Our budget strategy showcases our ongoing multi-year approach to:
- investing in prosperity and recovery
- balancing budgets through structured savings and governance
- embedding resilience into financial planning.
Ambitious Highland
This strategy focuses on post-COVID recovery through three strands:
- Investment Strategy for Health and Prosperity
- Funding priority areas including digital transformation, climate and transport infrastructure, and social care.
- Recovery, Improvement and Transformation Fund
- Governance for the Improvement Programme targeting asset rationalisation, service redesign, climate change, and roads.
- Recurring Budget Savings
- Themes spanning economy, waste, procurement, and transport to close financial gaps.
It includes appendices on visitor management, economic prosperity, and poverty relief efforts.
View our Ambitious Highland Plan
Sustainable Highland
This report sets out three interlinked budget strands for a £642 million revenue framework:
- Strand 1: Future Highlands
- Investments for long-term ambition, sustainability, and connectivity.
- Strand 2: Recovery and Risk
- Continued response to pandemic impacts (such as business support, welfare, vaccination and visitor management) with quantified pressures.
- Strand 3: Delivering Sustainable Services
- Focusing resources on core services with community grants, transport planning, and structural reform.
A breakdown of council spending is provided: £166.4 m on schools, £114.8 m on adult social care, and £35.7 m on roads and transport.
View our Sustainable Highland Plan
Medium‑term financial plan and revenue budget
This plan sets out how we will manage our finances over the next three years to ensure sustainability and resilience while continuing to deliver essential services.
- Budget Overview
- 2025–26 net budget is £818.423 m, rising to £835.092 m by 2027–28
- Annual Additions
- £27.22 m for pay and pensions, £20.433 m recurring pressures, £4.539 m growth and investment, and £8.512 m for new burdens
- Investments
- Ongoing Highland Investment Plan revenue of £2.997 m (2025–26), increasing in later years
- Savings and Flexibility
- £19.472 m in savings plus £9.5 m from extended producer levy; some flexibility drawn from reserves
- Sustainability and Governance
- The plan aligns with CIPFA’s Financial Management Code, aims to avoid using reserves routinely, and embeds financial resilience indicators