Budget Consultation 2020-21

Overview

Essex County Council spends over £2bn each year on essential services for the people of Essex.  

This is a substantial amount of money, but it doesn’t go as far as we would like.  Just like households across Essex, we have to make difficult choices about where we spend, and where to make savings.  We face financial pressure because:

• the money we receive from national government has reduced – for every £1 we received five years ago, we receive only 37p today;
• more people need our services and support; and
• the costs of providing services has increased – partly due to inflation, but also as a result of changes in the law (e.g. the introduction of the national living wage).

To balance our budget, we have already had to make over £370m of savings over the past five years.  We benchmark strongly and have been rated by iMPOWER in the Top 10 most productive councils in England.

Recent government announcements have suggested that more money could be available for councils next year.  This funding may be short term and is unlikely to be sufficient to meet the rising costs of council services.  Our longer-term financial position remains unclear.   

There are some big decisions ahead and we would value your views before setting next year’s council budget (April 2020 to March 2021).