SUPPORTING our most vulnerable residents and making our borough a greener, fairer, safer place for everyone is at the heart of what we are here to do as a council.
As we set our annual budget for 2023-24, we must protect support for those residents who rely on our services most, while also meeting the financial pressures of the national economic crisis, rising demand and ongoing insufficient government funding.
More than half of everything we spend in Kingston each year, 57.5 per cent, goes to providing vulnerable adults and children with social care support - and these needs are rising all the time. Many of us are lucky enough that we may not need to rely on these services, but for those who do, they are vital.
Despite the national economic pressures and spiralling demand for essential support, unlike other local authorities the Government has reduced Kingston’s central grant from £66 million in 2010 to almost nothing this year. While we receive some specific grant funding, we have to rely primarily on council tax and business rates to fund the services we deliver for all. More than 70 per cent of what we spend comes from council tax and more than 15 per cent from business rates.
This year we will be spending £161.1 million on vital services for residents. We are proposing a new £500,000 community resilience fund to support residents and community groups through the cost of living crisis, which will complement the continued support from the household support fund. We are investing in mental health provision to support assessment and care, and are looking at new and innovative ways to deliver services, working with communities, voluntary groups and partners.
Work is underway on a new specialist autism school, due to open in September 2023, and there are further plans for two more schools. We have recently opened a new specialist dementia care home in Surbiton, and work has started on delivering a brand new accessible community leisure centre in Kingston, bringing health and wellbeing facilities for the whole borough.
Alongside this we are continuing to deliver against our climate action plan, working to remove single-use plastic from our buildings, plant more trees and encourage more people to use sustainable transport through initiatives such as increasing the number of school streets in the borough and installing more electric vehicle charging points.
Delivering the services that make our borough a great place to live, work and visit,
while also providing value for money, has become increasingly challenging in recent years as the money we receive from central government has been cut so dramatically.
While the limited funding available to us means we face some tough decisions, our effective financial management in recent years and clear plans for the future mean we are in a stronger position than many to face challenges ahead. We have put the borough’s finances in order, taken the decisive action needed and started the work to build effective community resilience. This means we can continue to focus on the key services our residents rely on and pursue our path to making our borough a greener, fairer, safer place for all.
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