Corporate Plan 2026 to 2031

What’s changing and what it means for you.

Buckinghamshire is a fantastic place with much to be proud of and enjoy. Like the rest of the country we are, however, seeing rapid change, challenges and opportunities that we need to respond to.

As Buckinghamshire Council, our job is to face into those challenges and seize the opportunities, ensuring that we continue to provide good value for money and good services, and working to ensure that everyone in Buckinghamshire has the opportunity to thrive and succeed.

The main pressures affecting services that residents rely on are:

• More people needing care and support: our population is growing and ageing, which increases demand for adult social care, children’s services and support for children and young people with SEND.
• More pressure on everyday services: rising demand affects things residents rely on, such as home-to-school transport, housing support and temporary accommodation.
• Major development and disruption: nationally set housing targets (over 95,000 new homes by 2040) and major projects like HS2 and East West Rail bring investment, but also construction disruption, extra traffic and pressure on local infrastructure.
• Cost-of-living and inequality: while many areas are doing well, some communities face real hardship and the council needs to focus support where it can make the biggest difference.
• Tougher council finances: demand is rising faster than funding and national funding changes could mean less money kept locally (including around £44.5m redistributed away from Buckinghamshire through the Fair Funding Review).
• Fast national policy change: reforms to planning, housing, SEND, education and skills, health and local government will affect what the council must deliver and how we deliver it.

Alongside these challenges, we have many opportunities: changes in the NHS towards more local, preventative care give us opportunities to coordinate services better and support people closer to home.

There are also opportunities we will build on: growing our local economy and skills so residents can access good jobs, regenerating town centres so high streets are more vibrant, and using technology responsibly to make services quicker, clearer and easier to access.

Our Corporate Plan sets out our strategic priorities for the next five years, including how we will face into these challenges. Alongside this plan we are setting out a delivery plan to show the actions we will take to deliver our objectives, and we will be publishing an annual report every year.

We will publish a ‘plan on a page’ and corporate performance indicators, making it easy to see how we are performing against our goals.

We cannot do this alone. We will work closely with the NHS, schools, police, town and parish councils, community organisations and local businesses to join up support, reduce duplication and make it easier for you to access what you need.