During November 2004, a public consultation was undertaken on the 2005/06 budget. It consisted of sending questionnaires to nearly 1000 members of the public and holding five consultation meetings through the county. These sought to discover the public's opinion regarding Council services and expenditure, and views of an acceptable level of Council Tax.
From nearly 1000 questionnaires sent, 150 responses were received.
|  |  52% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the Council services were good
Education and Personal Social Services were regarded as the most important Council services, although more people wanted to increase spending on Transport and Environmental services than any other services
The majority of respondents believed that the Council should have control over a larger proportion of its funding than it does at present. | | |