Cornwall Council Draft Budget 2024/2025

Cornwall Council plays a big part in people’s lives.

• Every year, we spend over a billion pounds providing public services that you, your family and friends use every day. These services range from ensuring the best start in life for children and young people, providing adult social care for our older or more vulnerable residents, ensuring a safe clean environment, maintaining many parks, beaches and public spaces, collecting your waste and maintaining a safe road system.
• Cornwall Council is also at the forefront of investing in the future of Cornwall: growing our economy and creating homes and jobs for local people; protecting and enhancing our environment, supporting the transition to a carbon neutral Cornwall, strengthening vibrant communities, our heritage and culture.

This year we’ve seen a continued rise in the cost of living and as things become more expensive, we also have higher costs. At the same time, demand for our services continues to grow. Our population is growing, people are generally living longer and the type of services that people need is changing.

This situation has landed some local authorities in financial trouble and has led to warnings that some councils would not be able to offer the legal minimum of care next year. However, Cornwall Council’s robust financial management means we are in a good position to weather the storm. The current administration set out a clear path forward and started making some very tough decisions on how we shape our Council to deliver services in the future, how we prioritise our spending on the services we deliver and how we balance our budget.

Our Business Plan is based on a clear mission for Cornwall Council of working with communities for a carbon neutral Cornwall, where everyone can start well, live well and age well. Our priorities, shaped by our residents and young people, are to make Cornwall:

• A brilliant place to be a child and grow up,
• In a thriving, sustainable Cornwall that offers a secure home, a decent income and a great environment for all,
• With vibrant, safe, supportive communities where people help each other live well,
• All supported by an empowering and enterprising Council that secures great value for money and provides a consistently excellent customer experience.

Our budget proposals reflect these priorities. We are now seeking views on our plans to deliver these priorities within the budget available to us. Our proposals build on the actions we have already taken to reduce the size of our organisation, tackle the housing crisis, turbo-charge our economy, and make Cornwall the first place in the UK to be net carbon neutral.

The public consultation ran for 8 weeks between 15 September and 12 November 2023. The consultation feedback we received has been analysed and is being reported to the Council's overview and scrutiny committees before it will be considered by the Council's Cabinet on 7 February and Full Council on 20 February 2024 to inform decision making.