Budget consultation 2023-24

Our residents, and the services we provide to the people of Norwich, are at the heart of everything we do.

As a provider of vital public services, the city council spends a little over £100m to support the people of Norwich and the wider good of the city. We know these services, whether they are statutory (the services we must provide such as waste and recycling collections) or discretionary (the ones we can choose to provide such as maintaining the city’s parks and open spaces), are really valued throughout our communities.

Like all local councils across the country, the city council is now under huge financial pressure due to rapidly increasing inflation and dwindling money from central government to help pay for local services.

In 2013-14 we received £7.9m of revenue support grant from the government but that has now reduced to around £200,000. In light of the cost-of-living crisis, the demand for local services is now at an all-time high. As a result, we have got to be honest and practical about the services we can afford to pay for from next year and beyond.

Our budget challenge at a glance

The scale of our financial challenge is very real. At the start of the next financial year (April 2023), the impact of inflation alone will have taken a huge toll on our finances. In February 2022, our budget gap stood at about £4.3m. Since then, it has increased by a further £2m. This will mean making some really difficult choices on certain services and how we deliver them.

Despite the budget challenges we are facing, it is equally important to emphasise the significant investment the city council makes, every single day, when it comes to providing important services as well as how we use our wider role as a key influencer to champion the city.

How to give us your feedback

• Complete the survey. Just take a few minutes to fill in our survey – you don’t have to fill in every single question. You can skip the ones you’re not interested in – we don’t mind!
• The consultation is open until 20 January 2023. After this, we will analyse your feedback and add it to all our other work on the consultation. Your views will help to inform some of the decisions we make about future service delivery.
• The findings will be presented to budget council on 21 February 2023 as part of our budget setting process.

Our work so far and how you can help

We very much want to gather your views on a number of key areas in this year’s budget consultation including:

• Our proposed council tax increase
• How we plan to bridge our budget gap
• Our plans on providing council tax relief (Council Tax Reduction Scheme)

But this year we want more than just feedback on our budget proposals.

We want to know what matters to you.

We want you to tell us what you consider to be the biggest challenges that Norwich will face over the next financial year as well as hearing what's personally most important to you. So, we’ve included some questions on these important topics too.

To find out more about the wider financial context, which is informing our financial planning, you can read the budget paper that was presented to cabinet on 14 December ahead of the budget being agreed at full council on 21 February.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read about our budget proposals and for offering your views.