Council funding and spending
How council services are paid for and how your Council Tax money is spent.
On this page
Council tax bills 2026 to 2027
Your Council Tax bill will show your charge from 1 April 2026.
This is made up of charges from:
- Oxfordshire County Council, including adult social care charges
- Police and Crime Commissioner for the Thames Valley Area
- Your city or district councils
- Your parish and town councils (in some areas)
Changes to your Council Tax
Council Tax increase limit for 2026/27
- The government limits the amount that councils can increase Council Tax by without holding a local referendum. For 2026/27, the referendum limit is 2.99%.
- The government also allows councils with adult social care responsibilities to raise an adult social care precept to help relieve funding pressures. For 2026/27, councils can increase council tax by 2%.
- Adding these two elements together, the maximum allowed increase for 2026/27 is 4.99%.
How your Council Tax is spent
Council Tax makes up 58% of our external income.
Our costs continue to rise due to inflation, and we have an increasing demand for services to protect, support and care for our vulnerable adults and children. We're more dependent than ever on the income we receive from Council Tax to deliver the services our residents rely on each day.
Your Council Tax helps pay for vital local services, including:
- highway maintenance;
- children and adult social care;
- waste management and recycling;
- fire and rescue, and
- libraries
For 2026/27, the council has set an overall gross budget of £1,423 million (£1,366 million in 2025/26). The figures below show broadly how we plan to spend our £999 million gross expenditure budget (excluding schools) on services (£955 million in 2025/26).
In addition, in 2026/27, we will spend £273 million on maintained schools and early years. This covers teachers and running costs, and comes directly from the government
| Area | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|
| Adult Services | Social Care for Adults | 33% |
| Children's Services (including education and learning | Children’s Social Care, Safeguarding, and Education | 39% |
| Highways and transport | Highways, Parking, Transport, Strategic planning, Economic growth and Regeneration | 8% |
| Public health improvement and prevention services | Public Health services | 5% |
| Waste disposal and recycling | Waste disposal and recycling | 5% |
| Capital borrowing and other financial costs (eg contingency and reserves) | Capital Financing, Treasury Management, Corporate Contingency budgets, and contribution to reserves | 5% |
| Fire and rescue and community safety | Oxfordshire Fire services, Community safety and Trading standards | 4% |
| Libraries, cultural, and registration | Libraries, Heritage and customer services | 1% |
Where the money comes from
| Area | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Council Tax | 58% |
| Central government grants | 26% |
| Business rates | 7% |
| Income from fees and charges | 9% |
To understand our funding further, the Local Government Association have created some short videos on local government finances – here is one on council tax and business rates.
Council Tax rates
| County council portion of your bill | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Council Tax Band | Property values | Band D proportion | 2025/26 Council Tax Band | 2026/27 Council Tax Band | Increase in total Precept since 2025/26 |
| A | Up to £40,000 | 6/9 | £1,274.27 | £1,337.85 | £63.58 |
| B | Over £40,000 and up to £52,000 | 7/9 | £1,486.64 | £1,560.83 | £74.19 |
| C | Over £52,000 and up to £68,000 | 8/9 | £1,699.02 | £1,783.80 | £84.78 |
| D | Over £68,000 and up to £88,000 | 9/9 | £1,911.40 | £2,006.78 | £95.38 |
| E | Over £88,000 and up to £120,000 | 11/9 | £2,336.16 | £2,452.73 | £116.58 |
| F | Over £120,000 and up to £160,000 | 13/9 | £2,760.91 | £2,898.68 | £137.77 |
| G | Over £160,000 and up to £320,000 | 15/9 | £3,185.67 | £3,344.63 | £158.97 |
| H | Over £320,000 | 18/9 | £3,822.80 | £4,013.56 | £190.76 |
The table above shows only the county council portion of your bill. The appropriate district, parish and Police and Crime Commissioner Council Tax will need to be added to give the total Council Tax charge.
Oxfordshire County Council is required to set a Council Tax charge as a proportion of the charge for band D properties. The Council Tax band of a property is not related to its current market value. This is because, by law, Council Tax valuations are based on the price a property would have fetched if it had been sold on 1 April 1991. General price movements in the housing market since that date are not, therefore, reflected in the Council Tax band a house is in.
Adult social care precept
This year, the government has allowed councils to increase Council Tax by up to 3%.
In addition, councils that are responsible for providing Adult Social Care can increase their Council Tax by a further 2%. This is known as the Adult Social Care precept.
Adult Social Care services support some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, particularly those in old age and adults with disabilities. Social care services also have a significant role to play in supporting the NHS to deliver vital services. In 2025/26 our net budget on Adult Social Care is £332 million (33% of our portfolio revenue budgets).
We are required to spend all Council Tax raised from the Adult Social Care Precept on Adult Social Care. This is checked annually by the government.
The government introduced legislation to combine core Council Tax and the Adult Social Care precept into one line on your bill. The combined increase is 4.99% which is shown as 5.0%. This is below the referendum limit.
As part of the Local Government Financial Settlement for 2026/27, the government announced that councils could charge up to an additional ‘precept’ of 2%. The council has chosen to increase the Adult Social Care Precept by 2% in 2026/27.
The Environment Agency - flood defence levies
We pay a flood defence levy of £0.7m to three regional flood committees of the Environment Agency.
The Environment Agency is a levying body for its Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Functions under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 and the Environment Agency (Levies) (England and Wales) Regulations 2011.
Flood defence money is spent on the construction of new flood defence schemes, the maintenance of the river system and existing flood defences together with the operation of a flood warning system.
The majority of funding for flood defence comes directly from the government, but where there are schemes which do not attract central funding, the agency raises income in the form of a local levy. The local levy is shared on the basis of the equivalent number of Band D dwellings between all contributing bodies within the committee area.
New budget changes
Further detailed information can be found in our new budget changes for 2025/26 - 2027/28 page.