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Investing in the county’s highways, adult social care and building new schools prioritised in Cambridgeshire County Council’s business plan and budget proposals.

28 January 2025

The demand for services, increasing complexity of need, inflation and market failures mean the county council is responding to a £35.1 million gap for 2025-26, members were told today (Tuesday, 28 January) at Cambridgeshire County Council’s Strategy, Resources and Performance committee.

Despite these challenges, the council’s proposed plans for the coming year include an investment of more than £56m in highways maintenance to tackle the significant backlog of repairs, addressing resident concerns. This includes £14.5m for the day-to-day management of the highway and an additional £20million in planned maintenance of the highway including roads, pavements, drainage, bridges, safety barriers, traffic signals, public rights of way and cycleways.

The business plan proposals include £3m funding to cover inflation for local care providers and an extra £8m funding for the 5% increase in the Real Living Wage.

The Committee will also receive proposals to invest an additional £9m for children who become looked after and £4.7m to support home to school transport services. In addition, an estimated £6m of Household Support Fund will be delivered to support those most in need alongside investment in further improvements in our libraries through £1.3m already committed to the Libraries Plus programme.

Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “We recognise the financial challenges that we are facing as a county, and I am proud of the approach the Joint Administration, supported by Council Officers, have taken. We are listening to our residents, which is why we’re investing more than £56million in highways maintenance. We’re responsible for looking after around 5,000 miles of roads, footpaths and cycleways across the county – that’s a distance roughly equivalent to running around the entire coast of Britain. Historically, we’ve seen underinvestment in our highway’s maintenance, this has left us with a bill of more than £600m. We started the journey last year by nearly doubling our highway maintenance budget and we’re proposing to keep going and invest further.”

Cllr Elisa Meschini, Deputy Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “We’re working hard to tackle the increase in demand and the increase in costs. This is why we want to think differently, intervene earlier, and engage with our residents. We have a plan for the next five years and this includes new primary school builds and expansions, investment in secondary schools to provide new places and investment to create in-county residential homes for children. Similarly, services for adults and older people with care and support needs are under significant pressure due to the wider social and national policy challenges. People are living longer and the impact this is having on the council is huge – for example, between 2020 and 2024 the cost of providing services for older people and people with physical disabilities increased by 64%.”

Cllr Tom Sanderson, Leader of the Independent Group at Cambridgeshire County Council said: “Whilst we have been reviewing what we’ll invest and save for next year, we’re very conscious of future years – current predictions for the council shows an overall funding gap of £134m over the next five years. To be sustainable, we need to change the way we operate whilst still achieving the vision of a greener, fairer and more caring Cambridgeshire. This is why we agreed the ‘Our Future Council’ change strategy to reshape the way the council operates to improve efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. In all this we will make sure that we continue to listen to our residents.”

At its meeting in December, members of the Strategy, Resources and Performance Committee began debating the draft business plan and budget. The feedback from all the council’s January policy and service committees, as well as feedback from our online public consultation (Business Plan and Budget 2025-26 Consultation Survey | Cambridgeshire County Council) and the views of Town and Parish Councils, other local and public authorities, business representatives and trade unions were heard today.

In our pre-budget engagement exercise, just over 50% of respondents supported an increase in Council Tax of up to 4.99% to help maintain or improve essential services.

In a second round of consultation, from December 24 to January 25, most respondents supported the proposals and the council’s vision to make Cambridgeshire Greener, Fairer and More Caring – 85% supported the approach to children’s services, 83% supported improvements to highways and 73% supported helping those struggling with the cost of living.

Proposals discussed included an increase of council tax by 4.99%, the maximum permitted by Government before a public referendum is needed. A total 2% of this increase is dedicated to adult social care services across the county. This increase, if approved, would generate around £20million in additional funding.

“We didn’t want to put the council tax up, but what choice do we have when we’re facing a challenging budget. This reflects the position faced by councils up and down the country, and we’ve seen the national profile on key services such as special educations needs and disability services, this the same in Cambridgeshire. Between 2020 and 2024, there was a 70% increase in children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), cost increases in home to school transport and in autism services over the same period. We do not receive the funding from Government to meet the needs of the growing population in Cambridgeshire, so we must do what we can to deliver value for money in the services we provide, whilst investing in what matters most to our residents.” Cllr Nethsingha continued.

“But we are also aware of - and will help communicate to eligible people - discounts offered to the most vulnerable across the county – including most of our districts where eligible residents can claim up to 100% discount on their council tax.”

Members also heard how the council will continue its journey to achieve its net zero targets and respond to climate change through investment in decarbonisation and reviewing our waste service to ensure the best value for money and the potential to make savings. We will also invest £6million in streetlighting to cut energy costs through installing LED bulbs.

At the meeting today, the majority of members at the Strategy, Resources and Performance committee made its final recommendation to Full Council, which will agree the budget on 11 February.

Today’s draft business plan and budget proposals are available to view on our website and the committee was live streamed on our YouTube channel.