The Overview and Scrutiny Committee of Hertfordshire Council met on Monday 09 February 2026 to discuss the council's budget for 2026/27 and its Medium Term Financial Strategy. The meeting was scheduled to confirm the minutes from a previous meeting and to ratify recommendations arising from evidence-gathering sessions held in the preceding week.

Scrutiny of the Budget 2026/27 and Medium Term Financial Strategy

The primary focus of the meeting was the scrutiny of Hertfordshire County Council's budget for the upcoming financial year, 2026/27, and its accompanying Medium Term Financial Strategy. This process involved a series of evidence-gathering sessions held virtually on 3 and 4 February 2026. These sessions were designed to allow members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) to examine specific portfolio areas in detail.

The evidence-gathering sessions were structured to cover a range of council services, including:

• Children's Social Care: This portfolio included discussions on corporate parenting, children looked after, residential care, fostering, adoption, kinship care, and safeguarding. It also covered the 0-25 Together service, early intervention, family centres, youth justice, and the commissioning of children's mental health and wellbeing services.
• Education, SEND & Inclusion: This area focused on school improvement, relations with educational institutions, school place planning, admissions, home-to-school transport, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services, and the Virtual School. It also encompassed early years education, childcare, nursery provision, school attendance, inclusion, alternative provision, the Hertfordshire Music Service, and services for young people, including those not in education, employment, or training (NEET).
• Highways: Discussions were scheduled to cover the delivery of new road and transport infrastructure, traffic management, road safety, and the provision for cycling and pedestrians.
• Environment, Transport and Growth: This portfolio examined strategic planning policy, the County's Strategic Infrastructure Plan, infrastructure funding, planning obligation policies, local economic strategy, business engagement, skills and lifelong learning, minerals and waste planning, waste disposal and recycling, flood risk management, sustainability strategy, nature and ecological preservation, countryside and rights of way management, transport planning, passenger transport, and the Local Transport Plan. It also included the Electric Vehicle Strategy.
• Adult Care Service: This scrutiny covered adult social care services (excluding those provided by the 0-25 Together service), adult safeguarding, the Money Advice Unit, and volunteering and community wellbeing services.
• Public Health & Community Safety: This portfolio included discussions on health protection, health improvement, physical activity, early intervention and prevention, the Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service, trading standards, consumer protection, resilience, emergency planning, community safety, relations with the Police and Crime Commissioner, and humanitarian and crisis aid management. It also covered the Domestic Abuse Service.
• Resources & Performance: This area focused on budget monitoring, pensions administration, procurement, governance, assurance, risk, legal and information governance, audit, corporate governance, democratic services, scrutiny, statutory services (coroners, registrars, highways boundaries), corporate strategy and engagement, communications, performance and transformation, ICT and business support services, human resources, trading companies oversight, property assets, libraries, archives, customer service, and diversity and wellbeing.
• Strategic Overview of Overall Budget: This overarching scrutiny addressed the overall financial position, future financial projections, the medium-term strategy, council tax strategy, assumptions and risks within the budget, reserves strategy, and capital and investment strategies.

Following these evidence-gathering sessions, the OSC was scheduled to meet on 09 February 2026 to ratify the recommendations made by the member groups. These recommendations would then be reported to the Cabinet for consideration on 11 February 2026, with the final budget for 2026/27 to be agreed by the full Council on 17 February 2026.

The meeting also included a standard agenda item for public petitions, though no petitions had been received at the time of the agenda's publication. The committee was reminded of the importance of considering equalities implications and impact assessments for any matter before a decision is reached. Members were also reminded of their obligations regarding disclosable pecuniary interests and other declarable interests.