East Hampshire District Council is an innovative, creative and dynamic council. It is constantly evolving to better serve its residents, businesses and partners. The council was one of the first in the country to develop a shared management team with Havant Borough Council. This is just one of a number of collaborative partnerships it has developed to ensure its services are as effective as possible. East Hampshire District Council was the only council in the country to reduce its share of Council Tax for 2016-17. We have been able to achieve this by finding other sources of income. We continue to invest in developing new ventures and expanding the services we offer to other public service providers to generate income. This has already seen good returns that we plan to grow. Where savings and efficiencies are possible, we are taking advantage and transforming our existing services – and our workforce – to meet the challenges that we face as an organisation. Our property investments are already making our money work harder, producing much better income than we could achieve from bank interest rates. The ambition and adaptability of our staff is something we are very proud of. They consistently provide outstanding services to local residents, businesses and visitors as well as finding opportunities to improve, save money or generate income.