Sheffield City Council budget consultation 2025-26

Last year, as part of our budget consultation, we published our draft Council Plan. The Council Plan is our four-year commitment to deliver for Sheffield, based on five Strategic Outcomes and a single mission for our organisation – ‘together we get things done’. Our Council Plan is aligned to our four-year Medium Term Financial Plan.

The Council Plan was agreed unanimously by all Councillors in March 2024 and, over the last year, we have set about transforming Sheffield City Council into a modern, digital and community and customer focused organisation that can deliver for the people of Sheffield.

Delivering our Strategic Outcomes and managing our finances in 2025-26

In the Council Plan, we committed to focusing our budget on the Strategic Outcomes so that the money we have is fully focused on delivering our commitments to the city. Working across political parties and through our Committees, the proposals in the consultation show that we are on course to set a balanced budget for next financial year.

In July this year, we had a projected budget gap of £31.4m for 2025-26. All Council services have been striving to make savings and improve efficiencies this year, and the latest financial outlook shows some success. We have identified additional savings of £22.4m.

But, we know there is still work to do – both in the short-term and in balancing the Council’s longer-term financial situation, which remains in a challenging position, as highlighted in last month’s (November) quarterly budget report. If savings targets do not continue to be met, this would severely damage the Council’s financial resilience further. Efficiency work targeted via the Future Sheffield programme will continue to identify further savings.

The budget proposals also consider the level of Council Tax for the coming year. While all local authorities strive to keep this as low as possible, these challenging financial circumstances make that difficult. A Core Council Tax increase of 2.99% for 2025-26 is being proposed to help mitigate rising costs and increasing service pressures – with a further 2% increase for Adult Social Care services.

Our budget survey

Please click on the link below to take part in the consultation survey for the 2025-26 Council budget. Your views are very important.

The consultation closes on Sunday 19 January 2025 at 11:59 pm.