New graphic shows how Nottinghamshire County Council budget is spent

AN innovative graphic which helps explain how its budget is spent has been launched by Nottinghamshire County Council.

The interactive budget infographic is available to view online at the County Council’s website – www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk – showing how the £1.2bn budget will be spent in 2014/15.

It’s thought that the council is one of the first in the country to display its budget information in such a way.

By visiting nottinghamshire.gov.uk/whatwespend users can see how the budget is allocated and click on different areas of the graphic to drill down into sections and see how money is spent on vital services across the county.

The information is broken down into up to four layers meaning that users can “dig down” into the figures for each service area.

“The interactive infographic is basically our budget book but in visual form,” said Coun Alan Rhodes, Leader of the County Council.

“We live in a visual interactive age and the idea is that more people will look at it than a traditional budget book with rows and rows of figures.”

In addition, new colour-coded graphics will be appearing in a new publication which is shortly to be delivered to households across Nottinghamshire.

They will also be used in other literature and online information from the Council in a bid to get the message across about how and where it spends its budget.

“At a time when every penny counts and we have had to make savings of £154m, we hope these new infographics will help explain what the County Council is doing in a way that is clear, to the point and easy to understand,” said Coun Rhodes.

“More importantly, we hope that the eye-catching way in which the facts are presented will help them stick in people’s minds better and help the tax payers of Nottinghamshire realise that, despite the current economic climate, we are still spending £1.2bn in Nottinghamshire during 2014/15 and providing real value-for-money services.”