Agenda and draft minutes

None.

To confirm the minutes of the previous meeting held on 4 December 2025.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the previous meeting held on 4 December 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

To receive a verbal update from the Leader of the Council.

The Deputy Leader (chairing the meeting) wished all present a happy new year.

The Council had received additional finance from the Government, which was welcomed in dealing with the issues ahead, especially the rising costs of adult social care.

To receive an update on the Council’s financial monitoring position for 2025/26.

The Cabinet Member: Finance, Governance and Customer Services presented the report of the Director: Finance, People & IDT which provided the latest financial monitoring position for the year relating to the revenue budget, capital programme and income collection.

Thanks to proactive financial management, the Council was projected to remain within budget at year end with a very similar position to the last round. The main pressures remained in social care and full Council was being asked to approve the changes to the Capital Programme, as detailed in Appendix C to the report.

Commenting on the report, the Leader of the Conservative Group and the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group felt that adult social care should be funded centrally by Government to prevent passing the continuing increasing demand being passed to local authorities.  The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group reflected that Telford had been created as a new town 50 or so years ago and, therefore, it was expected that the population would grow and would become an ageing population.

Cabinet Members welcomed the report and, in response to comments, raised a number of issues, which included:

• the Government was looking at the issue of funding adult social care, which due to increased demand was a challenge for the service since it could not turn people away when the most vulnerable needed to be supported. 

• the increasing adult social care demand had been a challenge for many years, including when the previous government was in power and it would have been helpful for the Conservative Group Leader to have challenged the way this was funded at that time.

• As well as Adult Social Care, SEND provision had not been properly funded for years.

• In terms of the adult social care budget, there had been an enormous amount of work undertaken by officers but given that people in the borough were living longer, it created more demand and the Council was working hard to look at how it worked and how it supported people in different ways.

RESOLVED, that:

(a)  The 2025/26 revenue budget position, which showed that due to the proactive in-year financial management, the Council was projecting to be within budget at year end, be noted.

(b)  The estimated total reserves at the end of 2025/26 of £57.3m, which included the £21.7m Budget Strategy Reserve and £4.1m in General Balances, which both remained unused during 2025/26, be noted.

(c)  The position in relation to capital spend be noted and that FULL COUNCIL be RECOMMENDED to approve the changes to the Capital programme, as detailed in Appendix C to the report, and all associated changes to the Medium-Term Financial Strategy, which included Treasury and Prudential Indicators.

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

The Cabinet Member: Finance, Governance and Customer Services presented the report of the Director: Finance, People & IDT, which provided an update on the medium-term financial strategy, which gave an update on the key uncertainties, financial pressures and increased demand for some services. 

A consultation would take place during the period 7 January 2026 and 3 February 2026 with key stakeholders, including the voluntary and community sectors, Town and Parish Councils, businesses, and the Council’s cross-party Business and Finance Scrutiny Committee, as well as through the issuing of media releases and seeking views from residents through the Council’s website.

The proposals demonstrated that despite £195m in cuts to the Council by previous governments, the Administration’s commitment to protect, care and invest to create a better borough had remained. 

The Administration’s promise to do that was always underpinned by three core principles.  Firstly, the Council would maintain one of the lowest Council Taxes in the West Midlands and nationally and would ensure that any increases directly supported those most in need of the Council’s services.  Secondly, the Council was committed to maintaining an efficient Council, using only the necessary buildings and employing a streamlined workforce dedicated to providing the highest possible service for all of the borough’s residents.  Thirdly, the Council consistently sought to generate income from sources other than Council Tax and business rates and that this approach had helped the Council weather the financial cuts imposed by the Conservative government whilst also allowing the Council to protect the services that mattered the most to its residents, protecting every library and leisure centre, the ice rink and theatre, but has also allowed the Council to attract new businesses and jobs and build new homes for residents.

The Council had and would continue to put Telford and Wrekin residents first, the basic premise of which had and always would be to safeguard essential care and invest confidently in Telford and Wrekin's future.

Throughout the country, adult social care demand and costs had surged, and Telford and Wrekin was no different.  Next year, around £97m would go towards adult social care, and over £52m would be dedicated to children safeguarding, which added up to almost £150m or the equivalent of 70% of the Council’s net budget, directed at supporting the borough’s most vulnerable residents.

Every pound from the proposed Council Tax increase would be invested in social care services and this reflected a conscious commitment to fairness, dignity and compassion.  To sustain this commitment, an average increase of £1.20 per week for a Band B home was proposed, which was made up of 72p general and 48p adult social care precept.

Despite this, Council Tax would remain the lowest in the Midlands for the services Council provided, with Band D Council Tax around 19% lower than the Midlands average and £649.21 per year less than the highest midland authority.  Behind every statistic was a person, a neighbour needing home care, a family in crisis or an older person seeking support to live independently.  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB-40

To receive an update on Council initiatives in relation to climate change adaptation and its progress to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Planning and Sustainability, presented the report of the Director: Housing, Commercial & Customer Services, which updated Cabinet on progress being made to meet the Council’s target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and meeting the challenges of current and future impacts of a changing climate.

The Cabinet Member said that this report was the annual update on progress to Becoming Carbon Neutral by 2030 and she wanted to thank the teams across the Council since this was embedded across the organisation, which took climate change very seriously.  In thanking the teams, the Cabinet Member paid particular thanks to Ian Wykes, the Council’s climate change lead, for bringing everything together into this quite lengthy report. The update, which related to the 2024/25 Municipal Year, would usually be brought to Cabinet in the autumn and the Cabinet Member would look to doing so moving on.

The Council continued to be on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, having reduced its carbon emissions by 63% since it declared climate emergency in 2019.  There was a lot of misinformation being deliberately circulated on this subject and it was clear that some of this was now starting to affect the political consensus, which had up to now been united in the need to reduce carbon emissions in order to stop the planet getting warmer and warmer.

Carbon dioxide was a natural gas, which existed in the atmosphere and was needed as it was part of the natural carbon cycle.  It was a gas that trapped some of the heat from the sun around the earth, which made the earth habitable. The cause of climate change was primarily the burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas, which released carbon that was locked away deep underground.  Since the start of the industrial revolution, the excess carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels in huge quantities had been building up in the atmosphere and was now approximately 50% higher than it was at pre-industrial levels.  Aesthetic excess carbon dioxide was now trapping more of the sun's heat, causing global temperatures to rise and the rate of change was faster than any observed in millions of years.

The fast pace of change being seen did not allow time for species to evolve and adapt to a warmer climate, and this had huge implications for our own species. When talking about carbon neutral or net zero, this did not mean removing all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but was about returning to that balanced carbon cycle where the amount of carbon dioxide released from people’s activities into the atmosphere and through natural processes was then matched by that, absorbed, and removed from the atmosphere. There was not a debate on this and the scientific consensus for climate change was overwhelming.

The Cabinet Member said there were those who agreed that climate change was happening, but say that the UK had done enough, and this was a problem for countries like China, but that  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB-41

To approve the Telford and Wrekin Youth Strategy.

The Cabinet Member: Early Years, Children, Young People, Education, Employment and Skills, presented a report by the Director: Education and Skills, which set out the proposal of the Youth Strategy in Telford and Wrekin. The proposal was underpinned by the Council’s statutory duty, as outlined in Section 507B of the Education Act 1996, to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, that sufficient educational and recreational leisure-time activities were available for young people.

The Strategy was forward thinking, inclusive and had a need led approach that truly reflected the best of this Council's work.

The thoughts of the borough’s young people who had been involved in shaping the Strategy were shared with Cabinet.  Young people had told the Council what mattered most and the Council had listened.

This included being safe, having things to do and having their voices heard.  They said that the importance of having a child's opinion on their community was very important as the child was going to grow up in the community that residents lived in, and it was not all just based around adults but also the opinions and the sacrifices that children would like to make for their community.

The Cabinet Member thanked every young person who shared their ideas and helped develop the strategy and their voices had guided the Council every step of the way and that, as a Council it had set its ambition to be truly child-friendly and one of its key outcomes was ensuring that children and young people felt heard.

That message had come through loud and clear as a priority throughout this process and this strategy was more than words on a page, it was a commitment shaped by the voices of those who mattered most and together everyone could make the borough a better place where every young person felt valued, supported and empowered to thrive.

The strategy was not just a statutory requirement under Section 507b of the Education Act 1996 but went far beyond to create a child-friendly borough where every young person could thrive, was a vital investment in the future of the borough’s young people in its communities.  The purpose of this strategy was to ensure that as far as reasonably practical, the Council was able to provide sufficient education and recreational leisure time activities for young people aged 13 to 19 and for those with learning difficulties or disabilities up to the age of 24.

This, aligned with the national priorities such as the national youth guarantee and strategy guidance for improving young people's well-being.

This strategy was built on three pillars of excellence. Firstly, universal youth activities with a wide range of inclusive opportunities like sports, urban games, uniformed groups such as cadets and scouts, arts and leisure opportunities, many free or low-cost to ensure that every young person had access to enriching opportunity experiences. Secondly, targeted youth clubs, a commissioned model that strengthened youth work with a youth worker-led provision for priority groups, that embedded quality assurance, long-term  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB-42

To receive the annual Armed Forces Covenant report.

The Cabinet Member for Communities and Civic Pride, presented a report, which highlighted that the Council had made a clear and sustained commitment to support the borough’s armed forces community and the report provided an update on the work that had been undertaken during 2025/26 to:

• Support the Armed Forces community within the borough.
• Meet the Council’s commitments to the Armed Forces Covenant.
• Further develop the offer made by Telford and Wrekin Council, and partners, to support its Armed Forces Community and those with an armed forces connection.

The report set out the significant progress the Council had made in supporting the borough’s Armed Forces community and hopefully gave an insight into the outline and the plans for the year ahead.  The Council's Armed Forces Outreach Programme went well beyond the minimum obligations that many other local authorities sadly were in a position to only deliver.

As an employer, the Council had secured the revalidation of the Armed Forces Covenant Gold, awarded by the Ministry of Defence Employer Recognition Scheme, which the Cabinet Member was very proud of and had had a positive impact on employees and the workforce here within the Council.  Equally, it also allowed the Council to think as to how it could help support its veterans across the borough and it had enabled the Council to put some positive initiatives out into the community.

Whether it was a change to the Council’s HR policies, which supported those who had served or were reservists throughout the year, the Council had grown that armed forces staff network and it had been key.  The offer went beyond the valued employees and also focused, rightly, on veterans and their families across the borough.

The Cabinet Member was pleased that the report had identified many positives, and he touched on the opening of the Christopher Turley Armed Forces Community Hub where a significant amount of work had gone into generating, creating, staffing and making available a centralised hub that all veterans and their families could access throughout the year.  There was an ongoing commitment detailed in the report to ensure that this went from strength to strength.

The Hub was a dedicated space, which provided tailored advice and support, and the Cabinet Member said it had been a pleasure to be involved with this year.

The Council had continued the expansion of its Outreach Programme, which now delivered over 55 hours of community engagement on a monthly basis and included cafes, craft groups, drop-in sessions to tackle isolation and improve well-being.

The Models for Heroes Programme had been a runaway success and had attracted a high profile in the press since it was clearly something that was valued.  He said it had been a privilege to have joined them on a number of occasions and the work that they had done had provided a lovely, very kind and supportive environment for those veterans, regardless of how and where they had served, to come together and take part in doing something that  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAB-43