The council's new four-year plan assumes council tax rises 4.99% next April and again in 2028. It also admits £300,000 of green bin income never arrived.

Milton Keynes City Council’s four-year financial plan assumes council tax will rise by 4.99% next April, and by 4.99% again the April after that.

The assumption sits inside the Medium Term Financial Outlook for 2027/28 to 2030/31, which Cabinet agreed on 8 September. The decisions were published the next day.

Nothing is fixed yet. The report says so itself: it “does not set the Budget”, and the budget will be set by full Council in February 2027. But this is the council’s own working assumption, and it is the number every other figure in the plan is built on.

What 4.99% would mean on your bill

The 4.99% is made up of two parts, both capped by government. Core council tax can rise 2.99% without a referendum. The adult social care precept can add another 2%. The spending review confirmed those thresholds stay put for 2026/27 and the two years after.

So the plan assumes:

  • 2027/28: up 4.99%
  • 2028/29: up 4.99%
  • 2029/30: up 2.99%
  • 2030/31: up 2.99%

The council’s own share of a band D bill in Milton Keynes is £1,847.53 this year, which was itself a 4.99% rise. Another 4.99% would add about £92 to that share, taking it to roughly £1,940. That is our arithmetic on the council’s published figure, and it covers the city council’s element only. The Thames Valley police precept, the fire precept and your parish precept all sit on top. Our council tax bands page has the full A to H table for all 48 parish areas.

Across the four years, the plan expects council tax and parish precepts to bring in £200.289m in 2027/28, rising to £237.113m by 2030/31.

The gap got much smaller

In February 2026 the council forecast a £14.139m gap over three years. The refreshed outlook puts the cumulative gap at £3.840m by 31 March 2031, with a surplus of £0.117m in 2027/28.

Milton Keynes City Council's forecast budget position, 2027/28 to 2030/31

Two things moved. Savings rose by £9.679m since February, taking the total built into the plan to £12.572m. And demand pressures were remodelled downwards by £10.619m.

The single biggest change is in children’s social care, and it is an assumption rather than an achievement. The report states that 16% of Milton Keynes’ looked after children are currently placed in external residential settings, which it calls significantly higher than in previous years and higher than other councils. The plan assumes the council gets that down to the local authority average of 12%, hitting 14% in 2027/28 and 12% in 2028/29. That single assumption takes £4.272m of pressure out of the forecast.

Officers flag it as a risk in the same document: “If these plans do not materialise there is a significant financial risk to the budget.”

The costs the council cannot argue with

£13.977m of inflation is built into the 2027/28 budget alone, £1.763m more than February assumed. Over the four years the inflation provision now stands at £52.310m. The detail is specific:

  • Pay is assumed at 3% a year for all four years. February had assumed 3%, 3%, then 2%.
  • Utilities were assumed to rise 5% a year. The updated forecast is 15.1% in 2027/28, adding £0.317m.
  • Adult and children’s social care placements take another £7.2m in 2027/28, and £26.2m over the four years, as providers pass on wage and building costs.
  • Contractual inflation alone is £10.193m in 2027/28.

Two very local numbers

Buried in the annex are two Milton Keynes specifics worth pulling out.

The first is the green bin. A saving was written into the 2025/26 budget on the assumption that extra green bin charges would bring money in. They have not. The report records £0.300m of “unachievable green bin income”, because “the take up of this service has been lower than planned”. In Milton Keynes the first green bin is free and only second and third bins cost £55 each, which our bin collection days page sets out in full.

The second is the Waste Recovery Park. Its procurement has concluded and the new contract starts in October 2026. Having made a desktop estimate when setting this year’s budget, the council now expects costs about £0.500m higher than projected, and has written a £2.4m base budget pressure from 2027/28 into the plan. For scale, the report puts waste contract spend at about £42m in 2026/27, transport at £8.2m and highways at £4.5m.

A third item is less visible but larger: the removal of the £2.563m MKDP dividend has been brought forward a year, from 2028/29 to 2027/28, to line up with MKDP’s business plan.

This year is running under budget

Cabinet took the Quarter 1 position at the same meeting. As at 30 June, the forecast was:

Account Forecast position
General Fund services underspend of £4.832m
Housing Revenue Account underspend of £0.480m
Capital programme overspend of £0.410m after £1.333m slipped to later years

The report adds its own caution: the position “should be noted, in the context of the number of significant risks which potentially could reduce the underspend as the year progresses”.

The schools picture is split. The Dedicated Schools Grant is forecast to carry a £5.004m surplus into next year, £2.490m better than budgeted, mostly because more families are taking up early years places. Inside that total, the High Needs block is forecast to go into a £0.146m deficit this year, and officers say the council is likely to start 2027/28 in deficit on it.

Milton Keynes is unusual there, and it costs the council money. The government’s new High Needs Stability Grant pays 90% of a council’s overall DSG deficit as it stood on 31 March 2026. Milton Keynes did not hold an overall deficit on that date, so it gets nothing. Nationally the cumulative high needs deficit is estimated at £5bn.

What could still go wrong

The plan lists the risks it has not costed in:

  • If the National Living Wage rises 5% rather than the 3.7% assumed, that is £1.9m.
  • Temporary accommodation forecasts assume demand keeps falling, which depends on court backlogs of Section 21 cases and the effect of the Renters’ Rights Act.
  • The Waste Recovery Park’s actual cost depends on tonnages, recyclate and energy prices.
  • Ringfenced government grants are assumed to stay cash-flat after the three-year settlement ends in 2029/30.

What it means for you

If you want to influence the bill rather than read about it afterwards, the calendar is short and it is published:

  • 3 November 2026: the council tax base report goes to Cabinet.
  • 1 December 2026: the draft budget and capital programme go to Cabinet.
  • February 2027: full Council sets the budget and the actual council tax rise.

Between those points there is a consultation on the draft budget, and equality impact assessments are produced for individual proposals rather than for this outlook. Nothing in the 8 September report changes what you pay this year.

Sources