Survey - Let's Talk Money 2023

North Yorkshire Council now provides all of your local services from rubbish collection and recycling to public health and education, roads, transport and leisure services as well as support for businesses.

Like all councils, and many of you, we are facing major financial challenges from the cost-of-living crisis and inflation. We are also experiencing a big increase in demand for services like adult social care and children and young people with special educational needs.

By bringing 8 councils together to form one new one on 1 April 2023, we are better placed to face the future. By April 2024 we predict we will have saved £5 million a year just by coming together, and there are lots more opportunities to save money that we are already working on.

Despite the tough financial climate we are ambitious for you and the thousands of businesses that call North Yorkshire home.

We have already developed a strong economic strategy which will drive clean growth here and provide better opportunities for employment and skills.

We are bidding for a Local Visitor Economy Partnership which will ensure we make the most of our natural assets and cultural offer, raise the profile of our fantastic places to boost the visitor economy and, of course, our unique food and drink offer.

We are also ensuring the Government understands what we need here through our devolution deal and establishing a mayoral-led combined authority. We will not rest until we have the best opportunities possible for you and this county.

There’s no doubt there are some huge challenges ahead but we want to work with you to face them.  If we all work together we can build a stronger North Yorkshire. Please help us by having a say in this survey on how we spend the money we have available.

We set out the council’s priorities in our plan which can be found on our website and we will use your feedback to inform the next Council Plan for 2024-2028 as well as our budget for 2024-25. 

To help inform your answers, you can also read more about how we use your feedback, and how your council tax is spent on our additional information page.

During this survey please do not put personal or identifiable information into your responses to our free text box questions.

We have a budget of almost £1.2 billion and that may seem like a lot but we have to share that out between lots of services.

This pie chart shows the percentage breakdown of our current spending on services.

Every year the government reviews how much local councils can raise council taxes. Raising council taxes helps manage the challenge of rising costs. 

Given the pressures we are facing, we need to review and consider raising council taxes. 

We want to understand what level of council tax you think feels right to help us continue to deliver important services.

Each 1% increase in council tax will cost the average Band D household an extra £17.60 per year (or £1.47 per month). A 1% increase would raise approximately £4.3 million.

In North Yorkshire, we spend around £315 million on adult social care services every year. There are real strains on these services with rising demand and significant cost pressures in the care market - one in four of the county's total population is aged 65 or over.

The government allows councils to set up a special charge on top of the normal council tax bill called the adult social care precept.  

Each 1% increase in the adult social care precept will cost the average Band D household an extra £17.60 per year (or £1.47 per month). A 1% increase would raise approximately £4.3 million for adult social care.

We are looking at all the options to see where we could make savings and how we can bring in extra money to deliver the services for you and your local community. We’d like to know what your ideas are.

The cost of living is having a considerable impact on people’s lives. A wide variety of support schemes and organisations are delivered by the public and voluntary sector that may be able to help people struggling with the cost of living crisis in North Yorkshire. You can find out more about them on our website.

We took the decision to put an extra £1 million into council tax support permanently last year. This is to help protect the most vulnerable at a time when the cost of living is high.

Last year we asked you about the impact of the cost of living crisis. We want to understand the impact of it this year.