City Council Budget Set for Agreement This Week

Leicester City Council will make the final agreement of its most difficult budget in decades at the meeting of full council on Wednesday (Feb 22).

Cuts to Government funding have meant the council has to reduce its annual spending by around £40 million over the next three years.

City Mayor Peter Soulsby said: “When I was elected last May I knew that, because of the substantial cuts in Government funding, the most challenging issue I and my colleagues were going to face in our first year was to set the council budget.

“Over the last few months we have spent a huge amount of time discussing options with colleagues, with our staff and unions, with partners and of course with residents and businesses in the city. As a result of these discussions we have made some changes to the proposals we published at the beginning of January.”

The council has carried out two consultations – the first asking people which services they value most and the second asking people to respond to its detailed budget proposals.

The changes now being put forward take into account the council’s developing plans for its elderly care homes as well as the retention of a teenage pregnancy coordinator. The changes also include additional staffing to ensure plans to relocate libraries go smoothly and more funding for the successful city wardens service than previously proposed.

The City Mayor added: “People really seem to understand how difficult it has been for us to come up with proposals to take large sums of money out of our budget.

“We’ve tried very hard to avoid these cuts having a serious impact on our front line services. Whilst I can’t pretend there won’t be an impact, I think we have managed to keep it to a minimum.”

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