About the Council budget savings proposals 2025-26 engagement and consultation
The Council is committed to consulting with local people, businesses, groups, trade unions, staff and other interested parties throughout our budget setting process to:
- be as open, fair and transparent as possible.
- meet our responsibilities under best value statutory guidance.
- ensure we meet our specific duties under the public sector equalities legislation.
- and, most importantly, to provide councillors with more information to help them make difficult decisions when setting the budget.
Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs)
To ensure that the Council complies with its public sector equality duty, and to ensure budget setting is carried out in as fair and as transparent a way as possible, the draft proposals are subject to a systematic process of ‘Equality Impact Assessments’ (EIAs).
This EIA process helps identify if any of the budget proposals may affect any particular groups more so than the district’s population as a whole. If this were the case, this would be considered to be a ‘disproportionate impact’ on those people.
Where any potential disproportionate impact on the groups identified in the equality legislation, and against our locally agreed protected characteristics of low income and care leaver, is highlighted, we will consider the actions that could be taken to mitigate those negative effects.
You can view these assessments in full:
What are we engaging and consulting on?
We are engaging and consulting on our budget saving proposals for 2025-26. The detail of what we are engaging and consulting on is published in these pages and documents as shown in the 'Documents' panel on this page.
If any additional budget saving proposals are approved for engagement and consultation by Council Executive at its meeting on the 3 December 2024, details of those proposals and how submit comments about them will be published on these pages.
The public and interested parties are also invited to take part in separate consultations as follows:
Bradford Council is proposing to remove the dedicated bus services B46, S30, S32, S33 and S34 to Bingley Grammar School and to St Bede’s & St Joseph’s Catholic College. Consultations on these proposals takes place from 6 November until midnight on 18 December 2024. Visit the separate consultation pages for the proposals for Bingley Grammar and for St Bede’s & St Joseph’s Catholic College to have your say. A separate consultation is taking place on the Council’s Post-16 Transport Policy Statement. This consultation runs from 20 November 2024 until 12 January 2025.
Printed copies of the proposals will be available on request – please call 01274 431000 if you would like to request a copy.
The Executive has demonstrated in the past that it is prepared to listen and to modify, change and, if appropriate, withdraw proposals in response to the outcomes of engagement with the public.
How to take part
Website: you can give us your views through our website and through our Let’s Talk Bradford site.
Post: you can send feedback by post, free of charge, as outlined below:
- Use the printable form (PDF) or request a copy by calling this 01274 431000.
- Pop it in an envelope.
- On the FRONT of the envelope – please write
Freepost Bradford Council
ONLY on the front, all in one line and in the middle of the envelope. - On the BACK of the envelope – please write
Budget consultation
(and nothing else).
- Please be as specific as you can in your feedback.
- Tell us which proposal(s) are of interest to you and what improvements or alternatives you think the Council could adopt.
- If you are feeding back about more than one proposal, if possible please give your feedback separately for each particular proposal, such as on separate sheets of paper or in a clearly sectioned list. You can, of course, send this all to us together in the same envelope.
Social media: Social media is not being used as a formal channel for consultation. However, where specific views about proposals are shared in direct response to social media posts about this consultation, we will endeavour to include these as part of the overall feedback.
Consultation timeline
The consultation will be open until Sunday, 22 December 2024. This allows Executive members time to give due regard to any new equality impacts and proposal recommendations. The sooner you can send us your comments the better.
Feedback from the consultation process will inform the development of the Executive’s final budget saving recommendation which will be published in February 2025, prior to the Council meeting on Thursday, 6 March 2025.
- Tuesday, 5 November 2024 – Public consultation launched on the Council website and promoted through a range of communications methods.
- Sunday, 22 December 2024 - public online consultation closes against these proposals, to give the Council’s Executive time to fully consider all the feedback.
- Thursday, 6 March 2025 - Council’s Executive recommends its 2025-26 budget saving proposals to Full Council.
Return to: Have your say on the Proposed Financial Plan and Budget proposals for 2025-26
Paper version of budget questionnaire (174 Kb)