Your Essex: budget and delivering for our extraordinary county

Your Essex budget special

At our Full Council meeting last month (Tuesday 13 February) we announced that we are allocating an extra £12 million for priority work on our highways. Over £8 million of this will go towards new crews who will prioritise repairs raised by local councillors.  

In 2024/25 there will be a council tax increase of 2.99%, plus the 2% adult social care precept. The increase will help bridge the gap seen nationally in areas such as children’s services, adult social care and Home to School Transport.   

The plans include how and where the council’s more than £2 billion budget will be spent on services across four priority areas. These are:  

• a strong, inclusive and sustainable economy  

• a high-quality environment 

• health, wellbeing and independence for all ages  

• a great place for children and families to grow 

Read more about the council’s 2024/25 budget and priorities for the coming year.  

Read our council tax information leaflet for more information on how much we spend per day on some of the service we provide to the people of Essex and an explanation of our spending and charges.  

Since publishing Everyone’s Essex in October 2021, we have now launched Delivering for our Extraordinary County. The document outlines what we have achieved so far and importantly what we will deliver on in line with our four aims in the next year.  

These aims are weaved throughout all our work. We specifically use these as sections in our monthly newsletter, Your Essex, which demonstrates active projects, successes, and case studies from across the county. 

For each aim we have provided one example of how we will work towards and deliver on our four aims before the end of March 2025. In Everyone’s Essex we set out what we have achieved across all of these commitments since we launched Everyone’s Essex. There are also over 100 examples of how we will meet our aims over the next year.  

Councillor Kevin Bentley, Leader of the Council and Councillor Louise McKinlay, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Levelling Up, Communities and Business Engagement said:

“We are immensely proud of the work that the Council has done over the last three years to make good the promises we set out. And we are hugely optimistic about what we can achieve over the next twelve months to go even further in the pursuit of these ambitions. 

“This document demonstrates what we have done. Not promises or wishes but hard achievements. And it sets out what we are committed to doing before the end of this Council period in March 2025. Our track record of delivery to date should give us all confidence in our ability to achieve these ambitions.” 

We’ll continue to share our work and projects with Essex residents on our social media channels, website and in Your Essex. If you find our monthly round-up valuable, please share Your Essex with others.