Hampshire County Council has launched a public consultation to understand people’s views across Hampshire 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 runs until 7 May 2025, and signals the next stage in the County Council’s plans to ensure it can focus support to the most vulnerable people in Hampshire while meeting its legal duty to deliver a balanced budget.

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 cut 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, 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, a number of further savings options are now being proposed and we are inviting residents to provide their views on these proposed service changes, their potential impacts, as well as whether there are any other ways in which the savings might be made.

Covering various local services, the consultation sets out four detailed options to help lower costs in future – by doing things differently and moving towards providing only those services that the County Council is legally required to deliver.

The four options within the consultation cover:

• Planned highways maintenance

• Older Adults Day Services
• Post-16 Transport only

• Both School Transport and Post-16 Transport:

How to have your say

Views can be provided on some, or all of the four service change proposals presented in the consultation.

Feedback can be provided online via the consultation webpage: www.hants.gov.uk/future-services-consultation

Copies of the information packs and the consultation Response Form, along with Easy Read versions of these documents, are also available to view, download and print on the consultation webpage. The documents can be listened to via screen reader and ‘Read Aloud’ technology.

If copies of the Information Pack or the Response Form are needed in another language or format (such as audio, large print, or Braille), or if you have any queries about the consultation, please contact: insight@hants.gov.uk.

Responses can also be emailed directly to Hampshire County Council using the email address: insight@hants.gov.uk or sent in writing to Freepost HAMPSHIRE. (Please also write PandO, IEU, FM09 on the back of the envelope).

Where possible, people are encouraged to consider completing the consultation Response Form online as this will help save money, both in postage and in staff time in manually entering responses to the consultation. Internet access is available through local Hampshire County Council libraries.

Final decisions on the proposals will be made by the County Council’s Cabinet as part of their decision meetings during summer 2025.

We very much hope that you will take the time to respond to this important consultation and would appreciate all you can do to promote participation more widely. We have attached a poster – both in digital and print format - to help in this regard.

Corporate Communications

Hampshire County Council,

Elizabeth II Court South,

Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 8UJ

Corporate.communications@hants.gov.uk