As part of consultation on the City Council’s budget for 2016-17, our survey invited people to have their say on the following areas:
The survey elicited a range of views from 100 respondents. The vast majority were concerned about how the need to spend less money on services in Sheffield would affect them. Most frequent responses on handling the financial pressure related to reducing management/admin costs and making further efficiencies, alongside reviewing contracts, more community run services, focussing on core services and the most vulnerable, and getting people into employment. Other suggestions included increasing Council Tax, lobbying government, increasing digital/automation, selling off assets, focussing on upstream prevention, more recycling, and encouraging business/devolution. There were also comments around appreciation of the scale of the challenge, the need for care over choice of cuts, as well as some views that some of the cuts should have been done earlier.
We also asked people about how changes had impacted on them personally, on their neighbourhoods and on the city as a whole. 85% of people who responded to the survey reported that they had seen an impact, although a small but significant proportion of people didn’t feel they had felt any impact as a result of the cuts to the council’s budget.
The most frequently mentioned areas of impact from changes included waste collection, social care, libraries, public transport, and roads. Other frequently mentioned areas included litter and street cleaning, lack of progress on city centre regeneration, youth services, parks, and physical activity/sports activities.
Budget priorities have been influenced by consultation activity undertaken over recent years that has consistently confirmed public support for protecting services for the most vulnerable. This year public feedback on our guiding principles has supported our approach to:
Other significant areas that people wanted the Council to concentrate on protecting, now and in the future, included Parks, Housing, Transport & Roads, Education, Employment, and Libraries.
The budget survey, public consultation events and consultation with people about proposals on particular areas elicited an extensive range of comments which helped to inform our overall thinking on the budget.
Further details on the consultation including a short video, details of our Budget Implementation Plans for 2013/14 to 2015/16, presentations from the public events in November 2015 and January 2016, and feedback on other budget related consultations can be found at:
Sheffield City Council budget 2016/17: Have your say
Details of the City Council’s Revenue Budget and Capital Programme 2016/17 passed at the Council Meeting on 4th March 2016 can be found at:
Sheffield City Council – Budget Council, Friday 4 March 2016
Sheffield City Council continues to face significant financial challenges, as the Government is expected to make further cuts to local government in the Spending Review later this year.
Next year we expect that the Council will have to find a further £50 million in savings as a result of further Government cuts, increased demand for services such as adult social care and rising cost pressures beyond the Council’s control. Every year we are required by law to set a balanced budget.
The Council has successfully balanced the books each year for the last five years, making reductions of £300 million over that time, managing a 50% cut to our revenue grant from central government. Over this time, we have prioritised the protection of front line services and protected services for the most vulnerable in the city as far as possible. We have a strong track record of managing Sheffield’s public finances by making significant savings in management costs, accommodation, IT and changing the way some of our services are run.
As in previous years, we want you, and as many other Sheffield people and organisations as possible, to have the opportunity to help shape how we meet this latest budget challenge.
This presentation from our budget event on 19th November 2015 provides information about the budget challenge for 2016/17 and our broad approach to meeting this. We have also produced a short video. These are available in the 'Related Documents' on this page.
The Council website has information about our current budget, where funding comes from, and what we spend. If you want to get into more detail, our open data pages include our Budget Implementation Plans for 2013/14 to 2015/16
Last year, we asked people about the extent to which they felt informed about our approach to setting the budget and about the priorities that guide the way we deliver services and set the budget. We also asked for comments on ways to reduce spend, raise income, or do things differently. A summary of the responses is available in the 'Related Documents' on this page.
Please take a few minutes to complete our online survey. Your views are very important to us and will feed into the discussions that will take place ahead of the budget being approved in March 2016.
Please note that while your feedback will be read, you will not receive an individual reply.
Call 0114 27 35417 to request a paper copy of the survey.
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