The Budget Simulator allows you to find out what range of services the County Council is responsible for and how much they each cost.

You can then:

Suggest how much you would like to spend on each service next year- Where do you want to see more or less spent? How much more or less?

The starting point is the Council's proposal to increase council tax levels this year by 4.2%. Test what your choices would mean for council tax levels and the impact on services.

When you are happy with your choices, they will be automatically submitted to the Council who will put them all together to get a picture of the views of different groups of people.

How doing this will help:

Doing this will help the Council to get a better feel for different people's views about spending priorities as plans are made for next year's Budget. The Council will make its final decisions at the end of February 2008.

We hope it will also help you to understand the difficult choices the Council faces in trying to keep council tax increases down, while maintaining and, where possible, improving essential services. Spending more on priorities may mean having to spend less on something else.

Away you go...

The simulator shouldn't take more than a few minutes to do.

Have fun. We look forward to seeing your suggestions.