Council budgets and spending

The Council's budget is prepared annually and is a six-month process beginning in September with the Medium Term Financial Plan and finishing with the production of the budget in March.

Medium Term Financial Strategy

The Medium Term Financial Strategy ("MTFS") is a five-year rolling plan, taken to Cabinet in September. It is a strategic document produced to provide members with an indication of the potential size of the authority's revenue budget over the next three years, the anticipated resource levels and the impact of this on our activities.

The MTFS provides a context for the budget and enables the Council to consider the medium-term impact of financial and performance decisions with the knowledge of the potential impact on the levels of council tax in the following five years.

It enables the Council to identify expenditure trends, plan developments and identify the impact on the revenue budget.

Financial Plan

The Financial Plan is set in October and establishes a guideline budget for each department for the following financial year. Departments develop their detailed budget for Council in February.

The budget process

The money to provide the Council's services comes from three main sources, Council Tax, the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) and the National Non-domestic Rates (NNDR). This is supplemented by additional specific grants and income, eg mental health grants, national waste minimisation, safety cameras, education special grants and others.

In November each year the Government advises each local authority of the amount of RSG and NNDR they will receive for the next financial year. The difference between the budget required set in the Financial Plan and the total of these two payments is called the precept and is the amount that needs to be collected as Council Tax.

In October or November the council advises on the number of Band D equivalent properties within its area, this is called the tax base. The precept is divided by the tax base to give the Band D council tax, for 2005-06 this was £885.42. Standard percentages are applied to this figure to provide the Band A to H figures.

The budget has to be approved by Council. Once approval has been received, subject to any amendments, departments have to formalise their budgets and provide the details to Corporate Finance to amalgamate them into the Budget Book. This takes place during February and March and the Budget Book is published in early April.

Contact Details

Email: finance@wiltshire.gov.uk
Postal Address:
Corporate Finance
Wiltshire Council
County Hall
Trowbridge
Wiltshire
BA14 8JJ

Related Documents:

Last updated: 19 March 2009