The financial context

From 2026/27 onwards, the Council is projecting a budget shortfall of £18.3 million across the duration of our Medium-Term Financial Strategy, to 2028/29. 

Despite this, the Council is committed to balancing its budget and addressing the pressures of rising costs and increasing demands for services. The Council has already delivered £130 million of savings since 2015/16 by changing the way we deliver some of our services. We are also working to reduce the pressures on our budget by focussing on approaches that provide the right help at the right time, preventing the need for more costly, statutory services.  

We’re working to keep children safe at home wherever possible and to get more children who need specialist care into long-term family-based placements, including foster families and kinship care. Family-based placements improve children’s life chances and cost the council less. 

Investing in our roads also helps us to boost the economy and deliver better value to the taxpayer. For example, we build major new roads and junctions that will support people and businesses. We’re also changing the way we maintain our 2,500 miles of roads to reduce costs and improve our service. You can see a wide range of achievements in our Annual Report 2024-2025.