Renfrewshire Council

What our council budget is

Our budget runs from 1 April to 31 March each year and is our spending during this period.

You can read about our budget from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

The council budget sets out our revenue and capital spending for the financial year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March.

Revenue is the day-to-day running costs to provide services and includes salary and wage costs, property costs, supplies and services, administration costs, interest payments and repayment of debts.

Capital spending is what we spend on our council owned buildings and assets, including schools, roads and footways.

At the council budget meeting, any change to the rate of council tax, service charges and housing rent is also agreed.

Where our money comes from

The council receives money from a variety of sources, including taxes, government grants and income from fees and charges.

80% of our budget comes from the Scottish Government Grant, and in some cases, has conditions attached to it (ring-fenced), so we must spend it on Scottish Government priorities.   

Council tax makes up approximately 16% of the council's budget and is spent delivering local services.

The rest or 3-4% comes from income from fees and charges - this is money raised locally from services such as leisure facilities, parking charges, and waste uplift charges.

What we spend it on

Many services are classed as statutory, which means we must provide them by law. These include areas such as education, social care services, most household waste collections, social housing, cemeteries, registrars and environmental health.

Other services are discretionary, and these are services that we provide but do not have to by law. These include services such as culture, garden waste collection, bulky uplifts, sport and leisure facilities, litter picking, grass cutting services and parks.

About two thirds of our budget is spent on children's and adult services including:

• running our schools
• looking after children and young people in care
• supporting people with disabilities and mental health issues 
• supporting and providing care for vulnerable older people
• for Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (RHSCP) to provide adult social care.

The rest supports services for everyone, like:

• waste collection
• street cleaning and lighting
• roads, footways and parks
• outdoor spaces and caring for our local environment
• ensuring our neighbourhoods are safe, clean and green.

We also provide funds for OneRen to operate Renfrewshire's libraries, museums and sports facilities.

We have a separate budget which covers our council housing services as landlord to more than 11,000 households.

You can read more detail about how we will spend this year's budget here.

Reshaping our services 

The cost of services we provide, like household costs, have increased significantly in recent years due to inflation, the increased cost of materials, and increased energy and fuel costs.

As a council we have made savings of around £190million since 2010 by transforming services and working smarter to ensure we can continue to invest in Renfrewshire to make it a great place for everyone who lives, learns, plays and works here.

Moving forward we want to involve local communities and give you a greater say in the decision-making process and how we spend our budget.

We will shortly be launching a new residents survey which will ask local people to give their views on Renfrewshire as a place to live, what the Council is doing well, where improvements can be made and what communities believe should be prioritised moving forward.

Some residents will be invited to take part in a telephone survey, there will be additional focus groups, and an online survey will ensure all residents and key community partners have the chance to put forward their views.