Recent years have been dominated by a rapidly deteriorating national economic situation, with high inflation, rising interest rates and record UK government peacetime borrowing.
This has had a knock-on effect on household budgets, businesses, and a rise in demand for council services. Despite these challenges, the council has continued its strong track record of good financial governance, low council tax, and a balanced budget.
The future operating environment for local government will continue to be challenging, as central government continues to place more duties on councils without providing the necessary funds needed to deliver added services.
Since 2010, central government funding for our borough has been cut by 56% in real terms.
We have kept council tax and charges to residents amongst the lowest in the country - 35% lower than the London average in 2023-24.
Despite this, we are spending more on vital services such as Adult Social Care and are pioneering in a range of areas.
We are continuing to reform the way services are delivered to provide the best value for residents.
Despite the difficult financial conditions, we have provided:
- over one million free breakfasts to school children since 2019
- abolished home care charges
- established a local Law Enforcement Team
- maintained weekly bin collections.
Our ambition
Our ambition is to protect essential statutory council services, particularly those that support residents who have additional support needs or face barriers in accessing our services, whilst maximising our financial self-sufficiency and resilience over the long term.
Short term goals
In the short term, we will:
- embed even tighter financial controls and discipline in how we operate, and ensure we maximise the added value and benefits that can be secured through contracts
- continue to take an ethical and compassionate approach to council tax debt recovery, and improve our ethical debt collection and outreach advice, whilst acting swiftly to recover taxes and retaining high recovery rates
- preserve the delivery of housing services valued by our tenants
- continue to operate a wide-ranging council tax support scheme, whereby many residents who need additional support pay nothing at all
- continue regular assurance reporting for major projects and programmes through our corporate programme management office and strategic leadership teams
- maintain appropriate levels of expenditure on agency workers
- lobby central government for a fair funding deal for H&F.
Long term goals
In the long term, we will:
- build a workforce culture that maintains a ruthless focus on how we use resources
- maximise efficiencies to be gained through digital transformation, income generation, corporate accommodation, and agile working practices
- drive accountability for financial efficiency and revenue raising through all our staff, and particularly our senior officers.