Budget Consultation 2026-27

Overview

The Council spends around £110 million providing public services that you, your family and friends use every day such as refuse collection, street cleaning, parks,  and grounds maintenance and homelessness, to name but a few.  These services are funded by retained business rates income, council tax and government grant. In addition, we spend another £70 million on council housing in relation to the management and maintenance of our 8,000 strong housing stock, and we are planning to spend around £725 million over the next 4 years on major infrastructure capital projects in the city. We want to hear from you on our budget proposals for 2026-27.

We have been through a difficult period in recent years with the Covid 19 pandemic followed by economic turmoil, with high interest and inflationary pressures, which are still struggling to come down to Bank of England targets. Planning for this coming year 2026-27 and the medium term is even more complicated this year, given that we are not certain of the direction of the authority in the light of proposals to re-organise local government. At the same time, the government is overhauling the way it funds councils. Although the Government has said that it will give local councils three-year projections of funding, as of the date of this consultation they have not provided full details of what that will be.

In addition to these uncertainties, we still have significant financial pressures from homelessness where the annual costs are predicted to escalate from their current level of £2 million per annum to well over £8 million per annum unless the councils takes steps to mitigate. Equally our wholly owned companies, like many small to medium sized businesses, are suffering financial pressures which will result in a reduced dividend back to the Council.

In the face of these competing pressures to maintain services, the Council of necessity, needs to increase council tax and some fees and charges on services that we provide such as car parks, garden waste and leisure. It has reluctantly needed to sell some of our assets and make some limited service changes. These proposals, together with transferring around £8 million from our reserves, are necessary in order to demonstrate that the Council remains a ‘going concern’ over the 4 year medium term and can continue to ‘balance its books’ as we move forward into our uncertain future.

The draft budget proposes a

• Council Tax rise of 2.99% for the next financial year from April 2026, an increase of £10.67 per year, or 20 pence per week, for the average band D household.
• Rent rises for our council houses tenants of 4.8% or £8.47 per week

We would like to hear your views on our draft budget and get a deeper understanding of your priorities, needs and aspirations in relation to our services and your community.

Your answers are anonymous and confidential. All data will be stored securely and used solely by Oxford City Council for research and service improvement. This survey complies with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

For more information on how your data is handled, please refer to our privacy policy.