Council approves balanced budget for coming financial year

The final budget was voted on by full council at a meeting today (Wednesday 25 February). It is a legal requirement for councils to put forward a balanced budget, but it has warned it is doing so under increasingly difficult national funding conditions. As a result of the government’s ‘Fair Funding Review’, Buckinghamshire is seeing a reduction in funding of £44.5m as the Government diverts resources away from the county to other geographical areas with higher modelled needs.

Steven Broadbent, Leader of Buckinghamshire Council said: “While I am pleased that we are once again able to bring forward this balanced budget and keep resident priorities top of the list, the Fair Funding Review has placed a further strain on our finances at a time when demand for statutory services continues to grow. We are losing both grant funding and the level of business rates we retain. There is nothing fair about that.

“Our residents are being let down by central government and we are having to pick up the pieces. The Government assumes that we will raise council tax by the maximum amount when it allocates our funding.  Even then, in real terms, this revenue will not go far enough to cover vital services so we will have to work even harder to balance the books in future years.”

Steven continued: “It is only through prudent budgeting in previous years and keeping a continued focus on where we can make savings and efficiencies, that we are making sure that every pound we spend is value for money. We are continuing to prioritise the areas that matter most to residents including investment in roads, maintaining weekly bin collections and funding for education and special educational needs provision. This is alongside our commitment to maintaining and protecting our statutory services which our most vulnerable residents rely on.”

The council has made significant savings to run a balanced budget, totalling £116.8 million in its first five years of operation as a unitary authority. A further £70.5m of savings is expected to be delivered by the end of 2025/26.  Additional savings totalling £109m have been identified over the next three years, to allow the council to keep investing in local services as well as providing the critical statutory support services such as social care.

This means that in order to set a balanced budget the total savings made since Buckinghamshire became a unitary authority in 2020 will total £296m, the equivalent of 67% of the council’s budget since 2020.

Some confirmation of some additional grants from the government has been received, however, these are ringfenced grants that can only be spent within certain areas and do not match the funding lost via the Fair Funding Review.

The basic rate of council tax in Buckinghamshire will rise by 2.99 per cent from 1 April 2026, and the Adult Social Care precept will increase by 2 per cent, meaning a total rise of 4.99 per cent, or an extra £1.86 per week for the average Band D home during 2026/27.

Steven continued: “Even with this rise in local tax, the overall ‘core spending power’ - the total funding available to Buckinghamshire Council under the government formula - rises by only 8.2% in the coming three-year period, barely above expected inflation and well below the national average increase of 15.5%. 

“We will continue to protect essential services, invest in our communities and maintain our focus on efficiency, value for money and delivering for local people.”