The survey is now closed. The final report is available here. 

You will have seen lots of articles in the media about the difficult choices facing local authorities as we seek to balance our budgets whilst maintaining critical local services. 

We deliver 100s of local services – all running to support vibrant and prosperous communities, and helping those who need us most. You’ll be aware of many of those services, like schools, waste, roads maintenance, planning, economic development, public transport, social work, benefits, social housing and sports and leisure. Others you may be aware of but not have to use yourself – but recognise that they are incredibly important to us as a society – like homelessness, community safety, environmental health and public protection.

And, as a large organisation employing thousands of people, it is critical that we are supported by efficient processes and systems, with corporate services like finance, HR, IT and customer services ensuring we are doing business in the best and most effective way possible.

With so many services valued and required by our residents, it is really difficult to decide what to cut or reduce. And with over two-thirds of our entire budget invested in education and care which is heavily legislated, the impact of cuts on the remaining services can be disproportionate.

Our finances

In 2023/24 our revenue budget (for monthly expenditure like the day-to-day costs of running services, including staffing) was £711m, with a capital budget (where we borrow to fund fixed assets like roads and buildings) of £115m.

That sounds a lot but to put it into context, we provide services to around 262,000 people every day, covering many services. Our population is growing and ageing, which means services cost us more. We are impacted by rising inflation and cost of living crisis with more people requiring our help, and our costs are growing way beyond any increases we receive from Government or by raising Council Tax.

The world is changing around us – how we interact with each other, shop, travel, work is all changing. And as a modern Council, we must change too. Our services are valued by residents and we will continue to support our communities in the best way possible. But change is inevitable. Our focus is on changing the way we deliver services, so we can continue to maintain the high standards you expect of us.

We have to balance our books by being as efficient as we can be, by transforming the way we do business, and by making some difficult choices about changing, or indeed stopping, services. Over the last few years, we’ve taken big steps to reducing central costs, in order to protect frontline services.

There are large parts of our budget where we have limited ability to reduce services. For example, education and care make up around two-thirds of our entire budget, with school class sizes and free school meals agreed by Government for example. These are policies that aim to give the best education and support to children and young people, but means we have little flexibility to reduce the budgets in these areas. All this means that there will be disproportionate impacts across our remaining services which is where we have to look for the greatest savings.

We know the decisions we make will impact our communities – so the purpose of this engagement exercise is to give you a voice in how we deliver our services in the future. 

Tell us your priorities

What's important to you today might not reflect what you need in the future. So, in this first phase of engagement, we would like to know what's important to you now and what you think will be important for future council budget decisions. 

In the survey below, there are 12 services we provide listed in no particular order. We need you to choose the top 5 which are most important to you now. Just tick the boxes of the 5 which are most important to you and leave the others blank. You will then be asked to repeat the exercise, but thinking of future council budget decisions. What do you think might be important for the council to think about in future years? 

There are then 2 additional questions. The first provides an opportunity for you to tell us where you think we should focus attention on transforming our business. And finally, we’ll ask you about areas where you would like to have a greater say in how services are run in the future.

What happens next?

This engagement will run until Friday 17^th November. We’ll be seeking views from a wide range of community groups and individuals during this time. We’ll use this survey and encourage as many people as possible to complete it online. If you would prefer to complete the survey using a paper copy, you can print off this survey and hand it in to your local library. Alternatively, your library or nearest customer service office can print the survey for you. We’ll also be speaking to community councils at a face to face event.

Once the engagement has finished, we’ll take all the data you provide and analyse the results, producing a report which will be published on our website and which is available to help councillors shape their budget decisions for 2024/25.

But this is just the beginning of a much wider and sustained programme of engagement. Over the next few years, we’ll be coming out at least twice a year to engage with residents on a series of topics so we can build up a picture of what matters to you, in your communities.

We are committed to an open and transparent process so, as we make those difficult decisions, we’ll share our thinking, explain why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how we can mitigate the worst of the impacts by working more closely with communities.