Budget Consultation

Overview

Over the last few years Southwark Council has carried out extensive budget consultations to listen to what residents have to say about how we should deal with the significant cuts to our budget from central government. We have lost £91 million in spending power since 2011 and we are facing another third of our budget being lost over the next three years.

Despite this loss in funding, Council Tax has been frozen since 2008/09. In addition, the Council continues to innovate and invest in the borough to improve neighbourhoods, create new jobs and build genuinely affordable housing. We have continued to deliver on our promises such as free healthy school meals and will deliver on further promises such as free swim and gym in 2016/17 and beyond.

What we have done has reflected what residents told us. You told us that you wanted us to be more efficient and find more cost effective ways to deliver our services. You also said that we should cut back office costs and protect front line services and especially services for the vulnerable and those most in need. We listened to our residents and protected those things that you said mattered most like libraries, childrens centres and home care. We have made large savings in back office staff and management costs.

In the coming years our funding will decrease even further and we are going to have to make some difficult decisions about how we continue to deliver services. Some may need to stop altogether, whilst others could be charged for. We have some initial proposals for how we could adapt to future funding cuts, which you can read in the Related Links section below, but this consultation aims to find out what you think.

Image credit: Ken Teegardin

What happens next

Unfortunately, the consultation has now closed. We are currently reading all of the responses and will publish the results and our next steps here by the end of January.