Council begins early work to tackle 2026–27 budget gap

19 September 2025

West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) Administration has highlighted the difficult choices that will be needed as the authority works to bridge an estimated £50m shortfall in its budget for next year.  

The Council is currently forecasting the gap in its revenue budget for 2026-27 – the money it spends on the day-to-day running of services. In essence, the level of funding has not kept pace with our growing population and the continued rise in demand for services supporting the most vulnerable residents, such as children’s and adults social care, temporary housing for homelessness and SEND school transport. This means we have to find more efficiencies to balance our budget. 

Action is under way to identify more savings and efficiencies that will seek to address the shortfall, which equates to around 10% of its overall budget, so that the Council can balance the books for the next financial year.  

Like all councils across the country, WNC continues to face significant financial pressures annually and has already found £115m of savings since its creation over four years ago. 

When the new Administration took over in May, we could see the huge scale of financial challenges inherited and how the Council had continued to make significant savings year upon year. 

But we can also see that demand and costs to meet that demand escalate each year with two-thirds of our annual budget funding statutory services that protect our most vulnerable children and adults. As the Council benchmarks well in terms of its cost of delivery this makes closing next year’s budget gap even harder and possibly the most difficult to date. Tough choices lie ahead. But our top priority will always continue to be protecting essential services, wherever possible, and continuing to deliver the value for money that our residents rightfully expect.

Cllr Mark Arnull, Leader of West Northamptonshire Council

We’ve started work on identifying and shaping proposals for next year’s draft budget to help us bridge the shortfall, which includes exploring further savings and efficiencies and looking at how we can be more consistent in our approach to things like fees and charges for discretionary services.  

There is also some uncertainty as we await the outcome of the Government’s Fair Funding consultation, which will provide greater clarity on funding and future budgets. While we are hopeful this will reflect the significant rise in our population and demand, the final position will not be known until mid-December, and we need to press on and be prudent in our approach in the meantime.  

We’ll leave no stone unturned in our budget work and by doing so we may need to consider proposals that not everyone will agree with, but it’s important we review every option to address these significant challenges.

Cllr John Slope, WNC’s Cabinet Member for Finance

We’ll be developing proposals over the coming months, with the draft 2026–27 budget due to go to Cabinet in December. Residents will then have the chance to give their views during public consultation before the final budget is agreed by Council in February.