Budget Consultation for 2008/09… have your say

• Money matters…
• So how does the budget work?
• Spending on services for you…

Money matters…

How well we manage our money and what we spend it on, impacts greatly on your lives. Whether that's how good your local schools are, how we care for older people or how clean and safe we keep your local neighbourhood. Just like us, you are used to managing budgets whether it's for yourself or your household. Whilst our budgets are much bigger we have several things in common with you:

• We have an upper limit to our budget.
• We have a few core incomings (our main sources are government grants; redistributed business rates; sales, fees and charges; and council tax).
• And many more outgoings (we provide a great number and variety of services to people across Kirklees as well looking after our staff, buildings and other assets).
• We have difficult decisions to make - if we increase spending in one area we have to find savings in another - our books need to balance.

In addition to this:

• Some of our spending decisions are governed by legislative requirements.
• We are also set targets by the government, as part of a national initiative to make efficiency savings - we hope in total this will amount to £37 million in Kirklees.
• We are doing this to achieve value for money and ensure we are spending wisely in effective and efficient ways and making the right decisions.
• We also need to think about the impact of our spending decisions in terms other than money, including our investment in people and our emphasis on the green agenda to protect the environment and promote sustainable living for future generations.

So how does the budget work?

The council now sets its annual revenue budget as part of a 3 year plan called the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP), which also includes the Capital Investment Plan. The MTFP identifies the resources available to the council and deploys them to support the achievement of the council's ambition. This is why being efficient in how we spend money is so important if we want to achieve our vision for Kirklees.

Kirklees is a place:

• Where diversity is a strength
• Where young people want to be
• Which is seen as a beacon for green living
• With a strong economy

Planning the budget for a period longer than 12 months at a time, enables us to be clearer about how we are going to achieve our longer term goals. One of the main drivers of the amount of resources available is the increase in the council tax. Every 1% increase in council tax means that the budget can increase by £1.4 million. This means that we have more money to spend on improving the services that matter to you most. However we also want to deliver value for money and have made a commitment to you to keep council tax rises at 3% for each of the next three years.

In February the council agreed its MTFP (i.e. plans for 2007/08, 2008/09 and 2009/10). We have agreed budgets and strategies to deliver our services within the limits set by the 3% increase for the duration of this MTFP. This means that the main consideration of the next budget process will be the year 2010/11, although budgets for 2008/09 and 2009/10 will be reconsidered and revised where necessary.

As part of the budget discussions for 2008/09 we wanted to provide you with some information on what we have been spending on and give you the opportunity to comment - your views are very important to us.

Spending on services for you...

In total we actually spent almost exactly £1 billion last year. This was split between revenue spending, which is spending on the day to day running of services and capital spending, which is investment in assets that give a long-term benefit to the district and its residents.

Revenue spending is the money used for the daily operation of services, such as schools, libraries and waste collection. In total we spent £884 million as follows:

Capital spending is investment in assets such as buildings, roads, major maintenance works, vehicles and equipment, which give a long-term benefit. In total we spent £116 million on these investments for the future to ensure that we can keep on providing good services and adapt to your changing needs. This amount was spent in the following areas:

We are also committed to ensuring that the council's financial position remains strong. By carefully managing our budgets we have been able to put aside £4.6 million from underspends for the future benefit of Kirklees people. We continue to work hard to control significant accounts such as housing revenue and council tax. We have managed to reduce the level of housing rent arrears from £4 million to £3.5 million. Council tax and business rate collection has also improved (by £1.7 million) confirming our commitment to reducing non-payment.