Many thanks to everyone who responded to both phases of our consultation on the council’s budget. Those views, along with other contributions and discussions, have helped to give us a much clearer insight into what you feel we should be doing.
You can download Portable Document Format* (PDF) copies of findings reports for each consultation phase at the bottom of this page.
Our second consultation phase is now closed
This consultation phase was about the part of our budget that pays for most of our services – schools and council housing are the two big elements that are not included in this. After taking away fees, charges and grants given for specific purposes, the net budget is £293m in 2011/12.
That is the amount from which we need to find savings. Because of the cuts the government is making to our funding – the worst we have ever faced – we have already reduced our budget by £30m this year and we need to reduce our annual spending by a further £40m.
Our proposals
We published our detailed proposals for consultation, with a deadline for comments of 31st January 2012.
I know many of you may have found the details unpalatable. I can’t pretend we have found it easy to put these proposals forward. But they do represent what I think is our best response to the financial situation we are in as a result of government cuts to our funding. We have looked right across our activities to see where we might consolidate and refocus what we do, so we can ensure that the services you value can continue – albeit sometimes in a different way or from a different base.
What we've published
On this website, you can find:
a. descriptions of the budget approach for each service portfolio
b. schedules of proposed growth and savings
c. a summary of the impact that the proposals will have on disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.
Investment Priorities
I have now put together a programme of areas where I would like to see the council to invest around £55million next year.
These include major investments in primary school buildings; refurbishing our children’s homes; urgent works on elderly persons' homes; and more investment in grants to help disabled people to live independently in their own homes.
We also want to improve our city centre by making it more accessible to public transport. These works will also cover our roads, bridges, footways and traffic signals plus road safety and speed reduction schemes.
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