Issue - meetings

To receive the Medium Term Financial Strategy 2026/27 – 2029/30.

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Customer Services presented the report of the Director for Finance, People and IDT, which sought the Council’s approval of its Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) for the four years 2026/27 to 2029/30.

This overview report, together with the following linked reports on the agenda for this meeting, formed the Council’s overall Medium-Term Financial Strategy for the next four years and the budget framework for 2026/27:

·         The Capital Strategy

·         The Medium-Term Capital Programme

·         The Investment Strategy

·         The Treasury Management Strategy

·         The Prudential Indicators

The report also built upon the MTFS report considered at Cabinet on 6 January 2026, which had been subject to public consultation and scrutiny by members of the Council’s cross-party Business and Finance Scrutiny Committee since that date. The January report was itself an update of the Council’s four-year MTFS approved at full Council on 27 February 2025, and this report remained consistent both with that strategy and the approach to prudent and successful financial management exercised by the Council for many years throughout an unprecedented and protracted period of severe financial constraint.

Councillor Hannington said she was presenting a MTFS with a clear, honest, fully compromised and practical approach, which chose stability and responsibility and by making difficult decisions early rather than waiting for crisis to dictate its actions. 

The Council had delivered £195m of ongoing savings since 2009, and yet, demand for the Council’s most essential services in adult social care and children's safeguarding, continued to rise sharply.  Seventy pence of every pound the Council spent now went into social care as it refused to abandon vulnerable residents simply because demand was hard to meet. 

This budget put people first and did so with clarity and conviction with £15.8m additional investments being put into adult social care and £2.7m more for children’s safeguarding.  These two services were not optional nor negotiable or something the Council could scale back and would fund these properly.

The Council continued to keep Council Tax as low as possible and, despite the proposed increase of £1.20 per week for a Band B property, Telford and Wrekin remained the lowest Council Tax authority in the Midlands for the services it provided, which was an achievement no other authority in this region could match.  Crucially, every penny of that increase went towards social care. 

The Council’s £437m Capital Programme was proof of that ambition and it was building more homes for local families through Nuplace and Telford and Wrekin homes, better roads and safer highways, new school places, which included vital CEN provision, regeneration in Station Quarter, Oakengates and Wellington, improved leisure facilities, new green infrastructure and climate-focused investment.

Investment was not a luxury but was the foundation of a strong local economy and thriving communities, and the Council would not step back from it.  The Cabinet Member made it clear that savings were not easy, but through consultation it had collaborated with Town and Parish Councils and worked with the voluntary sector in order to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47