Decision details

“Our key priorities are to continue to ensure that we are a more prosperous county with opportunities for our residents and where people can live healthy and independent lives for as long as possible.

We received a welcome boost to our highways budget in December with the announcement of £8.9million Government funding for road repairs for the current financial year. And looking ahead we will receive an additional £6.1million from the Government specifically for social care in 2019/20.

Both adult and children’s social care place huge demands on our budgets, as with councils nationally. Due to record numbers of young people being placed in foster care we launched a campaign to recruit resilience foster carers. This is aimed at those with experience of looking after teenagers with emotional or behavioural needs.

We are continuing to see near full employment – with just over one per cent of residents claiming out-of-work benefits in the county whilst our economic growth programme goes from strength to strength.

Completed and current projects within the Economic Growth Programme have created and safeguarded a total of 8,489 jobs and delivered 993 houses up to December 2018.

Meanwhile our community libraries programme gathers pace with five more organisations coming on board, bringing the number to 27 countywide.”

Philip Atkins, Leader of the Council

“While we continue to manage considerable financial challenges within adult and children’s social care, our focus remains on ensuring we have a thriving economy with opportunities for better paid jobs and enabling people to live healthy and independent lives.

The latest revenue forecast outturn shows a forecast underspend of £0.997m compared to the forecast underspend of £1.578m at quarter 2 which is broadly similar. 

Our longer-term financial strategy includes proposals to save £35million over the next financial year and efforts continue to identify savings this financial year which can then be carried forward to next.  We will also continue to lobby Government for a long-term solution to the funding of adult social care, which is crucial to ensuring the sustainability of local government and the support we provide to our people.  

We continue to make efficiency savings across council departments and spending controls remain in place across the county council.”

Mike Sutherland, Cabinet Member for Finance