We use our budget to plan how we make and spend our money every year.
Our income is the amount of money we expect to receive, it is received through various sources.
Our expenditure is the amount of money that we expect to spend. We use this money to provide services such as adult social care or libraries.
Our services
Our services can be split into two categories of:
- statutory services
- discretionary services
Statutory services
Statutory services are our legal responsibility and we must use our budget to fund them. Examples of the statutory services that we provide are:
- adult social care
- children's services
- building control
- emergency planning
- environmental health
- flood risk and coastal protection
- food safety and water sampling
- health, safety and licensing
- highway maintenance
- library services
- local plans and development management
- organising local and national elections
- street cleansing
- waste collection and recycling
Discretionary services
Discretionary services aren't legal requirements but may be very highly valued by us and our communities. These can make Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole a nicer place to live or to attract visitors.
In some cases, providing a discretionary service in one area helps avoid a more costly statutory service in another.
An example of this may be a bus route we fund as a discretionary service, which helps regularly take cars off the road. This active bus route means that, over time, the volume of traffic impacting the highways we must maintain is eased.
Wherever we can, we will look at removing barriers to communities and groups who want to take on some of these activities or expand on the great work they’re already doing.
One example of this work which we are doing already is our proposal to secure the future of the Bournemouth Air Festival.
We have a legal obligation to balance our budget and provide essential services to support the most vulnerable in our society, keep our communities clean and safe, and maintain our services.