Norfolk County Council’s budget 2016/17 & Re-imagining Norfolk

This page is design to provide useful links to support engagement with Norfolk County Council’s budget setting process for 2016/17 and wider re-imagining work.

Norfolk County Council Plan

The County Council Plan communicates the Council’s core objectives and challenges to members of the public, stakeholders and staff. It identified four priorities

• Real Jobs
• Good infrastructure
• Excellence in education
• Support for vulnerable people

Re-imagining Norfolk

Norfolk County Council has recognised that after a number waves of spending reductions, and more on the way, it needed to radically change the way it runs services for Norfolk people. This programme is known as re-imagining Norfolk.

In order to achieve this re-imagining, Norfolk County Council has identified three priorities that will enable it to make the changes needed:

• Putting people first in everything they do, to improve opportunities and wellbeing. All underpinned by their priorities for Norfolk: excellence in education, real jobs, good infrastructure and supporting vulnerable people
• Designing seamless public services, regardless of which organisation delivers them. Working with communities to provide support in the right place and at the right time, while helping people stay in control of their own lives
• Improving how they run services, making them more efficient and easier to access

More information about re-imagining can be found here

The Budget

Norfolk County Council’s current forecasts identify that a further £111m in savings is needed in order to balance it’s budget for the next three years. More information on setting the councils budget can be found here.

In July 2015 Norfolk County Council agreed to ask departments to investigate potential models of ‘services for the future’, and to prepare options for what these services could look like in three years’ time, with 75% of addressable spend e.g. identifying 25% savings proposals, higher than those required in order to provide some genuine options for discussion .

Norfolk County Council’s total budget for 2015-16 is £1.413 billion.

Where it was spent:

• £615 million - Children’s Services, including schools
• £359 million - Adult Social Services
• £263 million - Community and Environmental Services
• £76 million - General Finance – includes money set aside for interest and repayment of loans for capital projects (e.g. schools and roads) and pension payments
• £45 million - Running the Council (around 3% of the total budget)
• £33 million – Public Health
• £22 million – Finance and Property Department

Where the money comes from

• 23% - Council Tax. They have frozen their part of Council tax again this year, keeping it at the same rate for the sixth year in a row
• 29% - Schools funding
• 13% - Government, including Revenue Support Grant
• 10% - Business rates
• 7% - Other grants, contributions from other organisations and income for joint projects
• 18% - Income, generated by sales, fees and charges and investment interest

Timetable 

Committee Papers can be found here