Tell us your budget priorities
Warwickshire County Council has launched an online budget simulator so that residents can suggest how savings should be made locally.
As part of ‘Facing the challenge’, the council’s work on public spending, an online web application has been launched to enable residents to see how the council’s base budget is spent and invites them to suggest how money could be saved.
Following the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the county council has predicted that it will have to make up to £60 million of savings by 2014, of which £19 million will need to be made in the year 2011/12.
The ‘YouChoose’ budget simulator, available through http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/budgetsimulator goes live today (Monday 15 November) and runs until Friday 17 December 2010. The software allows users to adjust the budget and also shows the direct impact their spending decisions would have on local services, from road maintenance to looking after the vulnerable.
Cllr Alan Farnell, Leader of Warwickshire County Council, said: “The scale of the financial challenge means we need to prioritise which services to deliver and improve, while taking tough choices about which ones to scale back or potentially stop all together. We want Warwickshire residents to tell us what is important to them while seeing for themselves the difficult balancing act of making savings while protecting vital services.”
The responses will be summarised in a publicly available report which will be given to councillors before they make final budget decisions on 15 February 2011.
Anyone who is a Warwickshire resident and has access to the internet can use the budget simulator and submit their responses online. Those who do not have access to a home computer can get involved by using computers at their local library.
Warwickshire is one of around 20 councils across the country to use the YouChoose software which has been made available for free by the Local Government Group and the online polling company YouGov. The budget simulator was first used by Redbridge Council and has gained widespread national recognition.