Where the money for your services comes from

The Council receives funding from a variety of sources. The two main components are Council tax and Government funding. Hampshire County Council's total net budget for 2012/13 is in the region of £698million (excluding schools), of this £164 million comes from general Government grant.

Excluding schools, which are funded by a direct grant, and services funded by specific Government grants and fees and charges, the Government provides 23% of funding towards all of Hampshire County Council's other services. This leaves council tax payers to pay for 77% of the costs of providing essential demand led services such as social care.

The Government provides funding in three ways:

• Revenue support grant
• Business rates

Which are combined to become the 'Formula grant' and

• Specific grants to support certain functions in adults and children’s services

The Government has chosen to distribute formula grant in terms of how reliant councils are on this funding stream and because Hampshire already receives a lesser portion of its revenue from Government than other councils, it has received the largest reduction in formula  grant of 10.4% or a cut of £19 million.

Last year a number of specific grants the Council used to receive were incorporated into our general grant, which means these areas of spend are subject to the same reduction of 10.4%. There are some specific grants that were introduced last year and continue, for example to help the Council with the increase in demand for, and complexity of care for, vulnerable adults in the county.

Council tax provides £534million of our total budget. The Council receives council tax from around 500,000 households with the average Band D household paying £1037.88 a year for County Council services - one of the lowest rates for county councils.

A small proportion of the Council's revenue comes from charging for some services, for example entry to visitor attractions or events, library fines and the contributions some people make towards their care. The Council also receives some grants from other external bodies such as the Princes Trust, National lottery Fund and the European Union which usually pay for specific services or projects.