Our budget 2021/22

Protecting the vulnerable and supporting Sutton's recovery

From setting up the food hub to supporting local businesses, your council tax has enabled us to deliver hundreds of services while responding to the pandemic. 

But we are facing a big challenge: our government funding has been more than halved since 2011, while demand for services and the cost of providing them continue to rise.

The challenge

More than 70% of our budget is spent on supporting Sutton’s vulnerable children and adults. Following COVID, more and more residents are needing our help. 

These are some of the most important services we provide, but also the most expensive. We are budgeting in 2021/22 to spend: 

Our solution

Our budget for 2021/22 sets out how we will invest £150 million to protect services and support Sutton’s growth at this critical time:

This is our average spend on some key services per household*:

*Total average spend on these services per household, funded by council tax, business rates and government grants.

We’ve made savings and service improvements to offset some of the rising costs of providing care to more and more residents. 

But with more than 70% of our budget funded by council tax, and no long-term funding for social care, we have no choice:

To make sure we can continue to look after people in Sutton when they need us the most, we need to increase council tax by 1.5% and apply the government’s adult social care precept of 3%. For the average household (Band D), this means an extra £1.23 a week. 

We know that this increase comes at a challenging time for many residents, and we’ve done everything we can to keep the increase below the maximum of 1.99%. Support is available for those who are unable to pay.