Wiltshire Council recently invited residents to give their views on how the council should prioritise spending in 2025/26 at a series of face-to-face interactive sessions in libraries and via an online survey.
More than 140 people attended the face-to-face drop-in events, which took place in Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge libraries. They were asked to place tokens in 10 boxes that represented Wiltshire Council services, to indicate which services they would prioritise and allocate money to. Top came leisure centres and libraries (15%) and supporting and safeguarding children (15%), closely followed by investment in housing, roads and school buildings (13%) and supporting vulnerable adults (12%).
An online survey also asked people to allocate tokens to the service areas they thought most important. 1,699 people completed the survey and the top four service areas that respondents said Wiltshire Council should prioritise spending on were:
- Maintenance of highway and footpaths – 17%
- Supporting and safeguarding children 13%
- Adults – supporting the vulnerable – 12%
- Investment in housing, roads and school buildings – 11%
Cllr Nick Botterill, Cabinet Member for Finance, said, “Local authorities are legally obliged to set a balanced budget. Our prudent and preventative approach over the last few years has put Wiltshire Council in a strong position to deliver high quality services for Wiltshire's residents, businesses, and communities, in line with our Business Plan priorities. However, we are not immune to the challenging times and local authority budgets are under greater scrutiny and pressure than ever before due to increasing demand for services, particularly for adults' services, children's social care and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Demand has been further impacted by the ongoing pressures caused by continued cost-of-living challenges, higher levels of inflation and continued higher and unpredictable energy prices.
“We wanted to hear people's views on how they think we should prioritise spending in 2025/26, so that this could inform how we invest in key services and programmes to ensure we continue to deliver services that meet the need of our residents, businesses and communities. We thank people for getting involved in our recent interactive budget drop-in sessions or for completing our survey online. It was really useful to get everyone's feedback and in the case of the in-person events have some good discussions with residents.”
Early in 2025 Wiltshire Council will publish its draft budget proposals for 2025/26, and this will be informed by confirmation of the Government’s funding for local authorities, which is expected to be known before the budget is set. The council already set out its financial strategy for 2025/26 when the previous budget was confirmed in February this year. The budget is due to be formally discussed and considered at a Full Council meeting on 25 February 2025.
The council receives nearly 84% of its core funding from local taxes, business rates and council tax. In 2024/25 the council's budget is around £490m, more than half of which is spent on adult and children's social care services.
The most significant spending in 2024/25 is on:
- Adult services - £179.4m
- Families and children - £70.8m
- Environment - £49.6m
- Highways and transport - £43m
- Education and skills - £38.9m
People read more about the council's budget and spending at Budgets and spending - Wiltshire Council and Council tax spending - Wiltshire Council
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