Information release from Hampshire County Council.
There are just under two weeks left for local people to have their say in Hampshire County Council’s public consultation on proposals to change and reduce some local services and help the Authority address a remaining budget shortfall of at least £97.6 million for 2025/26.
The Future Services Consultation – Spring 2025 forms part of our plans to ensure we can focus support to the most vulnerable people in Hampshire while meeting our legal duty to deliver a balanced budget.
The consultation closes at 11.59pm on Wednesday, 7 May.
Why we are consulting
Prioritising the delivery of vital public services to residents who are most in need is our crucial core function. This includes protecting children from harm, social care for older people, and supporting adults and children with disabilities and additional needs. Demand and costs in these areas are now at record levels, putting immense ongoing pressure on our budgets. Despite having saved over £0.7 billion from our budgets in the last ten years, and continuing to transform how we work, being more efficient, innovative and commercial in our approach to delivering services, this still is not enough, and our budgets simply cannot keep up with that demand.
In the absence of any fundamental change to how central Government funds social care pressures nationally, we continue to seek greater savings ourselves, so we can keep delivering core services (those which we are required to provide by law) to those in Hampshire who need our help the most.
Therefore, four further savings options are now being proposed and on which we have been encouraging residents to provide their views:
• Planned highway maintenance
• Older Adults Day Services
• Post-16 Transport only
• Both School Transport and Post-16 Transport:
Having your say
Views can be provided on some, or all of the four service change proposals presented in the consultation.
There is lots more information about each proposal and details of how to provide feedback on the consultation webpage: www.hants.gov.uk/future-services-consultation