What is the financial strategy?
The financial strategy is the Council’s key strategic financial document. It sets out:
- Our overall budget
- Our revenue and capital spending plans
- How resources will be allocated between services, reflecting the Council’s priorities
The financial strategy is updated annually and approved by Council.
- Access the current financial strategy
- For previous financial strategies, search under financial strategy in the Resources section
What’s included in the strategy
The main focus of the Financial Strategy is on medium and long-term planning and decision making to make sure we plan the use of our resources effectively so we can deliver our objectives.
Although it includes specific proposals for a particular financial year, we try to avoid focusing on year-on-year budget setting and the use of short term/one off measures. Instead, we take a more planned and strategic approach.
In particular our Financial Strategy sets out:
- Our medium term financial aims and the measures to be taken to make sure they will be achieved
- Our approach to delivering improved services and value for money over the next few years
- How we’ll develop the financial strategy, including;
- Identifying and prioritising spending
- The key financial influences on the medium term financial planning and the assumptions made in developing the plan
- The challenges and risks associated with the plan and how we will deal with them
- Our policy on reserves and balances
- The resource issues and principles which will shape our Financial Strategy and annual budgets