Budget Consultation: Setting a balanced budget for 2024-25

We published our draft budget for next year on 8 November, which shows how the council proposes to spend its money.

Over a decade of austerity and rapidly rising demand for the services we provide has pushed council finances to the brink.

This, combined with continued high inflation and rapidly rising demand for services, including an ageing population driving an increasingly expensive adult social care bill, has created a perfect storm of unprecedented financial challenges.

Councils in London face a £400m shortfall in funding this year alone with 90% of boroughs expected to overspend on their budgets.

Brent Council has successfully balanced our budget with £210m of cuts over the last 13 years – but we are running out of options.

In the last year, Brent increased the supply of new homes more than anywhere else in the country. Yet this supply cannot keep pace with the tsunami of demand, with hundreds of new families facing homelessness each week.

Our budget proposals

Our draft budget proposals for next year aim to ensure every penny is spent safeguarding the borough’s most vital services and securing financial stability for the years to come. There are some tough choices to make and the road ahead will not be easy.

That is why we have made the difficult decision to propose increasing council tax by 4.99%, with 2% ring-fenced for adult social care.

However as always, we would support families who will struggle to pay this, continuing to invest in the most generous Council Tax Support Scheme in London which provides £32m of support to more than 26,000 households.

Brent Council would like to invite people who live and work in this borough to tell us their views on the proposals for the 2024/25 and 2025/26 budgets. We want to know what services are the most important to local people so we can make the best decisions about where to make savings.

The new proposals for 2024/25 and 2025/26 are designed to limit, as far as possible, service reductions and the impact on front line services particularly during these challenging times.

The Council is asking for views on how it spends its money to help set a balanced budget with increasing costs and reduced Government funding. The information from this survey will be used by Councillors as they set the budget and council tax for 2024/25 in February 2024.

Further information on the Council’s overall financial position and how it intends to set a balanced budget for 2024/25 and 2025/26 was presented to the Cabinet on 16 November 2023. The papers for that meeting are attached to this consultation.