Have your say on budget

With continued savings and cuts being announced by Powys County Council, now is the time to have your say on how it sends its budget.

The council is inviting residents to have their say on budget proposals for 2015/16 before they are decided upon by councillors.

The online survey can be found at www.powys.gov.uk.

In September and October, the council (in partnership with the Powys teaching Health Board) held a series of budget and community delivery events for Powys people to have a say on how we should address the severe financial challenges facing the council over this coming year (2015/2016) and the rest of the decade.  

The key findings from these are on our website at  www.powys.gov.uk/en/promotional-pages/public-events-to-look-at-protecting-services.   

The suggestions on how to save money included:

- being  more efficiency focused,
- commissioning and outsourcing services to save money,
- working in partnership with the third sector and town and community councils,
- sharing buildings and other resources, generating more income by selling services we excel in to others,
- lobbying the Welsh Government for more money for Powys,
- reducing duplication,
- selling excess property
- reducing or stopping services that weren’t viable or were already provided by others. 

Councillor Dai Davies is Cabinet Member with responsibility for finance and he explained: “Following on from the events council officers have now firmed up some final proposals for this coming year's budget.

"A number reflect the views given by you and aim to reduce what we spend without drastically effecting the provision of a service valued by residents.

"A service may look different or be accessed in a different way but it will still exist or it may require people to contribute something towards it whereas previously it was free of charge."

 “We now want to hear your views on some of the key proposals before the council sets its budget. So that we can feed this information in, we need to hear your views by 8am on February 2 2015,” added Cllr Davies.