West Sussex County Council – Survey

As you may be aware, in February 2015 West Sussex County Council will set its budget for the forthcoming year.

Over the next seven weeks the council will be embarking on a county wide consultation asking people what matters to them when it comes to what council services are most important to them and how much council tax they are willing to pay to fund them.

Over the past four years we’ve seen a 28% reduction in the money we get from central government – a similar story for many of our district and borough colleagues I know. We have had to make some big changes to protect our key services, while we reduce our running and management costs. We’ve managed to save £120 million in those four years and we’ve done it without increasing our share of council tax. We are trying very hard to maintain or improve upon this next year.

With the ever increasing demand for services and the reduction in grants from government the gap between what we need to provide and the cost to pay for it is widening and we anticipate we’ll need to make a further saving of £120m over the next four years.

To make sure that we align our budgets with services that are most needed and requested by residents we are running our ‘What matters to you?’ survey and we’d like to reach as many residents and partners as possible. I am hoping that you will be able to support our survey by completing it and encouraging those people you work with and who live in your areas to do the same.

We will use the results to help ensure that we set a budget that reflects what our partners, communities and residents tell us is most important to them.