How would you prioritise Wiltshire Council's spending? Help shape our budget in 2025/26

Local authority budgets are under greater scrutiny and pressure than ever before due to increasing demand for services, particularly the high demand for adults' services, children's social care and SEND. Demand has been further impacted by the ongoing pressures caused by the continued cost-of-living crisis, fluctuating inflation and continued higher and unpredictable energy prices.

The short online survey is an opportunity for people to give their views on how the council should prioritise its spending. It is available until Friday 8 November on the Wiltshire Council website at (link https://surveys.wiltshire.gov.uk/Interview/a1a3f516-d175-4d83-9279-891255e5fc56)

Face-to-face interactive sessions recently took place at the libraries in Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge and the online survey gives people who couldn't attend the opportunity to provide their feedback. 

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 its Business Plan priorities. However, we are not immune to the challenging time it is for council finances with growing demand for services and increasing costs.

We want to hear people's views on how they think we should prioritise spending in 2025/26, so that this can 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 coming out to get involved in our recent interactive budget drop-in sessions, it was really useful to get everyone's feedback.

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