Budget 2024 to 2025

Open for comments from Tuesday 21 November 2023 to Sunday 14 January 2024.

Current spend and funding

We are keen to understand residents' and businesses’ views on the services we provide and on proposals we have identified that could be used to balance our budget for the next financial year (1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025). 

The Cambridge areas covered by the council are shown on our ward map.

We provide a wide range of services and have set out our priorities in our Corporate Plan.  

Some services in the city of Cambridge are provided by Cambridgeshire County Council (for instance maintenance of the highways, social care for children and adults) or the health service (including GPs and dentists) or other bodies. This consultation is not about those services.

At present we spend about £100 million a year to deliver services in Cambridge, excluding the provision of council homes, which are budgeted and reported separately. This is paid for mainly from the income we generate from fees and charges for services, commercial property rents and government grants.

Our net spend is that part of our total spend that is not covered by the income we generate. It is about £20 million per year and is funded by a share of business rates and Council Tax.

Income

Our total income 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 was £100.5m:

• Housing Benefit subsidy – £26.5m
• Fees, charges and other income – £24.4m
• Business rates – £11.2m
• Government grants – £10.8m
• Council Tax – £9.8m
• Commercial property – £9.5m
• Commercial initiatives – £3.9m
• Interest and investment income – £2.1m
• Reserves – use of money set aside in previous years – £1.5m
• Other – £0.8m

Expenditure

Our total expenditure 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 was £100.5m:

• Housing Benefit – £26.7m
• Open Spaces, Food Justice and Community Development (including cultural services, arts and recreation and community centres) – £16.6m
• Environment, Climate, and Biodiversity (including bin collections and environmental health) – £13.5m
• Central Services (including elections and local tax collection), strategy and partnerships – £10.1m
• Planning Policy and Infrastructure (including car parks) – £9.9m
• Reserves - money set aside to pay for services in future years – £9.5m
• Housing services (excluding council housing) – £7.5m
• Corporate and Democratic Core – £2.5m
• Capital expenditure financed from revenue£1.6mCommercial property – £1.5m
• Recovery, employment and community safety –£0.8m
• Financing prior year capital expenditure – £0.3m

Need to reduce our net spend

We need to reduce our net spending by around £6 million in the next three financial years.

This is due to the increasing demand for our services as a result of the cost-of-living crisis and the growth of the city, which are not matched by increases in our funding from government. Proposals identified in the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) could contribute to that. 

We expect that our annual net spending will need to be around £11.1 million less in 2029 than it is now for the council to be financially sustainable. 

This reduction in net spend in the coming years is in addition to the £13 million that we have already saved over the past five years.

Balancing our budget

We are delivering a transformation programme called Our Cambridge. Through this programme we are building on new ways of working and good relationships we have made with other local organisations, so that we can deliver a better future for our communities and local businesses.

We are also looking at changing how we do things within the council, so that we can maximise the value of everything we do and achieve operational efficiencies, improvements, savings and generate additional income.

Have your say

We are keen to hear your views on our five-year financial plans (the Medium Term Financial Strategy) and the potential savings and additional expenditure included within it.

Please submit your views by completing our survey.

What happens after the consultation

• Draft budget proposals will be discussed at the Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee meeting on 15 January 2024. 
• Your responses to our survey will be summarised and reported to councillors after that meeting. Your responses will then inform our thinking on budget choices and service priorities as we finalise our budget for 2024/25. 
• The Budget will be discussed at a meeting of The Executive on 5 February 2024 and a decision will be made at the Council meeting on 15 February 2024. 
• We will communicate what has been decided after that meeting via our website.