Where we get our money from
The council receives money from a variety of sources, including taxes, government grants and income from fees and charges.
Some of this money must be spent for specific purposes - it is said to be ring fenced - while other parts of it, we can decide how best to use it to deliver our services.
Ring fenced grants
A large chunk of our budget is in the form of ring-fenced grants for things like schools, housing benefit or council housing. We can only spend this money on those specific things.
How we pay for 'day to day' services
If we take out the big ring fenced grants then we are left with around £760 million to pay for day to day services.
While that is a larger amount than last year, our costs have increased more than our income, and inflation means our spending doesn’t go as far.
We receive this money from a combination of sources including - it is projected - in 2025 to 2026:
- £149.7 million in council tax
- £132.4 million from fees, charges and sales
- £109.4 million from business rates
- £190.9 million from Government grants
Government grant funding for day to day services
The amount of money we receive from the Government, in the form of grant funding, is a lot lower now than in the past.
For example, while the amount of Revenue Support Grant we received in 2025 to 2026 increased by £0.2 million compared to the previous year, it was still only around a quarter of the amount we received in 2013 to 2014.