities, and partners.

🔹 It is designed for action — ensuring that strategy isn’t just about policy but about mobilising people and investment to deliver change.
🔹 It aligns priorities across services, breaking down silos and enabling more connected decision-making.
🔹 It evolves based on learning, ensuring that we can adapt as circumstances change.

💡 What could this look like at a regional level?

• What if multiple councils co-designed a shared strategy for their region — aligning economic, climate, and social priorities?
• How could a regional ‘Our Plan’ model help pool investment and accelerate transformation?

2. The Worthing Neighbourhood Fund — embedding participation into strategic investment

The Worthing CIL Neighbourhood Fund is a practical example of how strategy can be participatory, ensuring that investment decisions are shaped by residents.

🔹 Communities decide where funding goes, aligning local knowledge with strategic priorities.
🔹 It builds civic capacity, ensuring people have a real stake in shaping the future of their place.
🔹 It makes strategy more accountable, ensuring funding decisions reflect community needs.

💡 What could this look like at a regional level?

• Could participatory investment models be scaled across multiple councils to align regional priorities?
• How can strategic funding be shaped by the people who will be most affected by it?

3. The Kitchen Table — testing new models of strategic collaboration

Through our work with Funding People and The Kitchen Table, we are testing a new way of supporting community leadership and civic participation.

🔹 We are investing in people, not just projects, ensuring that leadership and participation are embedded in strategic decision-making.
🔹 We remove bureaucracy, allowing people to contribute in ways that work for them.
🔹 We take a long-term approach, ensuring community engagement is embedded, not just reactive.

💡 What could this look like at a regional level?

• How could councils co-invest in leadership and participation at a regional scale?
• What if strategy teams worked directly with civic leaders to shape regional priorities together?

🚀 What’s next? A mission-driven approach to strategy at a regional level

Instead of council-by-council strategy development, what if we built a regional strategy system that was more connected, adaptive, and mission-led?

1. A regional strategy intelligence hub

✅ Shared data and insight across councils, ensuring real-time decision-making.
✅ A connected strategic planning team, working across councils to align investment and policy.
✅ A regional evidence base, ensuring all councils and partners work from the same insights.

2. Funding and investment models that drive mission-led strategy

✅ Regional investment pooling, ensuring councils, businesses, and funders align financial decisions.
✅ Civic co-investment funds, where public and private sectors co-design long-term economic strategies.
✅ Participatory strategy-making, embedding community voices into economic, climate, and social planning.

3. A more adaptive and participatory approach to strategic planning

✅ Real-time strategy iteration, ensuring plans evolve based on learning and change.
✅ Cross-council strategic collaboration, ensuring planning is connected across regions.
✅ Embedded delivery mechanisms, ensuring strategy is not just about vision, but about action.

📢 Calls to action: let’s build a new model for local government strategy

We need a shift — from static plans to living strategies, and from council-by-council planning to regional collaboration.

✅ What if strategy teams worked together across councils to align economic, climate, and social priorities?
✅ How could regional collaboration accelerate the delivery of bold, mission-led transformation?
✅ What would it take to move from strategy as planning to strategy as a platform for action?

💬 What’s next? Let’s start the conversation.

Is your strategy team already testing new approaches to planning, regional collaboration, or mission-driven strategy?

How could regional collaboration strengthen local government strategy? Drop your thoughts below!