Our Corporate Strategy for 2025-28 plays a key role in service delivery over the next few years. It guides where we spend time and money to create a city which offers opportunities for all.
Sustainable Future City Council
This is a key priority for us and we have a strong focus on financial sustainability, which will include maximising use of our land and buildings and reintegrating services back into the council where appropriate. We will invest in our staff so we that we have the best people and the right skills to provide services, with a focus on improving our use of digital, data and analytics.
Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rules
These are the formal rules and procedures that govern how we set and manage our key financial and strategic policies. Full Council is responsible for the adoption of the Budget and Policy Framework, which is set out in our Constitution (Part 4, Section 6). Once a budget or a policy framework is in place, it is the responsibility of the Executive to initiate and implement it. Executive functions are undertaken by our Cabinet.
Financial plan
Our financial plan consists of a range of documents including, but not limited to:
- Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS)
- Annual Budget 2025/26 (opens PDF on the Democracy Peterborough website)
- Reserves Strategy and Policy 2025/26 (opens PDF on the Democracy Peterborough website)
- Treasury Management Strategy (opens PDF on the Democracy Peterborough website)
- Sales, Fees and Charges Policy
Together they align the financial resources with our priorities.
Medium Term Financial Strategy
The Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) provides the financial framework within which financial stability can be achieved in the medium term to deliver our core priorities and sustainable services.
Each February, Full Council formally approves the MTFS for the next three years.
The MTFS is refreshed annually and reviewed each quarter. Cabinet considers any updates.
Visit our Medium Term Financial Strategy page for more information and to view documents.
Annual budget
Alongside the approval of the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS), in February each year, Full Council approves the annual budget for both revenue and capital income and expenditure. The revenue budget covers the day-to-day operational expenses of providing essential services. The capital budget funds long-term investments in infrastructure and assets.
It is a legal requirement for a council to set an annual budget and for that budget to be balanced or fully-funded. As far as the revenue budget is concerned, the main requirement is in the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which sets out the procedures for setting the council tax.
The annual budget also needs to meet all the usual compliance requirements for any major council decision.
The annual budget is one of the most important decisions we make. It is a detailed financial plan outlining how we intend to spend money over the next financial year. It shows how we have allocated financial resources to achieve the objectives set out in the Corporate Strategy. Our annual budget is crucial for setting the amount of council tax and ensuring that we operate within our financial constraints.
Setting the budget is probably the biggest, most complex exercise that we undertake as part of our annual cycle. Getting this process right is vital to our success. It contributes significantly to what we can achieve for Peterborough. Without a sustainable budget which supports long-term financial resilience, our plans, services and aspirations may suffer.
Therefore, it must involve all councillors, our Corporate Leadership Team and many staff members.
View the budget report 2025/26 on the Democracy Peterborough website (opens PDF).
Budget principles
We have developed the following budget principles to underpin our budget decisions and seek to limit the impact of budget cuts on the city’s most vulnerable residents.
We will:
- Continue to manage budgets carefully, with control on expenditure ensuring the best possible services and strive to obtain value for money for the taxpayer.
- Be responsible and strive to become a financially sustainable council by developing a robust rolling three-year Medium-Term Financial Strategy.
- Produce a Medium-Term Financial Strategy which supports our net zero carbon objective sand helps us create a council which is environmentally as well as financially sustainable.
- Set a direction of travel to improve the council’s financial health and resilience by increasing reserves balances and reducing our borrowing where appropriate. This will be outlined within our annual Reserves Policy and Capital Strategy.
To achieve this, we will:
- Fully consider the benefits of increasing Council Tax in line with the maximum referendum limit to ensure the council is best placed to continue providing the same range and quality of services.
- Continue to find alternative ways of providing services more efficiently and effectively by working jointly with partner organisations such as the health sector, the voluntary sector, local businesses, and other local authorities.
- Take every opportunity to maximise technology, digitalisation and transform working practices to make the council more efficient.
- Seek to generate additional income by reviewing our sales, fees, and charges, including those for discretionary services.
- Where possible, we will protect services that support the city’s most vulnerable, including adults and children’s social care services. However, some of our current services may stop; many will have to be delivered differently or reduced.
- A reduced budget will likely mean that the size and composition of our workforce will change. We'll treat our staff with respect, do all we can to retain staff through redeployment and retraining, to minimise compulsory redundancies.
- Seek to maximise income opportunities from commercial services and investments.
- Maintain a tight grip on our capital expenditure, by maximising grant income and prioritising schemes in line with our capital strategy principles - this will contribute towards reducing the council’s total borrowing.
- Maximise the use and return from our estate by maximising the use and return on our assets.
- Scrutinise all requests for investment to ensure we maximise the return (financial benefits) and protect our reserves balances.
- Conduct an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) for our budget proposals.
- Develop a process by which in the council’s overarching budget setting process, wherever possible, spending and investment plans are focussed on enabling the Council to better achieve its corporate objective of achieving net zero carbon by 2030. We will also undertake Carbon Impact Assessments of all major budget proposals.
- Conduct consultation on the tough choices we must make and be transparent with any stakeholder groups, groups of service users or staff who may be affected by any cut, reduction, or significant change in service provision, and explore with them other ways to provide the service.
Underpinning all the above, we will be open and honest about our financial position with our residents, businesses and service users.
View the following documents:
Legislation
- The Local Government Act 2000 states that it is the responsibility of the Full Council, on the recommendation of the Executive (called the Cabinet in our council) to approve the budget and related council tax demand.
- The Local Government Act 2003, Section 25 requires the council’s Section 151 Officer to report to the council on the robustness of the estimates made and the adequacy of the proposed financial reserves assumed in the budget calculations. You may notice that we sometimes call the Chief Finance Officer, the Section 151 Officer.
- The Local Government Finance Act 1988, Section 114 requires the Section 151 Officer to report to all of the authority’s councillors if there is or is likely to be unlawful expenditure or an unbalanced budget. The council must meet within 21 days to consider the report and during that period the authority is prohibited from entering into new arrangements that will cause money to be spent. You may notice other councils being reported in the press who have issued a Section 114 notice.
- Failure to set a legal budget may lead to intervention from the Secretary of State under Section 15 of the Local Government Act 1999.