Your Council, your spending priorities

Residents and businesses in Rotherham are being invited to have their say on the Council's spending plans in the 2022/23 financial year.

The Council will begin the formal process of setting its budget in February and wants to hear which services local people think should be prioritised for investment.

Rotherham Council manages an annual budget of £236m, which is generated from £116m in Council Tax, £71m in Business Rates and £49m in Government grants.

This money is used to provide a huge range of public services in the borough, including social care for vulnerable adults and children, road maintenance, school places, job creation, support for the homeless, housing, libraries, bin collections, community safety, parks, planning and licensing.

Since March 2020, the Council has also been at the forefront of the local response to the Coronavirus pandemic, providing vital support to families and businesses most in need whilst continually adapting to ensure the vast majority of its services could continue as different restrictions have come and gone.

People can register their views on the Council’s website www.rotherham.gov.uk/budget by the end of Sunday 23 January 2022.

Councillor Saghir Alam, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance: “Council finances have suffered a sustained reduction in Government funding since 2011 as part of a crippling austerity programme which forced us to make £200m in cuts and cost around 1,800 jobs.

"As well as severely weakening local services, over the same period there has been a significant shift in the way Councils are funded, away from the Government - which had traditionally provided the lions share of our budget - and onto local Council taxpayers.

“Because of the responsible approach we have taken to our financial management locally, we are in a better place than many other councils across the country but the need to target the areas of highest need and get the best possible value from what we spend is more important than ever. So we’re calling on residents and businesses to share their feedback on their priorities, the services we need to improve, what works well and what we need to do to address the other issues that impact them."

Responses to the consultation will be fed into the budget report to be considered by the Council’s Cabinet at its meeting on 14 February 2022, before the final budget is set at Full Council on 2 March 2022.


 

Published: 23rd December 2021