How the budget works

Every year, we agree on a budget for the following year which shows how much money we will be able to spend on services we provide.

The overall budget is made up of five main budget areas:

• The Revenue Budget (also known as the ‘General Fund’) pays for day-to-day spending on a wide range of essential services, that most people use. These include recycling and waste collections, running our parks and libraries, and maintaining our roads. We also provide services that are less visible, such as social care services, which make up by far the largest share of the council’s Revenue Budget (over 70 per cent), providing support to those who need additional help and the most vulnerable in our city.
• The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) is mostly made up of the rent we collect from council tenants. This money is used to plan and provide services for people living in council housing, including repairs and improvements, and for a programme to build new council homes.
• The Dedicated Schools Grant is money received from the UK Government each year to pay for schools and education services for children and young people in Bristol. The grant can only be used for these things.
• The Public Health Grant is a yearly grant from the UK Government, which can only be used to promote good mental and physical health in the city and pay for services that help people stay healthy. This is supplemented by other public health related funding.
• The Capital Budget is paid for by grants from the UK Government, plus some long-term borrowing and money we make from selling assets we own, such as buildings or land. It is used to invest in new transport projects, building things like schools and houses, investment to maintain and improve existing housing, and partnering with other organisations, for example to deliver infrastructure regeneration.

Table 1 shows how much money we have in each budget this year (2024/25).

This consultation asks you about some of the ways we can raise money for the Revenue Budget.

The other four budgets are funded in different ways and the council can only spend the money in those budgets on very specific things. Each year, where required, we consult on these other budgets separately before we set the council’s budget in February.

The money the council has available to spend on delivering day-to-day services to citizens is called the Revenue Budget or the General Fund.

The main sources of income for the Revenue Budget are Council Tax, Business Rates and government grants. Table 2 shows the different sources of income our 2024/25 Revenue Budget is funded from.

Table 2: Sources of income for the Revenue Budget

During the current financial year (2024/25), the council has budgeted £1.2 billion on providing a range of services for the people of Bristol. Figure 1 below sets out how much we are spending this year - including in education, housing and adult social care.

Figure 1: Council spend on services in 2024/25
 

Note:

Of the Education budget, £26.4 million is from the revenue budget. The remainder is from the Dedicated Schools Grant ringfenced budget.

Of the Homes and Housing Delivery budget, £22.9 million is from the revenue budget. The remainder is from the Housing Revenue Account ringfenced budget.

Of the Public Health budget, £14.4 million is from the revenue budget. The remainder is from Public Health related grant ringfenced budget.