News

To: All Cherwell Town Councils, Parish Councils and Parish

Dear Colleagues

We are encouraging people to participate in our budget consultation and asking for your help sharing information and displaying the attached poster in your community and networks.

Like councils up and down the country, we face significant financial pressures driven by rising costs, particularly in energy, fuel, and materials. These inflationary impacts highlight the need for savings or more income, all while ensuring we maintain essential, high-quality services.

With the budget for 2024/25 requiring £1.5 million in savings, we have diligently explored internal efficiencies and cost-reduction strategies.

Efforts include maximising in-house expertise for projects, securing additional grant contributions, using digital technology to streamline processes, and achieving better value from our contracts and suppliers, such as switching insurance providers.

These efficiencies will contribute £1.2million of savings next year and take us a long way to bridging the budget gap.

We have pulled together draft proposals to find the additional £0.3million of savings and income required to balance the budget, and we are seeking views on the draft proposals at cherwell.citizenspace.com.

The consultation runs until Friday, 22 December 2023.