Making it happen – prioritising our resources

Over the past 13 years, Sheffield, along with many other local authorities, has seen a significant reduction in funding from central government. Alongside this, demand for our services is rising. We are taking a proactive, cross-Party approach to ensure we manage this challenge in the best way possible for the people of Sheffield.

This Council Plan sits directly alongside our four-year Medium Term Financial Strategy and we will bring closer alignment between our outcomes and priorities in the Council Plan and what we spend in our budget. Sheffield’s prudent approach to fiscal management means we have a stable footing from which to deliver the required changes to support delivery of the Plan. We will move towards more outcome-based budgets from 2025/26 so that we can bring careful focus on the effectiveness of delivery against the priorities.

However, any changes we want to make to focus our resources on the Council Plan outcomes must be delivered within the financial constraints of the medium-term financial strategy. Over the coming four-year period, the Council has a forecast budget gap of £61.2m, of which £18.1m is in 2024/25. Beyond 2024/25, the picture for funding to local government is less clear but we are prudently planning for very little, if any, increase in funding for councils over the next few years.

Through the Future Sheffield programme, we will transform our organisation so that we become a learning, listening, customer-focused Council that has a strong culture of performance and delivery, values people and drives out discrimination where it exists. This is an essential step so that we put in place the foundation of consistent, modern, and high-quality services to enable us to deliver the outcomes in our Council Plan effectively and make best use of the funding we have available.