Consultation results

The most recent public consultation on the budget covering 2009/10 and 2010/11, was carried out in the summer of 2008. The proposed strategy for spending on services on which consultation took place, remained unchanged in the budgets approved for 2009/10 and 2010/11.

Citizens’ Panel

The Citizens’ Panel is a representative sample of 3,500 Hampshire residents whom are regularly consulted on County Council policy and spending. During July 2008 a questionnaire was sent to the County Council’s Citizens’ Panel seeking views on service spending priorities and on potential spending levels of either £2.5m per annum or £5m per annum above the levels contained in the provisional budget for 2009/10 and 2010/11, to finance additional spending on new service developments. This would require council tax increases of 3.5% and 4.0% per annum respectively. The questionnaire was sent to 1,072 panel members of which 411 responded (a 38% response rate). This is not a particularly high response rate for a Citizens Panel questionnaire, so the results could be argued to be a useful sounding board of opinion, rather than robust research.

Annex 1 shows an extract from the responses to the questionnaire relating to spending priorities and the spending options outlined above.

ANNEX 1

The responses revealed that support for additional spending is highest in relation to youth clubs, outdoor centres and other facilities for young people, care for the elderly and road and footway surface maintenance. 54% of respondents supported spending of £2.5m per annum higher than currently planned (36%) or £5m per annum higher (18%) compared with 26% who supported the planned level of spending and 20% who favoured an alternative option or did not express a view. Though this response needs to be interpreted with care, it supports previous research indicating that despite public concerns about the sustainability of council tax increases there remains support in Hampshire for further development of a range of local authority services.