2006/07 budget and council tax

Consultation results

Each year the County Council consults the business community and council taxpayers groups as part of its formal budget consultation process. In the light of the tough choices needed this year due to the below inflation grant increase we felt it was important to consult the public more widely. Therefore three further budget consultations were conducted for the 2006/07 budget.

The Budget Workshop and online budget consultation

The Budget Workshop was a day long event run by MORI to get the views of a representative sample of council taxpayers in Hampshire. This and the online Budget Consultation took place in Autumn 2005 when the level of grant the County Council would receive in 2006/07 was not known. The level of grant when announced in December 2005 was a below inflation increase of 0.2%. However this was better than we had feared and therefore the options presented are in the context of a less favourable grant settlement than eventually announced.

	online consultation	Budget Workshop	Total
4.7% with some cuts in services	27 25%	4 12%	31 22%
6.7% to maintain current spending levels	35 32%	25 76%	60 42%
Some other percentage (response: greater than 4.7%)	5 5%	2 6%	7 5%
Some other percentage (response: less than 4.7% or no response)	39 35%	- 0%	39 27%
No opinion	4 4%	2 6%	6 4%
	110 100%	33 100%	43 100%

The table shows that 61% of those responding online and 88% of those in the Budget Workshop found a council tax rise at a level of 4.7% (or higher) acceptable. In total 69% would find this level of council tax increase acceptable.

Citizens' Panel

The Citizens' Panel is a representative sample of 3,500 Hampshire residents whom we regularly consult on County Council policy and spending. In January 2006 1,164 of the Panel responded to a questionnaire seeking their views on the council tax options for 2006/07. At this time the grant settlement for 2006/07 was known therefore the options presented reflect very real choices faced by the County Council when setting its budget in 2006/07.

Options	Citizens' Panel
Increase council tax above 5% (and risk capping) in order to meet increased demand on services	8%
Increase council tax at just below 5%, which would enable current services to be maintained, assuming some improvements in efficiency, but might require some increased rationing of services where demand is increasing and costs are increasing above the rate of inflation	52%
A lower council tax increase requiring spending reductions of £4 million for every 1% reduction in the rate of increase (for example a 4% increase would require £4 million in cuts, a 3% increase would require £8 million in cuts and so on)	16%
Other	11%
Don't know	8%
Not stated	5%
	100%

The table shows that 52% of those completing the questionnaire supported a council tax increase of just below 5%. Following the consultation this budget and council tax has been set for 2006/07.

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