What are the councils responsible for?
In Oxfordshire we have 6 councils, one for the County as a whole, one for Oxford City and four other districts – West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and Cherwell. The county and the districts are responsible for different, but sometimes overlapping areas of work.
This can get quite confusing. For example, the County Council is responsible for roads and pavements, but the City and Districts are responsible for pavement licences for restaurants and cafes. The county is responsible for waste and landfill, but the city is responsible for street collections. And while some car parks and park and rides are owned by the City or Districts, others are owned by the County.
Plans are afoot to merge all of these councils into one or more unitary authorities. However, this is unlikely to happen before 2027.
What does the county council do?
Oxfordshire County Council has a revenue budget for 2024-2025 of £1,131 million. 77% of this is spent on social care, schools and education. Transport is the next biggest area, at 6%.
The Council also has a capital investment budget for 2025-26 of £344 million of which £216 million is to be spent on major infrastructure projects and highways.
The Council owns over 1,400 hectares of buildings and land in Oxfordshire, making it the 15th largest landowner in the county. This includes the roads and verges network, public parks and playgrounds, maintained schools, and public and private properties.
The County Council also has a pension fund of £3.3 billion of which an estimated £30 million is invested in fossil fuel companies.
What do the City and District councils do?
The five district councils including Oxford City have budgets that together only amount to 25% of the county budget.
The city and district councils are responsible for different areas to the county, such as planning, council housing and homelessness, environmental health and licensing, recycling and waste street collections, leisure and community centres, parks, street cleaning, cemeteries, car parks and public toilets.
So your vote in the county elections will have little impact on these areas.
There is a neat explanation of how responsibilities split between the City and the County on the City Council website