KCC Budget

Kent County Council (KCC) provides a huge range of essential services to the people of Kent, spending over £1.5 billion each year. The government’s settlement for next year assumes modest increases in Council Tax together with some additional grants. This will mean KCC have additional funding, however, these increases are still likely to be insufficient to fully fund the rising costs of council services.

There are some big decisions ahead and KCC would value your views before setting next year’s council budget (April 2020 to March 2021).

Give us your views on the 2020-21 budget

You can read more below about council services and spending.

2019-20 revenue spending – excluding schools

The chart and table shows how KCC spent money in 2019-20 – excluding schools.

Service	Total spend (£m)	Total spend less income (£m)	Total spend less income (%)
Adults and older people’s services	543.5	396.1	40.2%
Children’s social care	187.7	155.0	15.7%
Borrowing costs	118.3	101.5	10.3%
Waste management	75.4	73.1	7.4%
Transport services	86.3	72.4	7.3%
Management support and overheads	94.2	69.4	7.0%
Highways	41.4	32.7	3.3%
Children’s other	140.4	23.3	2.4%
Costs of running our operational premises	29.4	21.6	2.2%
Other direct services to the public	40.8	21.1	2.1%
Community services	36.9	14.6	1.5%
Schools’ services	20.6	3.7	0.4%
Unallocated	2.1	1.9	0.2%
Public health	68.5	0.0	0.0%
School and high needs education budgets	81.2	0.0	0.0%
Total	£1,566.7m	£986.4m	100.0%

Services for children, young people and families

84 children’s centres and early years services
Supporting 1,594 children in care and 1,703 care leavers
Emotional wellbeing and mental health services
Health visiting and child health checks
Fostering, adoption and 10,000-plus social work cases
KCC Travel Saver and home to school transport
Working with 583 schools on places, planning and access
Special educational needs and disability including transport
Apprenticeships, skills and career pathways for young people

Services for all residents and communities

Public health and wellbeing services
Sports, arts, culture and heritage
Highways, waste management and concessionary travel
Active travel, public rights of way and country parks
99 libraries, mobile libraries and archives
Community safety, emergency planning and trading standards
Protecting the natural environment
Registration and coroners’ service
Economic development and strategic planning

Services for older and vulnerable people

Support for 4,878 adults with learning disabilities
4,140 permanent residential care placements
Respite, safeguarding and support for 152,000 carers
Support for 3,215 social care clients with mental health issues
Support for 1,171 older people in nursing care homes
Partnership working between health and social care
6,993 people receiving care and support at home
Support for 5,335 adults with physical disability and sensory needs
2,363 people using day care services in their community

How KCC are funded

Funding for our budget comes from many sources in addition to Council Tax, including grants from central government. Nearly half of the council’s budget (excluding schools) is made up of money we receive from Council Tax. Each year we set a budget to decide how much we’re able to spend on services for Kent residents and businesses for the next financial year, compared to how much income we’re likely to get from government and local taxation to fund this.

Strategic priorities

KCC prioritise spending on services that:

make sure children and young people get the best start in life
help communities to feel the benefits of economic growth by being in work, healthy and enjoying a good quality of life
help older and vulnerable residents to be safe and supported with choices to live independently.

These are KCC’s strategic priorities. Its Strategic Statement Annual Report gives details of how every pound spent in Kent is used to deliver better outcomes for Kent’s residents, communities and businesses.

You can find out more about the council’s finances on KCC finance and budget pages, including what it spends our money on and Council Tax.

Savings since 2011

KCC have saved £657 million since 2011, the chart and table show the areas where these savings have been made.

Area savings have been made	Description	Saving amount (£m)
Efficiencies	Service changes creating savings which have minimal impact on outcomes – doing the same for less	238
Transformation and service improvements	Part of a dedicated programme of changing service delivery – doing things differently	149
One-off savings	Use of reserves	133
Policy savings	Local political choices involving a change in policy	54
Income from trading, clients and service users	Increased income due to changes in external charging and investment strategies	52
Borrowing savings	Savings predominantly from the review of debt financing costs	20
Public health savings to match grant reduction	Savings made within the public health service to match reduction in government funding levels	11
Total		£657m

Tell KCC what you think

KCC would like to hear your views on:

Council Tax – is a modest rise acceptable if it helps to sustain the services you most value?
The future of KCC services – are they focussing on the right priorities or have they got some things wrong?

KCC have prepared a consultation document you can read before answering the questions to help you respond.

The consultation will close on 25 November 2019.

Give KCC your views on the 2020-21 budget

If you can’t complete this online, please use the Word version of the budget questionnaire (DOCX, 84.2 KB).

Consultation documents:

For more details on the UK’s public finances and the terms used to describe them read the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Brief Guide to Public Finances.