Let's Talk Budget 25/26 - Waste Proposal

Overview

Introduction  

Stockport Council provide over 800 services to support and improve the lives of residents, businesses, and visitors in Stockport. Our annual budget is £336 million. Every year, we must balance our spend with the income we receive. 

The cost of delivering our services is increasing. Alongside the uncertainty at a national level, the budget pressures have been exacerbated, and the financial risks the Council faces have significantly increased, through: 

• Children’s and Education services increase in need for support– driven by increasing need for Looked After Children placements, cost of external placements linked to the complexity of children’s needs and resilience of our families.  

• Homelessness – increasing with an acute shortage of affordable housing and more people needing support and increase in the use of temporary accommodation. 

• Adult Social Care – financial risk emerging as a result of demand, demographics and costs associated with commissioned packages of care.  

• Increased need for support emerging from the Cost of living crisis - including increased costs of service provision across social care and preventative services. 

• Ongoing implications of the Covid-19 pandemic – including longer term implications for Leisure, Children’s Services and reductions to commercial income which has not recovered to a pre-pandemic position.  

• Workforce shortages, along with recruitment challenges within Council services and that of our partners and supply chain affecting the delivery of services or supplies. 

• National Pay Offer – The employers 2024/25 pay offer has now been agreed and is expected to cost the Council circa £4.2m.  

• Inflationary Pressures – resulting in increased costs across a range of different areas. Although inflation rates have reduced compared to 2023/24, we are still experiencing an adverse impact on all goods and services bought by the Council. 

Achieving a balanced budget whilst delivering our longer-term ambitions is extremely challenging. We can only achieve this by making difficult decisions, robust prioritisation of our resource, and ambitious changes in the way we work to deliver services if we are to continue to meet the needs of local people today and in the future. The consequences of not achieving this are increasingly visible across the wider local government sector with an increase in government intervention and an increasing number of councils across the country warning of significant financial distress and bankruptcy. 

In this consultation we are encouraging our residents, businesses and other stakeholders to tell us what you think of our budget proposals, helping us to determine how we can deliver services in the best way. 

What we spend our money on: 2024 

We need to make changes to our services in order to make savings  

We are shaping our budget within an uncertain, unstable, and complex environment. This includes pressures across public services, our supply chains and addressing the increasing need within our communities for support. 

Our Medium-term financial plan (MTFP) shows that the money we plan to spend delivering services is more than our income. In 2025/26 we need to find £24.517 million savings with further significant savings needed in the coming years. 

Only by operating differently and making significant changes will we be able to balance our budget.  Like many councils across the country, we face significant financial challenges, especially in the current climate of government funding not keeping pace with the increasing costs and level of support that our most vulnerable residents need. 

Over 70% of the council’s budget is used to provide essential services to Stockport’s most vulnerable children and adults, at a cost which is increasing year on year at the same time as funding is being reduced year on year. 

How we plan to make savings in 2025/26 

We recently published our Responding to Our Medium Term Financial Plan update which outlines how we are responding to the financial challenges ahead. As part of this response, we are developing a number of savings proposals. Some of these proposals will have no direct impact on the way we deliver our services, however others may lead to a different way of operating or delivering some of our public facing services. For those proposals that may lead to a change in service delivery we would like to gather your feedback and thoughts through this consultation.

Alternative formats 

Printed Version: You can request alternative formats such as a hard copy, large print. 

E-Mail: You can request an email version of the consultation by contacting us at consultation@stockport.gov.uk  

Language Support: If English is not your first language and you cannot get support from a friend or family, we can offer language support;  

Email consultation@stockport.gov.uk  

The consultation is available in libraries across the borough of Stockport on request.  

This consultation runs from 21st November 2024 closing at 12noon on 20th December 2024.

What happens next 

Responses will help to shape the development of these proposals which will return to Scrutiny Committees in January ahead of final sign off at Budget Council in February 2025.  

Why your views matter 

We must make sure we direct money to where it is most needed and want to find out what people think about our budget proposals. 

How to give your views 

Complete the survey online. 

To request a paper copy of the consultation, write to us at: 

Consultation and Engagement 

Fred Perry House 

Edward Street 

Stockport 

SK1 3UR