Budget consultation 2024 to 2025

We ran a consultation on our budget plans for the 2024/25 financial year from Monday 13 November to Monday 18 December 2023.

All findings will be shared with councillors before they make decisions on the budget at a meeting of the council in February 2024.

The outlook for 2024/25

Like many other councils, we are facing a financial challenge as a result of increasing inflation and reduced funding.

Just like some of our residents, we have seen unexpected expenses this year. This includes rising costs of fuel, increased cost to run buildings and increased staff pay as a result of the national inflation. This means it now costs much more to run our services than it did two years ago before inflation started to increase.

On top of that we have seen our funding from the government reduce in real terms by around 60% in the past 10 years. We are also expecting our government funding to be further reduced as a result of a shake up of local government funding in the next few years. This makes dealing with these rising costs even harder.

Despite these challenges, we are confident that with careful money management, we can still provide essential local services which you have come to expect from your local council. We also want to continue to tackle the issues you have told us matter to you such as tackling the climate emergency, creating a good quality of life for all, helping our environment and delivering more affordable homes.

We have managed to save some money in the past, which allows us to cover next year's budget gap from our reserves. However, to address this challenge we are also actively looking for ways to reduce costs and increase income to manage our budget for the following year and into the future.

Physical copies of the budget survey are also available in the council offices at Woodgreen in Witney and Welch Way, Witney. 

Where does your Council Tax go?

West Oxfordshire District Council receives only 10 pence in every £1 of your Council Tax to provide the services we are responsible for, including:

• waste collection and recycling
• street cleaning
• parking and public toilets
• planning and building control
• promoting economic growth and regeneration
• leisure services
• environmental health and licensing services
• housing and Council Tax support
• election administration
• social housing and support for homeless people