Bromsgrove District Council is planning its budget for 2009/10 and wants to put you in your Elected Councillors’ shoes to have a go at deciding where money should be spent in the coming year. The main aim of this online budget consultation is to help us understand what you think is important (i.e. what should be funded in the coming financial year). Your input will be fed back to Councillors before they make their final decisions in January/ February 2009.

The information below is a simplified version of what Councillors use when they are trying to set the budget each year. As part of this, they have to take into account the money available to Council to spend, the unavoidable costs that the Council must pay (for things like statutory duties, implementing new legislation and longstanding financial commitments) as well as deciding how much additional income could be generated from Council Tax to fund services (i.e by increasing the Council Tax level by up to 5%). They then consider all the things that Council officers and the public have said they would like to happen in the coming year and decide which of these they can afford to fund. Only things that fit with the Council’s priorities for spending can be considered for funding (priorities are based on what you have already told us you think are important, current Council performance and national and regional policy as dictated to us by Central Government). The Council’s priorities for 2009/10 are therefore Bromsgrove town Centre, Affordable Housing, Sense of Community and Clean Streets and Climate Change.

We would to give you the opportunity to do the same as our Councillors by following the steps below. We recently asked our Budget Jury - a group of 10 members of the public - to have a go at doing this exercise and they said they were surprised by how difficult it was to decide what to fund, and how hard it was to decide whether Council Tax should go up , and by how much:

1. Please have a look at the budget calculator below. Try to balance the budget for the coming year by ticking the budget bids you think should be funded, and increasing the level of Council Tax (if you wish).
2. Press calculate to see what level of overspend or underspend you have arrived at. Surprised? Have another go!
3. Play around with your selected bids and also with the Council tax increase/ decrease button. Press calculate again to see your budget (you can repeat this by altering your combinations and pressing calculate as many times as you like).
4. When you have decided on a budget you are happy with, please fill in your details and submit your final calculation so that we can pass this on to your Councillors.

Your feedback is important to us, please complete your details below and add any comments you wish to pass on the to councillors.
Clicking Submit will save your budget and comments and send them on to the council.