HERTFORDSHIRE County Council has agreed a £1.2bn budget to provide services in 2026/27, which includes a 4.99% increase in council tax and £55m savings reports the Local Democracy Reporter.

Education, social care, highways, libraries, public health and the fire and rescue service are all among the services delivered in Hertfordshire by the county council.

And on Tuesday (February 17), a meeting of the county council determined how the £1.2bn budget should be allocated.

The largest proportion of the council’s budget (£563m) will now be allocated to adult care services, and a further £309m to children’s services.

There’s £123m that will be allocated to community protection, which includes the fire service, public health and trading standards.

And £133m will be allocated to ‘growth and environment’, which includes waste disposal and highways services, such as gritting.

Presenting the Liberal Democrat spending plan, executive member for resources and performance, Cllr Chris Lucas, told the meeting it was a “compassionate and inclusive” budget.

He said it had been designed specifically to provide access to the support and services that residents need for a “safe, fulfilling, healthy and dignified life”.

And he said it was a budget that provided short, medium and long-term financial stability.

He highlighted the government’s new funding formula, which he said would take away £40m from the county council over the next three years, and the need for £55m savings and efficiencies.

But he also catalogued plans to invest an extra £107m “in the services that matter most to our residents”.

That included £21m for high-quality residential and home care and £23m to meet the needs of the growing number of older people and adults with disabilities.

It also included £16m to create stable homes for looked-after children and children with disabilities; £6m to improve opportunities and outcomes for children and young people with SEND; £3m to ensure children with SEND get to school safely, and a £1m increase in fostering allowances.

Cllr Lucas acknowledged the 4.99% increase in council tax – equivalent to an increase of £88-a-year for a Band D property.

And he said: “Given the challenges that residents are facing, proposing a rise in council tax has been a very difficult decision.

“However, the alternative would be to make significant cuts to council services at a time when people need them the most.

“Seventy-three per cent of the council’s net revenue budget is funded by council tax, and the Government have assumed this maximum increase as part of the fair funding review.”

He also acknowledged plans for the county council to reduce costs by £55m – that he said would include focusing on prevention, driving innovation, efficiency and productivity, increasing income and making savings “wherever possible”.

“Most of the new savings being implemented are aimed at making services more efficient or utilising additional funding more effectively, and will not essentially impact the quality, quantity, or scope of services being provided to our residents,” he told the council.

During the four-week scrutiny of the budget proposals, the council included new plans to extend the care leaver council tax support scheme to the age of 25, at £150k a year.

And they included an additional £350k for projects designed to improve air quality.

At the meeting, these measures were welcomed by members of the Labour and the Green parties, who backed the Lib Dems to vote in favour of the budget proposals.

Giving a cautious welcome to the proposals, Green Party leader Kirsty-Taylor-Moran told councillors that from a Green perspective the budget contained “steps in the right direction”.

But she said it was still, “shaped by a national funding system that is fundamentally broken and by a political culture that too often confuses short-term survival with long term vision”.

She welcomed money allocated to children’s services, which she said “recognises the level of demand, of historic failure”, and to prevention measures.

Highlighting the £350k allocation for air quality measures, she said they were “very pleased clean air initiatives are being taken seriously by the administration” – but suggested more needed to be done.

“Whilst the 350k clean air fund is welcome, it is modest compared to the scale of the challenges elsewhere in the climate environment,” she said.

“We need faster progress on active travel, stronger integration of climate resilience into highway investment and more ambitious retrofit of council assets.”

She also acknowledged planned sustainability investment, “so that green considerations can run through the entire service programme and not sit in isolated lines”.

And she said: “We know there is an aspiration of the administration to embed climate leadership more deeply across every portfolio and look forward to seeing how this manifests.”

Indicating Labour would back the proposals, Labour spokesman Cllr Ian Albert described the budget as “fair and sustainable”.

But he said that the Labour group would hold the administration to account for their delivery.

He said: “This budget is fair, sustainable – and, thanks to the additional funding from the Labour government, a balanced budget has been set for future years.”

During his speech, Cllr Albert also suggested a number of changes made to the budget had been the result of issues raised by the Labour group.

He said the extension of the care leavers exemption for council tax – from the age of 21 to 25 – was something that had initially been proposed by Labour, in discussion with the Lib Dem administration.

And he also suggested that they had “pushed back” on £1m of “damaging” cuts to youth services, which had not gone forward.

Only the Reform group of councillors suggested an amendment to the budget at the meeting.

This amendment would have reinstated £132k funding for youth engagement activities in the fire service and increased funding for the Carers Hub by £92k.

It would also have invested a further £390k in ‘member locality budgets’ – which enable councillors to support community groups and activities financially – so that every councillor had an annual budget of £10k.

In order to achieve this, they would have removed the council’s central ‘diversity, equality and inclusion’ team, to make a saving of £375k.

And they would have made changes in the capital budget – including the removal of £2.24m for the roll out of 20mph zones and a reduction of £1.4m for vehicle replacement – to reduce borrowing costs by £239k.

The Reform amendment was the only amendment presented to the meeting, but was not backed by councillors.

The opposition Conservative group did not present an amendment to the meeting, but said it was a budget “built on a wing and a prayer”.

Leader of the Conservative group, Cllr Richard Robert,s highlighted a reduction in the amount allocated to the voluntary sector, from £16 to £13m.

And he said the budget for highways maintenance budgets – including cleaning gullies, cutting back hedges and emergency repairs to potholes – had “gone backwards”, with no inflation uplift.

He highlighted £5m staff savings plans, including the MARS scheme (Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme), which enables staff to leave voluntarily.

And he said: “This year of all years had to be different, post-election.

“It had to address the challenge set down by this wretched Government – face up to the financial realities of less grant, capped council tax, rising demand and climate change.

“Major decisions needed to be taken to ease the financial pressure across revenue and capital last year and for this budget.

“But instead the tough asks are being pushed onto staff and the new councils of the future.”

Later adding: “This is not a budget that is locked into and delivering for 1.2m bright Hertfordshire futures – but built on a wing and a prayer; a hope that something will turn up.

“We think this is a dishonest budget; an abject abdication of leadership, with poor respect for staff and residents alike.

“On this side, we reject this budget and its utter lack of aspiration, innovation or honesty – and plead with the administration on behalf of residents, ‘Show some spine and start delivering for Hertfordshire, or we will be back to do it for you’.”

Following the debate, the budget was agreed by the county council, with 40 councillors voting in favour and 31 against.