Value for Money 2015

Guidance and data on the financial resilience of the Council

Cheshire East Council has updated a key document to demonstrate its strong financial position.

Cheshire East is the third largest council in the Northwest of England, responsible for over 500 services, supporting over 370,000 local people. Annual spending is more than £750m, with a balanced net budget for 2016/17 of £247.9m.

The complexity of customer demands and the size of the organisation make it very important to manage performance and control expenditure to ensure the best outcomes for residents and businesses.

Strong financial performance

The overall financial health, performance, resilience and value for money at Cheshire East Council is strong despite taking £70m out of its cost base from 2009/10, and freezing Council Tax for five consecutive years.

The Council’s 2014/15 accounts were signed off by the Council’s external auditors, without qualification and a positive value for money conclusion was also provided.

Savings are consistently achieved through efficiency, removing duplication of effort, making reductions in management costs, and planned programmes of asset disposals. The approach continues to protect funding provided to front line services.

In February 2016 the Council reported its Third Quarter Review of performance demonstrating how the Council is continuing to build on the final outturn position for 2014/15 by reflecting a forecast underspend of £0.3m or 0.1% of net budget. This represents the closest variance ever reported for the Council at the Third Quarter Review stage of the financial year and confirmed that the Council’s reserves strategy remains effective in maintaining the risk assessed minimum level.

The Council has robust billing and collection procedures for local taxation this is demonstrated by high, sustained collection rates from its relatively high domestic and non-domestic taxbases.

Value for money headlines

Council Tax Levels have been controlled and inflationary pressures managed.

Gap between inflation levels and Council Tax increases

Core Spending Power is below comparator levels – similar services are provided at lower cost.

Graph showing the difference between Cheshire East Council and near neighbours

Funding sources are changing to place more reliance on local sources of funding.

Graph showing how funding sources are changing to place more reliance on local sources of funding

Further information

Cheshire East Council Value for Money 2015/16

Feedback

Comments remain welcome to the email address: shapingourservices@cheshireeast.gov.uk

Page last reviewed: 17 December 2021