Our spending plans

Revenue Budget 2009/10

Every year balancing the budget is a challenge due to rising costs, decreasing Government grant and new requirements, for instance the free bus pass scheme for the over 60s and disabled people. This year the challenges are even greater because of the economic downturn. This means that income from investments, which usually pays for some of our services, is reducing as is income from things like planning application fees and car parking. We need about £16 million a year to run the Council. About £7 million comes from the Government; the remaining amount comes from Council Tax, income from investments and fees and charges.

We are increasing council tax by 4.8 per cent. Although this is an above inflation increase, we think it is necessary to avoid significant service reductions or higher fees and charges. Even with this increase, we will still be one of the lowest charging district councils in the country. It amounts to around 10p per week.

The following highlights some of the main elements in the budget.

• Budget increases
• Increased investment in our community
• Cost reduction ideas

Budget increases

Increasing costs, increasing service demands and income reduction add up to £1.1 million next year. The main reasons for this include:

• The free bus pass scheme for the people over 60 and disabled people. This will cost £300,000 more than originally predicted.
• A drop in income of almost £200,000 from our land charges service, which people use when they are buying or selling houses.
• A drop of £150,000 in planning application fees as fewer developers and households apply.
• A drop of almost £100,000 in parking income with permits and pay and display parking.

Increased investment in our community

There are areas where the Council wants to invest to improve the community and the services we offer. These include:

• Funding the Abingdon Partnership to improve the town centre
• Increasing disabled facilities grants to help people stay in their own home
• Increasing our support fund for organisations that apply for National Lottery and other organisations that need matched funding
• Supporting Abingdon Town Council¿s bid to improve the County Hall and museum
• Funding schemes to reduce the council¿s carbon footprint as part of our commitment to rising to the challenge of climate change

Cost reduction ideas

As with domestic budgets, we asked our officers to identify ways of saving money or increasing income. These have led to a reduction in costs of around a million pounds per year on-going. Some of the more significant items are detailed below.

• Creating a shared waste team to monitor the new waste and street cleaning contract with South Oxfordshire District Council
• Carefully reviewing whether we should fill jobs when they become vacant
• Reducing the size of internal corporate administration teams
• Transferring our out of hours service to Oxford City Council's call centre