Your Bucks, Your Say on Buckinghamshire Council's budget
Overview
We want to hear which services you think should be prioritised in our budget.
Like all councils, we must balance our budget each year. This means we cannot spend more money than we receive. Rising demand for services we are legally required to provide, as well as rising energy costs and inflation, is putting pressure on council budgets across the country. Last year, we also had our government funding cut by more than £44 million.
Three quarters of our budget is spent on four key services that we are legally required to provide:
- adult social care
- children’s services
- home-to-school transport
- temporary accommodation for those experiencing homelessness
Despite these challenges and due to the measures we have taken, we remain in a robust financial position with a three-year balanced budget plan agreed to 2029.
We have made significant savings to balance our budget while continuing to invest and provide value for money in Buckinghamshire.
By finding better ways of working, using technology wisely, reducing waste and working closely with partners, we continue to manage financial pressures and deliver priority services for residents. Our current budget plans include investment in:
- continuing weekly bin collections
- preventative road maintenance to improve longevity of road surfaces
- council-run Children’s Homes and increasing fostering places
- planning enforcement
- town centre regeneration
- continuing the Horizons programme to support young people in to work
- using artificial intelligence (AI) to help staff work more efficiently, improve customer service and automate routine tasks
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How the council is funded
We distribute funding to schools on behalf of Government through a specific grant, the Dedicated Schools Grant, in line with national rules for the fund.
We also receive grants to fund public health services like support for stopping smoking, being more active and addiction services.
How your money is spent
Our budget explains how much services will cost and where the funding will come from.
We have a total net revenue spend of £607 million for 2026 to 2027. Every £100 we spend is spent as follows:
More information on the service areas
Adult social care - £39 in every £100:
- Care and support services for older people and vulnerable adults which includes support for people:
- living at home
- living in care
- coming out of hospital
- with disabilities
- Mental health services
Children’s social care - £21 in every £100:
- Improving outcomes and actively promoting the life chances of children in care and care leavers
- Safeguarding and encouraging the welfare of children, including protection against child sexual exploitation
- Support for children with disabilities
- Fostering and adoption services
- Helping young people stay away from crime and avoid re-offending
Roads and transportation - £15 in every £100:
- Road maintenance including inspections, pothole and road repairs, drainage and emergency response
- Public transport, client transport and home to school transport
- Road safety including winter gritting and improving the flow of traffic
- Rights of way and footpaths
- Transport strategy, including our ambitions, policies and plans for future investment in our transport network such as new roads and key infrastructure
Costs of running the council - £10 in every £100:
- Administration of Council Tax collection and Housing Benefit payments
- Legal and democratic services, including elections
- Risk, audit and insurance services
- Information communication technology
- Finance
- Human resources and organisational development
Waste, recycling and environment - £5 in every £100:
- Bin collections
- Household waste recycling centres
- Enforcement including fly tipping and littering
- Street cleansing and grounds maintenance
- Dog control
- Tackling the challenges presented by climate change
- Energy and water management
- Flood management
Education (excluding the schools’ Dedicated Schools Grant) - £3 in every £100:
- School admissions, school improvement and school place planning
- Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities
- Support for young people not in education, employment or training
- Early help for children and young people
- Adult learning and skills
Customer services - £2 in every £100:
- Customer Contact Centre
- Face to face information, advice and support to residents at Council Access Points
- Digital and web services
Protecting public safety and communities - £2 in every £100:
- Registrars and celebratory services
- Cemeteries and crematoria
- Coroners
- Environmental health including food safety, health and safety in the workplace, pollution control and housing standards
- Trading standards
- Licensing
- Crime, anti-social behaviour and drug or alcohol abuse
- Domestic abuse, sexual violence, stalking or harassment
- Extremism and terrorism
- Modern slavery and child exploitation
- Local partnerships between the council, community groups, organisations and local people to identify key local issues and take action to address them
Housing and homelessness - £1 in every £100:
- Advice when looking for a home
- we do not own any housing stock - affordable housing in Buckinghamshire is provided by over 70 Registered Providers (housing associations)
- Help if you’re homeless or at risk of homelessness
- Housing grants, loans and debt advice
- 'Helping Hand' - our scheme for helping people struggling with the cost of living pressures
Planning and economy - £1 in every £100:
- Planning applications and advice
- Planning enforcement
- Building control
- Strategic and local planning policy, including local development plans and neighbourhood planning
- Town centre regeneration
- Markets
- Strengthening the local economy through skills, employment, investment and better digital connections
Culture and leisure - £1 in every £100:
- Country parks, parks and play areas
- Leisure centres
- Libraries
- Arts and culture
- Museums and heritage including archives
2027 to 2028 is the second year of our three-year budget plan. We are proposing to allocate the 2027 to 2028 budget in line with the three-year plan.
View detailed proposals in our Medium-Term Financial Plan 2026/27 to 2028/29.
Capital budget
As well as our budget for delivering day-to-day services, we have a capital budget for one-off long-term projects. For example, infrastructure work on roads or buildings.
Our overall capital budget totals £655 million over four years. For 2026/27, this is broken down as follows:
View more information about our Capital Programme 2026-27 to 2029-30.
Glossary
Net spend is expenditure minus the income we receive from customers and ringfenced grants.
Revenue spend is the day-to-day running costs of delivering our services.
Capital spend is one-off expenditure for projects such as infrastructure work on roads or buildings. It helps to deliver revenue savings, for example by investing in Children’s Homes and temporary accommodation.
How to have your say
You can tell us your views by completing the online survey using the link at the end of this page.
If you have any questions about this activity, or require this information in another format or language, please email us at consultations@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.
Please tell us your views by 11:59pm on Sunday 18 October 2026.
What happens next
We will consider all the feedback we receive and use the findings to help us develop the draft budget further.
A detailed draft budget will be published in early 2027 for further feedback and scrutiny. It will then be finalised and agreed at Council in February 2027.
Privacy
We will use the information you provide here only for this activity. We will store the information securely in line with data protection laws and will not share or publish any personal details. Survey responses will be analysed using Microsoft products including Copilot, Excel and Word. For more information about data and privacy, please see our Privacy Policy.
If you have questions about data and privacy, please email us on dataprotection@buckinghamshire.gov.uk or write to our Data Protection Officer at Buckinghamshire Council, The Gateway, Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury, HP19 8FF.
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