KCC Budget Consultation until 28 November

KCC is consulting on its annual budget. As was the case last year, the key feature is the need to find savings as a result of declining goverment grants and increasing demand for some of our services.

Over the last three years, Kent County Council has achieved £269m in savings (this compares with a net budget of a little under £1bn). It will need to achieve a similar annual rate - some £81m - in the next financial year (2014-15). Proposals have been set out that bridge most, though not quite all, of this gap. It is clear that, with the public sector remaining under the austerity cosh for years to come as central government seeks to eliminate the budget deficit, and with local government taking its fair share and quite a lot more of the savings pain, more will need to be found (some £209m over the next three years).

The County Council aims to meet its financial pressures partly through the Facing the Challenge programme, which sees the authority as above all a commissioner of services, looking for the most efficient way for those services to be provided (whether by the council itself, by the private sector, the voluntary sector or others). In addition, it is carrying through major programmes of change ('transformation') in social services, both for adults and (more recently) children; this also links to our increasingly close relationship with the health service, in which I am deeply involved. We are proposing a small council tax increase of 1.99%. Finally, while we have successfully minimised the impact of the savings programmes on front line services, some difficult changes are being proposed, as with the consultation on community wardens.

You can find the budget consultation here; it is open until 28 November. You can answer three short questions on how you would like KCC to meet the budget challenge, or can go into more detail in setting priorities though an online budget tool. You can also find a short summary of the budget situation by KCC Leader Paul Carter and a webchat with Cabinet Member for Finance John Simmonds, which took place last Friday. Last year saw a big increase in public response to our budget consultation, and I hope that many Darent Valley residents will take part this year.