This is an engagement exercise and not a formal consultation.  

Each year, Dorset Councillors must make difficult decisions when it comes to setting the budget for the year ahead. Councillors’ main goal when setting the council’s budget is to protect the essential frontline council services that people and businesses rely on, such as adults and children’s social care, transport, waste management and road repairs. 

That’s why we’re asking you to have a go at setting a balanced budget for the council.  

This simulator tool gives you the chance make your choices based on a better understanding of the difficult decisions we make about how the money is spent.   

This tool lets you:  

• Adjust spending across council services   

• See the impact of your choices  

• Choose a council tax rate  

• Share what matters most to you  

Taking part in this exercise does not mean that you are voting for a different rate of council tax. Your responses will help us understand what is important to you when we make our budget proposals later this year.  

If you would like to respond in a different way to this budget simulator activity, you can request a paper version at all Dorset Council libraries.

How to use the simulator  

Use the left-hand menu to move through the different council areas.   

Click on each percentage to increase or decrease the budget for each section.  

You can change statutory services (those we’re legally required to provide) — but in real life, we might not be able to make the changes as this might be illegal. For the purposes of the exercise, we thought it was important to give you this flexibility. The consequences given on the right of each slider are possible results of changes. We can't guarantee this is exactly what would happen. 

When you’ve balanced the budget, click submit (please note, there is one more step to go before your response will be counted) 

Answer a few optional questions — or choose “Prefer not to say”. Then press continue to submit your budget.

Please note, any data collected follows Dorset Council’s privacy policy. For more information, visit our privacy notice page: https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/w/dorset-council-privacy-notice 

If you have any issues or questions, please email comms@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk or call 01305 221000  

We receive very little funding from central government – (just 0.4% of our total income).

We do apply for one-off grants. These grants are awarded through competitive bidding processes and have specific uses  

That’s why we rely heavily on council tax and business rates to fund the services we provide.