Your views on our 2026-27 budget savings proposals, including a proposal to increase council tax

Overview

Norfolk County Council is responsible for a range of services including social services, trading standards, fire and rescue, highways and transport, recycling centres, libraries, museums, education and supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities, ensuring sufficient school and nursery places, and arranging school transport. 

Each year, the council reviews its budget and proposes the savings it will need to make for the following year to balance its budget.   

Even though our overall spending is expected to increase next year, this is not enough to keep pace with inflation (the costs of providing our services), and the expected increases in demand for our services - particularly in adult social care and children's services.  

This means that for 2026-27 there is a budget gap of £41.6 million. 

We have ideas for how to save money - this year there are 50 budget saving proposals, and we are also proposing to increase council tax, which provides a large part of the funding we need to provide our services.  

These proposed savings add up to £35.7 million – which would make a big contribution to the overall amount we need to save.  

To help us deal with our cost pressures and invest in vital services, our current budget planning for 2026-27 is based on an assumption to increase council tax.

Three options are being considered:

• An increase of 3%

• An increase of up to 5%

• An increase of more than 5%

We want to hear your views on our proposals to help our elected councillors make the right decision, even if tough decisions, in agreeing a robust and sustainable budget for the year ahead.

Our Budget Factsheet (available below) is a brief guide to our annual budget – what it means, where the money comes from and where it goes, why council tax is going up, the challenges local authorities face, and our plans to fix the budget gap. 

Why your views matter

We want to find out what people think about our proposal to increase council tax and our other 2026-27 budget saving proposals.

We are consulting through:

-         The online consultation, which is also available as a paper copy and in different formats

-         Email /Letter to key stakeholders and partners

-         Email to members of the Norfolk Residents’ Panel

The consultation runs from Monday 27 October 2025 and closes on Monday 15 December 2025.

Please note that if we receive any consultation responses after this date, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to take them into account.

How we will make our decision and report back to you

We will feed back the findings from our consultation to our county councillors as part of the evidence they will use to help them come to a decision about our budget proposals.

We will take a report about the findings of this consultation to the Norfolk County Council Cabinet meeting in January 2026.

The council’s select committees will comment on the budget proposals, before Cabinet finalises the proposals in January 2026 and the Full Council makes a final decision on the budget in February 2026.

Our county councillors will consider the consultation responses we receive very carefully. In particular, they will take into account:

• The impact of any proposal on individuals, groups or communities and in particular on people identified as having 'protected characteristics' under the Equality Act 2010. The protected characteristics are: age; disability; gender reassignment; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation.  As well as this equality impact assessment, councillors will consider the impact of proposals on rural areas
• The views of people and stakeholders consulted
• The evidence of need and what is proven to work effectively and well
• The financial and legal positions and any constraints at the time
• Any potential alternative options, models or ideas for making the savings.

Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read this and respond.

The consultation questions should take about 15 minutes to complete.