Every year, Oxford City Council spends around £100 million providing public services. Now the Council wants to hear what you think of its budget proposals for 2022-23.
The City Council has been impacted by additional costs of the pandemic and a reduction in income from car parks, town hall bookings, leisure centres, rental income from shops and offices and reduced commercial waste and other paid for services delivered by ODS. The overall adverse impact on the city Council’s General Fund is around £23 million between 2020 and 2026. To date the Government has awarded is expected to award the Council around £11 million in financial support.
Budget proposals
Efficiencies of £16.1 million are planned for the four year period. Actions will include reducing office space and supporting remote working, providing more digitalisation of the Council’s services and going cashless, reviewing ICT data storage and software licences, and delivering efficiencies in the homelessness service.
The Council has also had to make difficult choices including a £200k reduction in its £1.7 million community grant funding budget from 2022-23. Parking charges will increase by 50p per hour in city centre carparks and 20p per hour in suburban carparks, but charges in Oxford’s five Park and Rides will be frozen.
Despite the financial challenges the Council is proposing to maintain full council tax support for those on the lowest incomes, protect its Youth Ambition programme that helps disadvantaged 11-19 year-olds, rebuild or refurbish three community centre, continue with its programme to deliver over 1,000 new council houses and continue to invest in decarbonisation measures to enable Oxford City Council and Oxford as a whole to progress to net zero carbon emissions.
The draft budget proposes a Council Tax rise of 1.99 per cent for the next financial year from April 2022, an increase of £6.37 per year, or 12 pence per week, for the average band D household.
Have your say
We would like to hear your views on our draft budget and get a deeper understanding of your priorities, needs and aspirations in relation to our services and your community.
For more, read the Oxford City Council Proposed Budget 2022/2023 and Medium Term Financial Strategy news release.
Let us know what you think of the proposals – visit the budget consultation page. The consultation closes on 31 January 2022.
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