The council's spending plans 2010/11 to 2012/13

The lead on the budget process is taken by the budget and efficiency group, which is a sub group of cabinet and comprises senior members and officers of the council. Through this group the budget strategy has been developed to provide a financial framework which is linked to the achievement of the council's strategic objectives and priorities. This framework is referred to as the medium term financial strategy as it covers a three year period. The key priorities in this strategy are to develop a budget which:

maintains a policy of low council tax increases
reflects the strategic priorities of the council
continues to seek increased efficiency from existing services
delivers services which improve outcomes and represent value for money
maintains the financial health of the council

The medium-term financial strategy document explains how the council's budget and service planning are linked. It addresses the major challenges facing the city in order to fulfil the council's and our partners' vision for the city as given in our 7 pledges and sub-pledges. Accordingly, clear links have been developed between the key outcomes expected and the resources made available.

The strategy is rolled forward each year and its financial objectives aligned to the key priorities have been identified as follows:

council tax rises to be no more than 3% per annum for Salford's services
resources to be allocated on a policy-led basis
providing for growth in priority services
cuts in service to be avoided wherever possible
improvement in value for money from services through improved outcomes and outputs, continuous performance improvement and cost and performance efficiencies
integrated revenue budgets and capital programmes
reserves to be supported by a detailed risk assessment
making appropriate allowance for expected pay and price inflation and other expected commitments over the next three years
generally maintaining the long-term financial health and viability
taking into account the results of public consultation

The three year projection of our spending requirements forms a key part of the overall strategy. This projection is constantly updated to reflect the findings of the annual review of our services, legislative and demographic changes and the assessment of the progress made against our overall objectives.

The formulation of the 2009/10 budget included a number of one off ‘saving' proposals required to achieve a balanced budget based on a 3% council tax increase. This included the use government grants and excess funds and provisions. These needed to be replaced with alternative saving or efficiency proposals in 2010/11 before any other budgetary factors were considered.

A key factor is the level of the government's financial support to the council, which for 2010/11 was at the level reported in the announcement of the government's comprehensive spending review in 2008/09 covering the years 2008/09 to 2010/11. This provided for a 1.8% increase far below the councils needs. This meant that the financial provision for service growth has been limited to key priorities such as Building Schools for the Future programme, MediaCityUK and the Greater Manchester transport fund and tackling worklessness.

The council was determined to keep any council tax increase to a minimum. This meant that the service growth mentioned above has only been possible through the generation of further efficiencies, the use of excess funds and provisions and the use of the government's area based and performance reward grants. It should be noted that this again includes a number of one-off measures which will need to be replaced for the 2011/12 budget.

Within this framework we have been able to set a revenue budget of £220.6 million for 2010/11. This provides for a freeze on the level of our council tax and satisfies the key strategic and spending priorities. In particular additional resources have been put into priority services, some significant spending pressures have been met and substantial increases in efficiencies have been delivered. In addition the council details of how this budget was formulated are given in the following pages.

Calculation of the available resources to fund the 2010/11 budget

This page was last updated on 8 March 2010