Our annual residents’ survey, Your Council Your Voice, has launched this week and will run for 6 weeks until Sunday 17 December.
Derbyshire residents are being encouraged to complete the survey, which has 16 main questions including an opportunity for people to give suggestions.
The questions ask for views on where residents think we should prioritise our spending, how satisfied they are with our services and which ones are most important to them, least important to them, and why.
They will also be asked for views and ideas as to how we could save money or raise additional revenue.
Derbyshire County Council Leader Councillor Barry Lewis launched the 2023 survey and said:
“We are all aware of the current economic difficulties and the challenges this brings which affect the council as much as they are affecting households and businesses across Derbyshire.
“Derbyshire County Council has always been a well-managed, efficient and financially stable council which has balanced its books, maintained a robust level of reserves and been able to support vital, high quality, value-for-money services for Derbyshire residents.
“However, the reality is that the financial pressures we are facing are greater than ever experienced before, with most of these pressures being simply outside our control. These include higher than anticipated inflation which impacts all our spending including fuel, energy and materials costs. We are also seeing increased demand for our services, especially across children’s services and adult social care.
“As we look towards setting our budget for 2024-25 work is already on-going across the council to reduce a forecast overspend of £46m in the current financial year which we announced in September. Cost-control measures are in place and we will shortly be reporting on progress.
“This challenging financial situation makes it more important than ever that Derbyshire residents take part in this year’s Your Council Your Voice survey and help us to shape our budget and give us their views on where they think we should prioritise spending.”
Our Cabinet will consider the survey responses relating to the budget, along with budget proposals at a meeting in early February 2024 before the budget is considered by Full Council later in the same month.
Derbyshire residents will be given the chance to have their say about individual proposals which may affect them as they are put forward over the coming months.
Responses relating to non-budget issues in the Your Council Your Voice survey will be used to help shape and improve council services in the year ahead.