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Wiltshire Council unveils budget proposals, continuing long-term preventative approach while living within its means 

Wiltshire Council has published its budget proposals for 2025/26 - detailing how it will continue to invest in key quality services for the county's residents, business and communities, while living within its means and not relying on its reserves.

Published 23 January 2025
County Hall

Public Budget Webinar *

Leader of Wiltshire Council Cllr Richard Clewer and Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Nick Botterill will talk through the 2025/26 Wiltshire Council draft budget proposals and answer your questions.

The webinar takes place on 4 February 2025 at 6pm. Please use the link below to join the webinar on that date. For the best experience, please download Microsoft Teams to your computer or mobile device to access the webinar.

If you would like to submit any questions in advance please email them to communications@wiltshire.gov.uk (opens new window).

Wiltshire Council Public Budget Webinar recording - 4 February 2025 (opens new window)

In a demonstration of its strong position, the council has opted to not increase the Wiltshire Council element of council tax by the full amount government has permitted - instead, proposing to raise it by 4.5% (2.5% for basic council tax and a 2% adult social care levy) rather than the full 4.99% permitted. If agreed, this would see an increase of £1.56 per week for those in a Band D property for the Wiltshire Council element of council tax.

Although the council has received some extra social care funding from government of around £4.8m, challenges have emerged following confirmation of its provisional local government finance settlement at the end of last year, which the council has had to respond quickly to. Through changes to government grants and employees' national insurance contributions, Wiltshire Council has almost £8 million less national funding this year. Most of this funding was via the Rural Services Delivery Grant, which was designed to enable large rural authorities like Wiltshire to meet the extra costs involved in delivery of services across a wide geography with significant travel times - issues not faced by urban authorities.

Other funding recently announced is the Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (EPR) where producers are now required to pay into a national scheme based on the type and quantity of packaging that they place onto the market. In December, government announced Wiltshire's EPR payment with a minimum value set at £7.6 million to be used solely to fund effective and efficient service delivery and increase recycling rates for packaging materials.

 The council has once again mapped out its future financial picture across the next few years, favouring a longer-term strategic approach rather than living year to year with uncertainty. It is proposing its budget for the 2025/26 financial year without the need to dip into its reserves and is able to set aside nearly £6m of the EPR funding to help support future changes in waste services to meet new requirements.

The proposed Wiltshire Council budget for 2025/26 is £527.42m, compared to last year's £490m. The budget for 2025/26 sees a net £37m increase in spending on services, ensuring the resources are provided to deliver the council's Business Plan priorities. In addition, around £53m has been added into the 2025/26 service budgets to support the delivery of services that are focussed on the council's preventative and early help work, delivering the best outcomes for the residents of Wiltshire.

The most significant areas of spend will be:

  • Adult services - £194m 
  • Families and children - £75m
  • Highways and transport - £43.4m
  • Environment (including waste) - £49.5m
  • Education and skills - £38.08m

The council's planning and long-term sustainable approach to its finances continues to have a positive impact on the reserves and its overall financial resilience. The council has ensured that it has the same amount of monies set aside to mitigate financial risks for 2025/26 as it did last year - which is around £34m.

Cllr Richard Clewer, Leader of Wiltshire Council, said: Our preventative long-term approach and investing time and resources into our key services ensures that we are on a firm footing as a council, allowing us to continue to be ambitious while still acutely aware of the challenges we face.

The budget gets trickier to set every year, but we have learned to be as self-reliant as possible and that's perhaps where some other local authorities have fallen short. Councils throughout the country are dipping into their reserves to support their budgets, but we are not in that position. This is despite reduced grant funding from government and increasing costs.

Over the last year we have significantly invested in the likes of our highways, leisure services, adult and children social care, and taken a zero-tolerance stance on enforcement breaches - and we are really starting to see a return on that positive approach. 

We are still having to make tough decisions, such as proposing to increase council tax, but we don't need to charge taxpayers more than is necessary. National funding, particularly support for rural councils like ours, continues to be so precarious and unpredictable so we feel our approach to council tax setting is sensible and responsible.

It's important to us get the absolute most out of every penny we spend as we take our responsibility of being publicly funded very seriously, but I feel the proposals we are putting forward clearly demonstrate an ambitious council as well as a prudent one, with the needs of our residents, communities and business right at the heart of every decision we make.

Investing in services

Despite the challenges that all councils are facing, Wiltshire Council continues to buck the national trend by investing in its services.

Performance in the families and children area of the council continues to be strong following the Outstanding Ofsted inspection in September 2023. Furthermore, late last year the council's SEND services were praised by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission.

While many other local authorities have seen pressure on statutory services, the council's preventative approach and quality practice has reduced and delayed this.

Additional funding of £1m for highways preventative flood maintenance was added to the revenue budget in 2024/25. This is now part of the base budget, allowing this enhanced service level to continue.

The council was awarded a Bus Service Improvement Plan plus (BSIP plus) grant of £2.1m per year for both 2023/24 and 2024/25, and further increased BSIP funding of £5.8m has been confirmed for 2025/26. This funding is to improve, enhance and support bus services, improve infrastructure, supporting services and assist contractors facing commercial failure to ensure services are maintained.

The council's leisure services are proving to be popular with residents, improving their health and wellbeing in high quality facilities with income growth expected to increase over the coming years.

Last year the council allocated an extra £10m over the next two years to spend on filling potholes and a road resurfacing programme that is already helping to prevent potholes and other highways defects in all areas of the county. Work continues in 2025/26 to deliver this vital investment. The investment is also funding more small, local repairs to the highways and verge repairs on rural roads.

The council is continuing its commitment to enforcement, which has seen a number of fly-tipping and planning prosecutions over the past year. A total of £250,000 was previously allocated for 2024/25 and 2025/26 to increase the capacity of the planning enforcement team and address complex and contentious cases. Around £300,000 of other enforcement activities have been identified and delivered in 2024/25 and a further £521,000 has been allocated over the course of 2025/26 to ensure the safety of Wiltshire's communities remains a priority.

Demand for adult social care services continues to be high and the council is doing what it can to ensure people get the support they need. The council's Transforming Adult Social Care (TASC) programme continues to work through a number of priorities. The Self-Directed Support (SDS) project is focusing on improving people's choice and control in terms of achieving their outcomes. TASC also has a focus on prevention, and this is evident in the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) with the council constantly identifying further opportunities to prevent and delay need.

Investing in the infrastructure of the county through the council's capital programme

The council's capital programme outlines the authority's commitment to invest in the infrastructure of the county. The capital programme for 2025/26 has been budgeted at around £253m. It is likely the capital budget will change throughout the year as it's common for time frames on major capital projects to evolve, particularly given the unpredictable nature of inflation at this time.

Some of the capital spend in 2025/26 will include:

  • Council house building and stock refurbishment - £40.5m
  • SEND provision including Silverwood school - £28.6m
  • Structural maintenance and bridges - £16.2m
  • Refurbishment of council housing stock - £15.3m
  • Trowbridge leisure centre - £14m (with more budgeted for the next two years)
  • A350 Chippenham bypass phases 4 & 5 - £13.9m
  • Highways investment plan- £10.4m
  • Schools' maintenance and modernisation - £8.1m
  • Environmental and waste projects - £8.1m
  • Wiltshire Ultrafast Broadband and Wiltshire Online - £1.1m

Facing the challenges head-on

The council is in a strong position, but just like other local authorities across the country it faces challenges and the need to make savings - ensuring it is as efficient as it can be while still providing essential high-quality services. Inflation continues to affect council contracts, while the changes to National Insurance Contributions will also have a detrimental financial impact, as well as the increasing challenges of the investment needed to manage the growing demand and complexity for vulnerable people. The council's proposals provide the details of savings totalling £15.4m, £14.2m of which was included in last year's budget setting process and previously approved. That £14.2m figure has since been amended to £9m to reflect known changes since it was originally set.

Around £6.4m of new savings have been identified to close the remaining budget gap for 2025/26.

The council is proposing to set the Council Tax requirement for Wiltshire at £368.818m for 2025/26 with a Band D charge of £1,886.99 - an increase of £1.56 per week. Therefore, if agreed, the Wiltshire Council element of the Council Tax will increase in 2025/26 by 2.5%, plus a levy of 2% to be spent solely on Adult Social Care. The levy will raise £7m and will help to fund the £20m of inflation and demand growth that has been built into the Adult Social Care budget.

A number of other measures are proposed to make some savings and generate income, such as ensuring the county is maximising recycling being done in the county (as this generates income for the council), an increase in some fees and charges for some services such as leisure and planning, being as efficient as possible with the council's fleet, working closely with further education providers to ensure efficient transport services, making sure the council has the right staffing and management structures, and the garden waste collection cost going to £75 per year (around £1.44 a week).

No final decisions on the proposals have been made, and prior to being discussed and debated at Full Council on 25 February, they will be scrutinised by various groups including members, group leaders, trade union representatives and various committees and task groups.

The draft papers can be found at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council-democracy-budgets-spending.

*Update on 6 February 2025:

Leader of Wiltshire Council Cllr Richard Clewer and Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Nick Botterill talked through the 2025/26 Wiltshire Council draft budget proposals and answered questions on 4 February 2025. You can watch a recording of the webinar.

Wiltshire Council Public Budget Webinar recording - 4 February 2025 (opens new window)

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