The city strategy sets up guidelines for the city operations during the ongoing council period, meaning 2012–2024, as required under the Local Government Act. The key themes of the strategy are renewal, financial balance and the city’s role as an enabler along with its previous implementing role. These themes have been selected with the aim of preparing for future changes in the operating environment.
The strategy highlights the importance of adopting new perspectives on the city operations: renewal, revision of the service processes, residents’ participation in service provision, and collaboration with companies, municipal communities and national operators alike.
The achievement of the strategy is supervised by the different municipal sectors and the city administration. The City Board monitors the implementation of the strategy twice a year in connection with the financial accounts and budget, and a report on the implementation of the strategy is given to the City Council once a year along with the financial accounts.
Every year, the goals and procedures established in the city strategy for the current council term are used as the basis for defining the goals of the city and its service areas and for determining specific indicators for said goals. The indicators are presented annually in connection with the budget.
Cross-administrative and service area-specific development programmes support the objectives of the strategy and promote its implementation. Action plans for the service areas are drawn up each year based on these development programmes.