Agenda and minutes

There were no disclosable pecuniary interests.

(a)  To agree the minutes from the meeting of Cabinet on 16^th December 2025

(b)  Matters arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 16^th December 2025 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Children’s and Education Services

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Children’s and Education Services that set out the results of the 2026/27 Fair Funding Consultation and sought approval for recommended changes to the Fair Funding Scheme of Delegation and recommended operation of the 2026/27 Fair Funding Formula.

The Fair Funding Consultation 2026/27: Summary of Responses; De-delegation levels approved for 2025/26; and Fair Funding Consultation 2026/27, were attached as Appendices to the report.

The report indicated that under Section 48 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, Local Authorities (LAs) were required to have schemes of delegation which set out the financial controls and arrangements that would operate between maintained schools and the LA. Any proposed revisions to these schemes and/or the Fair Funding Formula (which impacts all mainstream schools) must be the subject of consultation and required approval by the Schools Forum.

The Department for Education (DfE) introduced its National Funding Formula (NFF) for LAs in 2018/19, whereby mainstream school allocations for LAs were determined under the NFF approach, but LAs retained a level of flexibility over how they chose to distribute that funding amongst their schools. In Coventry the decision since 2018/19 had been to mirror the NFF allocation for schools as far as possible (subject to overall affordability). In the future it was expected that local flexibility would be removed from LAs, and the Council’s approach would minimise funding volatility when this occurred.

In a standard funding cycle indicative NFF allocations and operational guides were published in July. Final NFF allocations were issued in December. This year LAs were informed that 2026/27 indicative NFF allocations would not be published in July 2025 and instead would be delayed until November 2025. In recognition of this delay, to support schools and LAs with financial planning the DfE published a policy note in June 2025. In this they confirmed there would not be any significant changes to the operation of the mainstream school NFF in 2026/27 compared to 2025/26.

The Coventry Fair Funding Consultation document was circulated on 7th November 2025 to Head Teachers including Academy Head Teachers/Principals, Chairs of Governing Bodies, relevant Councillors, Trade Unions, Diocesan authorities, the Coventry Governors Association and members of the Schools Forum. The consultation period ended after 2 weeks on 21st November 2025. Stakeholder groups were briefed throughout the consultation period, these included Primary Finance representative Head Teachers and the Schools Forum. The consultation document also sought to act as an information document to school stakeholders regarding anticipated cost pressures.

The National Funding Formula continued to be in a ‘soft’ phase. This meant that the DFE would run the NFF for each individual school and the total of Coventry schools’ allocations would become the total budget available for schools in Coventry. The LA was still required to go through the usual budget setting process and run the local schools funding formula for maintained schools and academies to distribute the resource. The Council’s expectation was that the DFE would eventually operate a direct NFF, through which it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Finance and Resources that established the 2026/27 Council Tax base for tax setting purposes. Appendices to the report provided: Tax Base Calculation for 2026/27 Tax Setting (Coventry); Tax Base Calculation for 2026/27 Tax Setting (Allesley); Tax Base Calculation for 2026/27 Tax Setting (Finham); Tax Base Calculation for 2026/27 Tax Setting (Keresley); and Grant payments to parish councils.

The Council Tax base was the measure of the taxable capacity of an area, for the purpose of calculating an authority's Council Tax. It represented the estimated number of Band D equivalent chargeable dwellings for the year. It also took into account the authority's estimated Council Tax collection rate.

The report did not set the actual level of Council Tax in Coventry; that would be set by Council on the 24 February 2026.

Further to the query relating to the zero dwellings figures under the heading relating to empty properties with a 50% discount in Appendix 1, officers confirmed that the disclosure was required by the Local Authorities (Calculation of Council Tax Base) Regulations 2012 but as Coventry did not operate a 50% discount for empty properties, the applicable figure was zero. Subsequent to the meeting officers further confirmed that the figures were correct and consistent with previous years.

Members requested that information relating to Coventry’s Council Tax collection performance relative to other English billing authorities, be circulated to them. The Briefing note considered at the meeting of the Finance Corporate Services Scrutiny Board (1) at their meeting on 5^th November 2025 on this matter, would be circulated accordingly.

RESOLVED that Cabinet:

1)  Approves that the Council Tax collection rate for 2026/27 be set at 97.6%

2)  That, in accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Tax Base) Regulations 2012, the amounts calculated by the City Council for 2026/27 shall be:

a net tax base of 91,413.3 for the whole of the City Council area made up as follows:

Allesley Parish  498.7

Finham Parish  1,587.2

Keresley Parish  744.4

All Other Coventry City Council Wards  88,583.0

TOTAL  91,413.3

3)  That the following grant payments should be made to parish councils to reflect the impact in 2026/27 of Council Tax reductions on their tax bases.

Allesley Parish  £2,183

Finham Parish  £2,514

Keresley Parish  £1,840

TOTAL  £6,537

Report of the Director of Regeneration and Economy

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of the Director of Regeneration and Economy, that would also be considered at the meeting of Council on 13^th January 2026, which sought approval for the in-principal change of use of Brandon Wood Golf Course to a nature reserve and a registered Biodiversity Net Gain habitat bank. Appendices to the report provided: a Site Plan; a Landscape wide plan; and Proposed Interventions.

Coventry City Council had a unique opportunity to repurpose the former Brandon Wood Golf Course as a nature reserve, creating rich habitats to support wildlife and developing a new visitor destination for people to enjoy. The UK was one of the most nature depleted nations in the world, with one in six species at risk of extinction. The Council made a commitment in the Climate Change Strategy (2024-2030) to take action to support nature recovery, and this site presented a significant opportunity to do this at scale. The former golf course is 64ha, which meant it would be able to support a huge variety of habitats through the creation of wetlands, grassland and shrub.  A much bigger opportunity was also unlocked as it would join up a number of parcels of land already being managed for nature covering 356ha in total (see plans in Appendix 1-3 to the report). Together this would create the biggest area of land managed for nature anywhere in the West Midlands, and at 6km from the city centre, it would be the closest nature reserve of this scale to a city centre in England.

The golf course was closed to the public in 2020, and a number of options had been assessed to identify the most appropriate future use of the site. The golf course was managed by Coventry Sports Trust, but the site was prone to regular flooding which limited the accessibility of part of the site. It had now been deemed financially unviable to continue as a golf course. In 2024 Defra introduced a new mechanism whereby new developments were required to offset any biodiversity loss through the purchase of ‘Biodiversity Net Gain’ (BNG) units, which provided a significant new income stream for creating and maintaining areas for nature conservation for 30 years. The business case for the new nature reserve was based on a sustainable finance model whereby up to 304 BNG units were created that would generate income to cover costs of creating and managing the nature reserve, with no Council funding required.

The BNG units were likely to rely on offset from development taking place outside of the city, including Warwickshire, the West Midlands and potentially nationally, rather than Coventry developments. This was due to Council policy which required any Coventry developments deliver BNG within the immediate area or close by and within the city boundary as a default position, contributing to an increase in biodiversity rather than being offset elsewhere. This would help to improve the quality of the city’s green spaces and waterways and help create new urban  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

Report of the Director of People and Facilities Management

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of People and Facilities Management on the Council’s gas requirements and proposed gas contract renewal.

Coventry’s Climate Change Strategy (2024-2030) set out the Council’s decarbonisation ambitions, which included increasing clean energy supply and increasing the energy efficiency of the estate, alongside helping to facilitate partners to do the same. A significant amount of work had gone into decarbonising the Council’s estate over the last decade. Over 40 buildings had been upgraded which included increasing renewable energy generation through installation of solar pv, decarbonisation of heat through installation of heat pumps and connecting a number of the Council’s buildings to the district heat network, alongside improving insulation, glazing etc. The Council had also appointed E.ON as its Strategic Energy Partner (SEP) over the next 15 years, to help increase the scale and pace of decarbonisation across the city. One of the first activities the SEP completed was production of the Coventry Energy Plan, which looked at how the city could decarbonise energy infrastructure over the next 15 years. This included moving away from gas and creating more locally produced electricity. At present, the Council were in a transition phase and the purchase of gas was an unavoidable activity that had in recent years had increasing financial implications for the Council. Since 2021 the annual gas spend for both corporate and independent sites had varied between £1.6m and £3.3m per year due to significant global events that had impacted the gas markets. The corporate contract currently covered over 60 Council gas supplies but also supported more than 80 related 3rd party gas supplies including schools and community centres.

The Council’s current gas contract was not set to expire until 31 March 2027, but by engaging early, the chosen supplier would have a longer period over which to buy gas ahead of the contract start date. This approach was widely used and was known as “flexible procurement”. It involved purchasing blocks of gas over time when the cost was lower which reduced the risk of being subject to shock price increases.

The Council had been using the flexible procurement approach to gas since 2009. This approach had been successful in mitigating the impact on the Council from the unprecedented volatility in the gas market.

The report sets out the Council’s gas requirements as well as the anticipated financial implications on Council budgets. It was important to note that the proposed gas contract allowed flexibility to reduce gas demand during the contract period, which was anticipated as energy efficiency improvements were made to more buildings across the city.

RESOLVED that Cabinet:

1)  Approves the proposal to enter into a Gas Framework up to £6.3million for the supply of gas up to 31 March 2031.

2)  Delegates authority to the Director of People and Facilities Management, following consultation with the Director of Finance and Resources and the Director of Law and Governance, to finalise the legal due diligence and terms and conditions of the Gas Framework and any  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

There were no other items of public business.