Nottingham City Council has put forward a fully balanced budget for 2026/27 which would see an additional £25 million invested in front-line services while keeping Council Tax increases significantly below the maximum allowed.
The Council’s Draft Budget and Medium-Term Financial Plan has been published ahead of its discussion at the Council’s Executive Board meeting on 24 February.
Deputy Leader, Councillor Ethan Radford, said the budget plans reflect how major improvements made by the authority over the last year had enabled it to get a firmer grip on its finances and deliver value for money for Nottingham people.
Key frontline services such as street cleaning, safety, roads, and parks would be boosted by additional funding totalling £25 million, with an extra £10m worth of investment added to the £15 million already announced for 2026/27 thanks to extra funding received from the Labour Government in the annual settlement. All whilst continuing to deliver across our core priorities in the Council Plan.
The draft budget includes a proposed 3.5% increase in the local authority element of the Council Tax, 2% of which comes from the Adult Social Care precept.
This would be lower than the increase proposed by Nottinghamshire County Council and the first time in many years that the Council has been able to rule out the maximum 4.99% increase allowed by Government. A number of councils across the country have already signalled they will need to set a maximum increase of 4.99%, with seven being given permission to exceed it.
Other headlines from the draft budget include:
- a balanced budget achieved with a £1 million surplus and without the need to use a penny of the Exceptional Financial Support allowed by the Government.
- efficiency savings of £22 million planned over the period of the Medium-Term Financial Plan
- a capital programme of spending on roads, housing, regeneration, and infrastructure projects totals £744.7 million up 2029/30, an increase of £35.6m with the extra investment coming from capital receipts, reserves, and grants and no new borrowing.
- debt reduced by two-thirds from £827 million in 2019/20 down to £287 million this year.
- a prudent level of reserves totalling around £42 million.
Councillor Ethan Radford said: “Over the last two years we have been working hard to get this Council’s house in order after over a decade of having our funding reduced. For 14 years Nottingham, like many urban and deprived areas, has suffered from the effects of underfunding and austerity, with local people being hardest hit.
“This budget marks a huge milestone in this Council’s improvement journey, and with the fairer funding from the Labour Government, ushers in an end to the austerity that has been imposed on us for so long.
“We promised to renew this council – and with the Government confirming the departure of the commissioners as planned, with our financial improvement described as ‘almost unimaginable’, and the first council in recent times to have commissioners leave within the time frame – we are keeping our promise.
“We promised to deliver for local people – and with this budget we will see council tax the lowest it’s been for 18 years, council debt halved in the last 6 years and record levels of investment in frontline services with £25m being invested in the things that matter most to residents – safety, cleanliness, roads, parks, pride in place and more – we are keeping our promise.
“We promised to lead Nottingham forward – and by getting our house in order Nottingham City Council’s finances will become an enabler not a blocker for our city, unleashing our potential, meeting the needs and matching the ambitions of our residents and undertaking the huge piece of work to reshape Nottingham and the wider region through Local Government Reorganisation.
“While we have already come so far in the last two years, our promise to the people of Nottingham to go even further. This is the end of austerity in Nottingham, and the beginning of a new chapter for this council, and this city.”