Essex County Council: local authority assessment

How we assess local authorities

Assessment published: 27 June 2025

About Essex County Council

Demographics

Essex County Council (ECC) is an upper-tier authority in the East of England, with 12 district councils in its boundaries. There is a population of 1.5 million, with a mixture of urban centers, rural and coastal communities. Essex has an index of multiple deprivation score of 3. However, there are pockets of areas with great deprivation, with 10% of the population living in areas ranked the most deprived in England. There are also areas of great wealth.

The population is largely people aged between 18 to 64, with Essex having the second highest population of all local authorities in England. The population of Essex is older than average with 21% of people aged over 65, where the national average is 18.6%. Essex has an aging population with the fastest growing age group between 2011-2021 being aged between 70-74, which has grown by 44%.  

Just over 90% of the population are of a white ethnicity, although, ethnic diversity has increased, and the ethnicity of the population varies significantly across Essex districts.

There are 3 Integrated Care Boards (ICB) covering Essex, Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB, Mid and South Essex ICB and Suffolk and North-East Essex ICB. There are 5 acute hospitals in the area, 4 NHS community providers, and 1 Essex-wide Mental Health provider.  

Essex County Council has a conservative majority leadership and has been under conservative leadership since 2001. There are 75 council members in total within Essex, with conservatives having 50 seats, 10 Non-aligned Group, 8 Liberal Democrat, 6 Labour and 1 Independent.  

Financial facts

• The Local Authority estimated that in 2023/24, its total budget would be £1,860,506,000.00. Its actual spend for the year was £1,980,931,000.00 which was £120,425,000.00 more than estimated.
• The Local Authority estimated that it would spend £605,756,000.00 of its total budget on adult social care in 2023/24. Its actual spend was £642,240,000.00, which is £36,484,000.00 more than estimated.  
• In 2023/34 32.42% of the budget was spent on adult social care.  
• Approximately 20,310 were accessing long term Adult social care support, and approximately 9185 people were accessing short term support in 2023/24. Local authorities spend money on a range of adult social care services, including supporting individuals. No two care packages are the same and vary significantly in their intensity, duration, and cost.  

This data is reproduced at the request of the Department of Health and Social Care. It has not been factored into our assessment and is presented for information purposes only.