Budget Consultation 2011

Overview

The London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames undertook a budget consultation exercise with a representative sample of adults in the borough, exploring their views on the Council's approach to current financial constraints. Building on previous consultation exercises and also the All in One Survey, the Budget Consultation 2011 focused on:

· Finding out how confident people feel about their employment / financial situation, and identifying their main concerns

· Gauging residents' views on how the Council is approaching current financial constraints

· Identifying areas or services in which people would be prepared to see lower investment, and those in which they feel there should be more investment

· Encouraging respondents to deliberate and respond to actions and activity that the Council is undertaking in response to the All in One Survey and the previous Budget Consultation

· Identifying whether residents are able to suggest other ways the Council could be saving money and where the community could be contributing more, either through paying for services or controlling/charging for services that the Council pays for

What happens next

The consultation took the form of a representative survey administered to a sample of 501 residents, with quotas set and largely achieved for: gender, age, ward, ethnicity, housing status, disability and working status. The fieldwork took place over late October / early November 2011 and took the form of a 10 minute survey which used a combination of closed and open questions. While the majority of the sample were interviewed by telephone, a proportion of residents were recruited and interviewed face-to-face, in order to ensure overall representativeness of the sample.

The key findings include:

· There are high levels of financial anxieties; job security and the rising cost of living feature strongly, while very few spontaneously refer to anxieties over public service cuts.

· The Council priority actions (such as continued council tax freeze, heavily investing in schools places, additional investment in potholes, pavements, parks and town centre improvements and the efficiency/saving programme) received popular endorsement between 65% and 74% are supportive; around 10% are opposed with the remainder uncertain.

· There is recognition that payments for non-critical services may need to be introduced, but few (14%) identified potential areas or services for charging. A similar proportion (13%) argued for the Council to stop charging for some services that are currently charged for.

· By contrast, residents favour additional expenditure on relatively higher cost services such as education and children's services and adult and community services.

What has happened as a result?

The report has been circulated to Councillors and was submitted to Overview & Scrutiny and Cabinet meetings in February, where leading Councillors will consider the findings alongside reports from the Director of Finance & Corporate Services on the financial situation in Richmond upon Thames and next year's budget. As a result the following have been agreed / proposed in the Council's budget for 2012/13:

0% Council Tax increase

Up to £96m investment in schools and sixth forms over the next 5 years

At least £7m additional investment in roads and pavements budgets over the next 5 years

£3m investment programme in parks over the next 5 years

On target to deliver a further £14m saving via the efficiency/savings/income generation programme over the next 3 years