Budget consultation 2016+
Birmingham City Council today launched the 2016+ budget consultation, setting out budget proposals for 2016/17 – 2019/20.
See the consultation document here: /wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Business-Plan-and-Budget-16-Consultation-Document-FINALVERSION_updateBP-.pdf
Leader of the Council, Cllr John Clancy wrote:
This consultation document sets out our budget plans for consultation as in previous years. However, there are some important changes in our approach to financial and business planning this year.
We have set out the “Birmingham 2020: Forward Together” vision statement. This is framed by the council’s priorities of prosperity, fairness and democracy. The vision was approved by the Cabinet and debated at the City Council on 1 December. I hope that people and organisations throughout the city will engage in the debate on that vision as it develops further in the months and years ahead. We want you to see the City Council as your council.
As well as setting the budget for 2016/17 in March, we are preparing a plan for how we intend to balance the budget over the medium term. This is in line with government announcements to date but the draft funding settlement won’t be available until December and in final form in January. We anticipate that this will be another challenging settlement and we currently estimate that we must cut spending further by over £250m over the next four years.
As this document makes clear the years ahead will see profound change in local government, not least in Birmingham and the West Midlands. The Government intends to phase out the main corporate government grant funding to local authorities completely by 2020 but will allow us to retain all the income from business rates at a local level. We will have more independence, but there are also big questions about how this will impact on the resources available in Birmingham and the additional responsibilities councils will be expected to undertake in return.
New city-regional leadership will be put in place through the Combined Authority, with new powers devolved from central government to allow us to drive economic growth and investment. The council’s organisation will become much more strategic and much smaller and there will be important changes to the ways that people can engage in their local community, such as the new local council for Sutton Coldfield.
These are times of great challenge and great opportunity for the city and the City Council, starting with the difficult decisions we have to make on the budget up to 2019/20, which are set out in this document. But we now have a vision for the future of the City Council in place and this will help guide our decisions.
I would urge you to get involved in this consultation and to give us your ideas about how to run the City Council better and how to make the savings we need to make. Thank you for your contribution to that process.
See the consultation document here: /wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Business-Plan-and-Budget-16-Consultation-Document-FINALVERSION_updateBP-.pdf
