Balancing Surrey County Council’s Budget 2025/26 Survey

Overview

Our mission 

Surrey County Council is focused on ensuring Surrey is a uniquely special place where everyone has a great start to life, people live healthy and fulfilling lives, are enabled to achieve their full potential and contribute to their community, and where no one is left behind. This is our guiding mission.  

Our Organisation Strategy 2023 to 2028 sets out how we intend to deliver on our mission through our 4 priority objectives. These are central to how we allocate our budget as we deliver high-quality and sustainable services for all.  

Every year Surrey County Council must set a balanced budget, outlining how we use the money we have to deliver essential services across the county and support our priority objectives, such as managing the climate emergency and delivering our ambition of the council to be carbon neutral by 2030 and the county by 2050. 

We work to make Surrey a better place, through the wide range of services we’re responsible for. 

We’re here for you 

Most of the council’s budget is spent on looking after those people who need us most, through Adult Social Care and Children’s Services. 

A significant portion is also allocated to keeping people safe and preventing or responding to serious incidents, particularly across the Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, Trading Standards, and Environmental Services. 

If you want to know more about what we do, you can sign up for the monthly Surrey Matters e-newsletter for news, updates and events in Surrey.

Our draft budget: We want to hear from you 

Below you will find a brief overview of our draft budget position and some of the efficiencies identified to help us set a balanced budget at a meeting of the council in February 2025. We want to hear your views on these efficiencies to make sure we are implementing them in the best way possible. 

We encourage you to read the information below before submitting your response.  

The local government financial climate is extremely challenging. The national picture for public services is one of constrained financial resources. A number of local authorities, across the country are struggling to balance available funding and the uncertainty of future funding with significantly increasing demand and cost pressures. 

The council is experiencing these challenges too, and the financial environment in which we operate requires us to make challenging decisions about the services we provide.  

We would like your thoughts on our proposals to set a balanced budget for 2025/26. The draft budget contains a considerable number of efficiencies as well as areas we are increasing the budget. We would like to hear your views on these proposals to make sure we are implementing them in the best way possible. 

If you would like more details on our draft budget proposals and the specific efficiencies we are proposing, you can read the Balancing Surrey County Council's Budget 2025-26 Consultation Pack. Please see alternative versions of this pack in the related documents section at the bottom of this page.

Closing date

This consultation is open from Tuesday 26 November and will close at 23:59 on Tuesday 31 December.  

Privacy statement

Any personal information you choose to provide will be kept confidential and used in accordance with our privacy notice.

Accessibility  

You can find our accessibility policy here. Alternative versions of the survey can be found in the related documents section at the bottom of this page.  If you require the survey in a different format, language or in hard copy (including a stamped addressed envelope to return the survey), please contact Surrey County Council as follows:

• Telephone: 03456 009 009 (9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays)
• Textphone (via Relay UK): 18001 03456 009 009
• Text (SMS): 07860 053 465
• British Sign Language: Sign Language Video Relay Service
• Email: contact.centre@surreycc.gov.uk