Director of Transformation and Strategy

Our council

We are an ambitious unitary council responsible for providing a range of public services to residents and businesses across North Northamptonshire.

A place where everyone has the best opportunities and quality of lifeOur vision

We serve a population of approximately 360,000 across a number of diverse towns and villages and enjoy excellent connectivity being situated in the heart of the country.

Formation

North Northamptonshire Council was formed in April 2021, replacing:

Corby Borough Council
East Northamptonshire Council
Kettering Borough Council
the Borough Council of Wellingborough
Northamptonshire County Council

Services

As a unitary council, we deliver the services which were provided across the two previous tiers of local government including:

adult social care
collection and disposal of household waste
customer service and contact centres
cultural and heritage services
education
environmental services
highways
libraries
maintaining parks and open spaces
planning services
public health and wellbeing
revenues and benefits services
street cleaning

Northamptonshire Children’s Trust

Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) provides a range of children’s services and is funded by North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council

Through our One Council initiative, we are transforming these services for the better and delivering them in a joined-up and cost-effective way.

Political make-up

Following elections in 2025, we have 68 councillors elected across 31 electoral wards:

Reform UK - 40
Conservative - 14
Green Party - 8
Labour - 4
Liberal Democrats - 1
Independent - 1

The Leader of the Council is Martin Griffiths.

Corporate plan and BIG50 Future Vision

When our council originally formed in 2021, we set out our ambition, key commitments and corporate priorities in our corporate plan (being updated). This was developed following a meaningful consultation with local residents and businesses.

Under a new and ambitious administration, we are engaging with key stakeholders to set out a new ambitious plan for the future. We have made good progress over the last four years - and now want to build an exemplar council and services on top of the solid foundations that are in place.

We are also facilitating a BIG50 Place Board comprising community and business leaders to deliver an ambitious vision for the future of North Northamptonshire for 2050. This vision is known as the BIG50 Future Vision and cuts across organisations and sectors. A vision has been developed and partners are now working together to start more collaborative work to tackle the root cause of issues in the area.

Prevention is a key theme. The BIG50 Future Vision is to deliver the best life for all in North Northamptonshire and is supported by three key priorities:

Proud place
Prosperous place
Proactive place

Our values and behaviours

It was vitally important that our staff had the opportunity to help shape the organisation’s values, as well as ask the public and wider stakeholders for their feedback.

An all-staff survey and stakeholder focus groups were carried out along with a public survey. A clear set of values were identified which all our stakeholders felt were most important.

The opportunity to provide broad participation in the development of the council’s future values was seen as an essential first step. Our values state that the council and its staff will be:

customer-focused
respectful
efficient
supportive
trustworthy

Budget

We set our budget for 2025/26 in February 2025. The main headlines are:

Balanced general fund budget

A balanced general fund budget for 2025-26, with funding supporting net spend requirements of £400.8m (excluding the DSG)

Investment

Further investment of around £51.8m to both protect vital services and invest in service change and improvement. This allows for demand and cost increases in services - most notably there continues to be significant investment into Adult Social Care of £23.7m and Children’s Services of £6.2m

Savings

Cost pressures and service investment are, in part, offset by savings, efficiencies and income generation of £26.3m.

This includes the continuation of savings already included as part of the 2025-26 medium term financial plan and which remain deliverable, with the remainder being met through improved business rates income, council tax income and government grants

Social care investment

An investment in social care which recognises a 6.7% increase in the National Living Wage from 1 April 2025 from £11.44 per hour to £12.21 per hour

Council tax increase

An increase in council tax of 2.99% for the 'core' council tax and 2% for the Adult Social Care precept - resulting in a Band D equivalent of £1,827.06 and an average weekly increase of £1.67 (based on Band D equivalent)

Council tax support

No change to the Local Council Tax Support Scheme which will continue at 25%

Contingency

Inclusion of a contingency to mitigate against unforeseen cost pressures totalling £2.8m.

This is equivalent to around 0.65% of our net budget and will be used to meet any risks around the wider economy and the increased demand for services

Reserves

The use and retention of reserves to support one-off investment in service improvement, fund time limited projects, pump-prime schemes and help manage risk both in year and across years