Public consultation begins on Leeds City Council budget plans for 2019-20

Public consultation is now underway on Leeds City Council’s initial budget proposals for next year. From now until midnight on Friday 18 January 2019, the council is seeking the views of anyone who lives or works in the city on how it should continue to fund the services it provides over the next financial year (2019-20).

The consultation is in the form of an online survey which can be seen at www.leeds.gov.uk/budgetconsultation and will take around 5 to 10 minutes to complete.

The initial proposals set out plans for how the council intends to make the £24.3million savings needed as a result of reduced core funding and rising cost pressures next year. Due to continued increasing demand on adult social care services and a further cut to its funding from government a council tax rise of 3.99 per cent is proposed. The full budget report can be seen at https://bit.ly/2EceuIV (agenda item 18).

In the last budget consultation carried out during December 2017 and January 2018, the council asked a range of questions around the principles of how to fund services and how to prioritise funding to different services. This resulted in 1,984 completed surveys from a range of people from different backgrounds, which broadly represented the population of Leeds residents.

Local government funding reductions, economic uncertainty and pressure on services have changed very little over the past year, so rather than repeat the full exercise 12 months later, this latest consultation will present and consider what people said last year, along with the broad principles of how to best fund services in 2019/20.

The survey will be sent to all members of the council’s citizens panel, and councillors will see the results of the consultation before a final decision is made on the budget in February.

To take part in the consultation go to www.leeds.gov.uk/budgetconsultation

ENDS

For media enquiries please contact:

Leeds City Council communications and marketing,

Tel: 0113 378 6007

Email: communicationsteam@leeds.gov.uk