Big Conversation: Detailed proposals
For the last decade, Stirling Council, like many other councils in Scotland, has consistently found more cost-efficient ways to deliver services, and has sometimes had to make difficult decisions in order to balance our budget. But the funding and income we receive no longer meets the rising costs and increasing demand for services. This means that we again have to change what we do, and how we do it.
Stirling Council is committed to listening to the views, concerns, and aspirations of its communities and everyone in them to help inform next year’s budget decisions.
In the first phase of our budget consultation, you provided valuable feedback on the services that are most important to you, and those we could improve on. We will be taking this on board, and using it to help make services you use better and more efficient. However, some of these changes will take time to embed.
In the meantime, we have a legal obligation to set a balanced budget for the next financial year. To achieve that, we have identified a range of ways to save money by reducing or stopping a service, and to increase income by charging more for a service, or charging for services that are currently free to access. These are difficult choices to be faced with, but we have to deliver savings to meet our legal requirement of setting a balanced budget.
This survey asks for your feedback on the savings that may have an impact on you. We would like to know whether each of the proposals could affect you or someone you know and, if so, what the impact could be.
We would also like to hear your view on whether anyone with a protected characteristic would be, in your opinion, directly affected by each of these proposals. More detail on each proposal is provided as you go through the survey.
In addition to the savings presented here, which combined will save £2.6 million, a range of other savings that will not have a direct impact on the services you use have been identified. These will save more than £8 million.
If you have any difficulty accessing the survey, or have further questions, please email us at insights@stirling.gov.uk.
Our budget and spending
Out of our total revenue budget of £319.1 million, £60.1 million, or 19%, comes from council tax.
87% of the budget is spent on front-line services, with the remaining 13% funding corporate and business support costs, including public buildings, digital services, and finance services.
The charts below show this in more detail.
The context
The council is in an unprecedented financial position due to external funding pressures, rising costs and inflation, and increasing demand for services.
All Scottish councils receive two types of funding: revenue funding is mainly used to pay for daily operations (like education, social services, waste collection, salaries, and maintenance). Capital funding is used to pay for projects, infrastructure, and new assets (like new paths, improvements roads and bridges, new buildings and schools, and projects like the Forthside film studio). This budget consultation is about how we spend the revenue funding.
In 2024-25, the overall settlement for local government was 1.9% higher in real terms than in 2013-14. In comparison, the amount councils spend on employment (which makes up around 70% of local government revenue spending) increased by 22% over the last 10 years.
The amount of capital funding we received in 2024-25 was the lowest since 2013-14, despite local government in Scotland expecting to have more capital costs than in previous years. This means that many councils increased their borrowing to fund capital projects.
Although inflation on consumer goods has been coming down, inflation on services - which make up a large proportion of what we spend on - has stayed high.
As well as higher costs, the demographic changes are resulting in an ageing population who need more social care services, and more but smaller households, leading to increased spend.
Local authorities across Scotland are facing financial challenges that are similar to, or worse than, those we face at Stirling Council.
The council has a legal obligation to set a balanced budget for the next financial year so it can continue to protect the most vulnerable and deliver on its key priorities.
Phases
Feedback and budget setting
After the survey closed, we read and analysed the responses. We have shared what we have found with officers and elected members to help them make decisions during the budget-setting process.
You can read the report for this phase by clicking the link below.