County Council Update February 2026

In this update:

Full Council meeting to consider the budget

Strategy, Resources & Performance

• Business plan and budget
• Local Government Reorganisation

Adults & Health

• Joseph Rank Hospice
• NHS dental services in Cambridgeshire
• Integrated Care Board cost reductions and reconfigurations
• East of England ambulance service performance

Children & Young People

• Holiday food vouchers
• Education Health & Care Plans
• Special needs and disabilities funding campaign

Highways & Transport

• Potholes

Environment and Green Investment

• Climate Change and Environment Strategy 2026-28

News from the Combined Authority

• Bus cuts
• Audit & Governance meeting cancelled

_______________________________

Full Council

The full council will meet on Tuesday 10 February to vote on the budget and business plan for 2026/27 to 2028/29.

Strategy, Resources & Performance

Business plan and budget

The Strategy, Resources & Performance Committee met on Thursday 29 January to receive the views of council committees on the council’s draft budget.

In response to the Children & Young People Committee, the Strategy, Resources & Performance Committee agreed to amend the draft budget to provide an additional £1 million to support families following the Government’s withdrawal of the Household Support Fund, which has enabled the provision of supermarket food vouchers during school holidays for eligible children.

The council’s Highways & Transport Committee expressed the ambition to be able to add £20 million to the road maintenance budget in 2027/28, as well as in 2026/27, for which that sum is already in the proposed budget.

Local Government Reorganisation

The Government is launching its seven-week consultation this month on the options for local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, with its final decision announced in summer.

A statement from a minister has however indicated that the timetable by which the new unitary councils will be up and running in Spring 2028 is “the most ambitious”.

Adults & Health

Joseph Rank Hospice

A private donation has enabled the hospice in Cambridge to remain open for a further year, following public outcry. The future beyond that is uncertain.

NHS dental services in Cambridgeshire

The County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee has delivered the following six recommendations to the Integrated Care Board (ICB) following its scrutiny of NHS dental provision in Cambridgeshire and requested a response by 27 February.

• Be more ambitious on NHS dental provision.
• Be more transparent about how extra urgent dental appointments are funded and delivered.
• Address long travel distances for NHS dental patients.
• Evaluate and, if successful, roll out dental “hub” pilots with GP practices.
• Push for an undergraduate dental school in the East of England.
• Explain dental underspends and how reclaimed money is used.

Integrated Care Board cost reductions and reconfigurations

The Health Scrutiny Committee met Jan Thomas, the Chief Executive of the new Central East Integrated Care Board (ICB), and Kate Vaughton, the new ICB’s Executive Director for Neighbourhood Health, Place and Partnership, about the implications for Cambridgeshire of the cost reductions required of existing ICBs and their reconfiguration into new ICBs serving a much larger population across a significantly wider geographical area.

The Committee made a number of recommendations on this:

• Structural changes must not block service improvements and wants:
• Openness when services are changed, reduced or withdrawn.
• A plan to replace Healthwatch’s independent scrutiny role.
• Benefits of digital health to be balanced with privacy and data‑security concerns.

Concerns were expressed about the security of patients’ personal and medical data following the award of a contract to Palantir to create a data platform for the NHS, given that Palantir’s expertise is surveillance software including for ICE in the USA. The ICB has committed to provide a response.

East of England ambulance service performance

The East of England Ambulance Service has written to the council’s Health Scrutiny Committee to update councillors on its performance, including shortened response times and reduced handover times at hospitals.

Children & Young People

Holiday food vouchers

The Government is withdrawing the Household Support Fund from the end of March, and replacing it with a Crisis and Resilience Fund later this year.

The County Council has been spending the funding on holiday food vouchers for all children on Free School Meals, and was one of the first councils in the country to top it up to ensure no schoolchild went hungry over the holidays. However, the Government is prohibiting councils from using the new Crisis and Resilience Fund for this purpose, risking leaving many vulnerable families without support.

The council is increasing its own financial commitment to holiday food vouchers this year to bridge the gap until September. Without a reversal from Government, however, any new scheme is likely to leave many families in need unsupported.

Education Health & Care Plans

The council invested an additional £780,000 last autumn to increase capacity across the Education Health & Care Plan process for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including assessments, casework and reviews, helping to improve the timeliness and therefore the number of plans completed within the twenty-week target. We were pleased to hear from officers that this is having a positive effect enabling more children to receive their assessments in good time.

Special needs and disabilities funding campaign

Cambridgeshire County Council is backing a campaign by a group named f40 calling for increased and fairer education funding and sweeping reforms to solve the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Publication of a Schools White Paper, setting out Government’s plans for education and reforms to SEND, was expected last year but has been delayed.

The County Council is urging Government to ensure that expected reforms are powerful enough to solve the crisis and are backed by sufficient funding to enable schools to implement them.

Based on initial allocations for 2026/27, published by the Department for Education in December, Cambridgeshire will receive £6,465 per pupil for the “Schools Block” of education funding. This places Cambridgeshire 128th out of all 151 local education authorities.

The deficit the county council faces in spending on children with high needs is forecast to be around £94 million by the end of March this year, rising to around £200 million by the end of the following two years, placing the council at severe financial risk. This position is shared by around a hundred other councils.

Across the country demand for SEND support continues to outstrip funding, with the lowest funded local authority area currently receiving less than a third of the SEND funding that the highest funded council receives. This is unsustainable.

It has been estimated that local authorities in England will have accumulated a collective SEND deficit of £6 billion by April this year. Without significant reform, this figure will continue to grow. The County Councils Network, representing county councils across the country, estimates the shortfall could pass £13 billion nationally by March 2028.

Highways & Transport

Potholes

The council has significantly increased the number of highways crews dealing with both temporary and permanent fixes to the potholes on Cambridgeshire’s roads. Normally eight crews and two dragon patchers are available across the county—now there are thirty crews and two dragon patchers out repairing potholes. This will significantly increase the number of repairs attended to each week.

In the winter, a lot more road defects and potholes form due to wet and freezing weather causing those worn areas of road and pavement surfaces to break up.

Since 2023/24, the amount of capital funding spent on highway maintenance in Cambridgeshire has increased by £35 million, from £24 million to £59 million. The Council allocated more than £73 million for highways maintenance in 2025/26—adding £20 million to the amount provided by Government—and expects to do so again this coming year.

Environment and Green Investment

Climate Change and Environment Strategy 2026-28

The new strategy was approved which continues to commit the council to net zero by 2045.

Under a 2°C global temperature rise, the County is projected to face:

• More frequent hot days exceeding 25°C, posing serious health risks to vulnerable populations.
• Increased rainfall and storm events – raising the likelihood of flash flooding and storm damage.
• Reduced cloud cover – leading to higher UV exposure, which may negatively affect crop yields, air quality, and public health.

By 2028, the council will, among other targets, reduce the scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 67.5% again 2018/19 baseline, complete conservation plans for 23 of 34 important bio-diversity sites, add 2km of hedgerows on its own assets, establish 8 projects making it easier for communities to reduce carbon.

Note there is now a duty to report every 5 years on the strategy.

News from the Combined Authority

Bus cuts

Thirty-five bus routes across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough are hanging by a thread as the Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough seeks to cut half a million pounds from local bus services.

At last month’s Combined Authority Transport Committee, the Chair of the County Council’s Highways & Transport Committee successfully stood out against the immediate removal of four routes, and insisted that there should be appropriate engagement with residents and parishes on proposals affecting contracted bus services.

Audit & Governance meeting cancelled

The Combined Authority Audit & Governance Committee meeting last month was cancelled as the absence of any representative from three of the six member authorities meant it was inquorate. Representatives did turn up from both East Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council.