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Our spending

• Education and children's services, £1,182,553,000
• Adult social care, £440,936,000
• Other services, corporate and non-distributed costs, £163,917,000
• Cultural, environmental and planning, £120,826,000
• Highways and transport services, £110,109,000

Where our money came from

• Council tax, £531,284,000 , 62%
• National business rates, £141,816,000 , 17%
• Capital grants and contributions, £118,695,000 , 14%
• Non-ringfenced government grants, £56,997,000 , 7%

Non-ring fenced government grants mainly comprise:

• Revenue support grant: general funding from the Government for core council services. It is based on the Government’s assessment of the Council’s spending need, its receipt from national business rates and its ability to generate income from council tax.
• Area based grant: a general grant allocated by the government directly to local authorities as additional revenue funding. Local authorities are free to use the grant to support the delivery of local, regional and national priorities.

National business rates are charges collected by district councils from non-domestic properties, at a national rate in the pound set by Government.The proceeds are pooled nationally and redistributed to areas based on the Government’s assessment of spending need and local resources.

As we get a low amount of Government grant per head of population, most services in Hampshire are funded by your council tax.

Final accounts

The final accounts set out the cost of running Hampshire County Council’s services in 2011/12. These are published in the format required by international accounting standards and the code of practice for preparing local authority final accounts. Full details are available in the 2011/12 Statement of Accounts.

The General Fund

The General Fund balance is the surplus of revenue income over expenditure. It compares the Council's spending against the council tax it raised for the year, taking into account the use of reserves built up in the past and contributions to reserves earmarked for future expenditure.

The surplus on the provision of services shown on the Comprehensive Statement of Income and Expenditure includes items which the Government stipulates should not be chargeable to the General Fund. These are mainly associated with asset depreciation and retirement benefit accrual which do not necessarily lead to short or medium term cash flows. Therefore, these are transferred to the Balance Sheet and replaced with the employer’s pension contribution and the annual repayment of loans for capital expenditure.

• General Fund balance at 31 March 2011

  
  

  21

  
  

• Surplus on the provision of services

  
  

  15

  
  

• Net adjustment between accounting basis and funding basis

  
  

  57

  
  

• Balance before transfer to earmarked reserves

  
  

  93

  
  

• Transfers to earmarked reserves

  
  

  -75

  
  

• General Fund balance at 31 March 2012

  
  

  18

  
  

Further details about the General Fund can be found in the Movement in Reserves Statement and notes 6 to 8 of the 2011/12 Statement of Accounts.

The Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet presents the financial position of the County Council at 31 March 2012. It shows what the Council owned, owes and was owed on that date.

• What we own:

  
  
  
  

• Land, buildings, vehicles, equipment and infrastructure

  
  

  3,724

  
  

• Money owed to the Council

  
  

  466

  
  

• 
  

  4,190

  
  

• Less what we owe:

  
  
  
  

• Money owed by the Council

  
  

  837

  
  

• Pension Fund net liability

  
  

  978

  
  

• 
  

  1815

  
  

• Equals what we are worth:

  
  

  2,375

  
  

• Financed by:

  
  
  
  

• Cash-backed reserves *

  
  

  307

  
  

• Non-cash-backed reserves #

  
  

  2,068

  
  

• Total net worth

  
  

  2,375

  
  

* Cash-backed reserves are available, as needed, to finance revenue and capital spending.

# Non-cash backed reserves would only become usable if the County Council was to dispose of all its fixed assets at their balance sheet value.