2025 Big Conversation
Prioritising your services
This autumn, councillors and senior officers will be out across the town at drop-in sessions, listening to your views and answering questions.
The council currently provides over 700 services. Your feedback will help us decide what to prioritise and make the best use of our limited budget.
We are holding some events where we will have information available on a wide range of services including job vacancies in the town, benefits advice, public health services and much more.
- Sunday 26 October 2025, 9am to 3pm,Inspire Sports Village
- Tuesday 28 October 10am to 4pm, Luton Point (outside Pandora)
- Saturday 1 November 12.45 to 5.15pm, Bury Park Community Centre
- Sunday 2 November 11am to 5pm,Luton Point (outside TK Maxx)
At the events you can:
- learn about the support available for jobs, skills and housing
- find out about improvements we are making to your neighbourhoods and town centre
- hear about work we do to address parking issues and roads maintenance
- get information on waste and recycling and more
Everything the council does is guided by the town’s goal to eliminate poverty by 2040.
Over the new few years, the council wants to play its part in this by helping people feel safe and have secure housing and jobs.
We want to ensure we focus on the things that matter most to you - so it’s important that you have your say.
For more information visit luton2040.
We deliver services on limited funding and diminishing resources.
In addition, growing demand for housing, adult social care and children’s services are causing us to come under huge financial strain.
Despite this, we are still required by law to balance our budget and so we don’t spend more than we have which means we are being forced into making decisions we wish we didn’t have to.
With this in mind, we want to hear from you about what you think is most important.
In 2025/26 the council received £604 million from multiple sources to spend on all of our 700+ services. The majority of this funding comes from grants with the rest coming from council tax, business rates and commercial income we generate.
Service expenditure - 2025/26 budget £'m
Government grant for schools and education: £191.7 (29.2%)
Chargeable services, Commercial income and Contributions: £70.4 (10.7%)
Housing Benefit Subsidy Grant: £53.2 (8.1%)
Interest and other income from LLAL (London Luton Airport Ltd):£47.1 (7.2%)
Government grants for other specific services: £71.9 (10.9%)
Public Health: £18.4 (2.8%)
Council Tax income:£110.3 (16.8%)
Business rates income: £70.2 (10.7%)
General Government Support Grants: £23.6 (3.6%)
Total revenue resources:£656.8 (100.0%)
The breakdown below shows the proportion of our spend across key areas.
Service expenditure - 2025/26 budget £'m
Schools: £191.7 (29.2%)Adult Social Care: £118.7 (18.1%)
Children's Services and education: £101.8 (15.5%)
Housing Benefit support: £60.0 (9.1%)
Cultural, Environment, Planning, Economic Development: £51.7 (7.9%)
Central services (local tax, democracy etc): £37.1 (5.6%)
Highways, Property and Transport: £36.6 (5.6%)
Housing general fund- private sector: £32.1 (4.9%)
Public Health: £18.3 (2.8%)
Other costs: £9.4 (1.4%)
Total expenditure:£656.8 (100.0%)
Download the council's big conversation 2025 leaflet for more information.
Tell us what you think
We know the decisions we make affect everyone in Luton, so it’s important you have a say in what matters most, and we are keen to speak with you and hear your thoughts.
You can have your say by:
- coming to see us at one of the above events
- complete a short survey online