Public Performance Reporting 2025/26

Our focus is to reduce child poverty and inequalities in income, health and education, while supporting vulnerable people across Moray. During 2025/26, significant progress was made towards these goals through targeted financial support, educational investment and community-led regeneration.

Maximising household income and supporting vulnerable families

A key priority is ensuring families can access the financial support they need.

• 569 families received crisis grants worth £186,000, alongside 229 community grants.

• Additional support was provided through school holiday payments, breakfast clubs, concessionary travel, free period products and free activities.

• £102,000 was secured through the Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund to help families maximise their income through financial advice and support services.

• The award-winning Progress for Parents programme supported parents facing challenges such as isolation and barriers to employment, with more than 100 participants moving into jobs, volunteering, education or training.

These actions help reduce the number of children living in poverty by increasing family income, improving financial resilience and creating pathways into employment.

Early intervention and supporting children to reach their full potential

The Corporate Plan highlights the importance of early intervention and whole-family support.

• The infant feeding crisis pathway ensured families experiencing hardship could access practical and financial support.

• The Progress for Parents programme continued to support parents' wellbeing and confidence, helping to create more stable outcomes for children.

• Financial inclusion support is being embedded across early years, employability and community health services to help families access support sooner.

These interventions help improve children's health, wellbeing and life chances while reducing the impact of poverty on families.

Improving attainment for all

Reducing the attainment gap remains a key objective.

• £560,000 was invested through the Intervention Fund for schools to support improvements in learning and attainment.

• Moray's National Improvement Framework Plan reported improvements in reading, writing and maths attainment.

• Progress was made in seven of nine key measures aimed at narrowing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

This supports success measures linked to literacy, numeracy, educational attainment and positive destinations for young people leaving school.

Creating stronger, more connected communities

Tackling inequality also means improving places and opportunities for people to thrive.

• The Local Housing Strategy 2025-2030 focuses on increasing housing supply, improving housing quality and preventing homelessness.

• £171,000 was secured for community-led environmental and infrastructure projects.

• More than £3.1 million was advanced for town centre regeneration projects in Dufftown and Forres.

• £3.3 million is being invested through the Forres Conservation and Heritage Scheme.

• A £4.3 million UK Shared Prosperity Fund programme was delivered, with a further £1.4 million supporting projects through to September 2026.

These investments help reduce social isolation, improve health and wellbeing, strengthen local communities and create opportunities for economic growth.

What success looks like

The progress made during 2025/26 directly supports the outcomes identified in the Corporate Plan by:

• Reducing the impact of child poverty on families.

• Increasing household income and access to financial support.

• Improving literacy, numeracy and educational attainment.

• Narrowing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

• Supporting more people into employment, education, training and volunteering.

• Improving health, wellbeing and housing outcomes.

• Creating stronger, more resilient and connected communities across Moray.

We’re working to grow Moray's economy by creating more jobs, improving skills, supporting local businesses and making it easier for people to live and work here. These actions help deliver the Moray Growth Deal, improve access to fair work and reduce barriers such as childcare and transport.

Delivering the Moray Growth Deal

Good progress has been made across major projects that will help attract people, investment and opportunities to Moray.

• 7 out of 8 Moray Growth Deal projects in delivery achieved their interim targets.

• The Speyside weekend bus service is now fully operational, helping people connect to jobs, services and communities.

• Advanced data and AI tools are being used to improve transport planning and strengthen the m.connect network.

• The first STEM Starts Discovery Centre opened, giving children aged 3 to 8 hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering and maths.

• 39 affordable homes were completed at Speyview, Aberlour, with tenants now moved in.

Supporting Communities and Local Businesses

Funding has helped create stronger communities, support local businesses and improve town centres.

• £642,000 invested in community projects, including:

  • Town centre improvements

  • Tourism development

  • Digital inclusion projects

  • Infrastructure upgrades

  • Volunteering support

  • Digitising Moray's archive collections

• £240,000 invested in local businesses, supporting:

  • Business events

  • Town centre development

  • Social enterprises

  • Apprenticeships

  • Graduate placement opportunities

Helping People into Work

Improving skills and employment opportunities is a key part of building a stronger economy.

• £481,000 invested to help people develop skills and move closer to employment.

• Support provided for:

  • Young people leaving school

  • People facing barriers to work

  • Those who are unemployed, underemployed or economically inactive

  • Participants in the Moray Pathways vocational skills programme

• The Moray Pathways Workforce North Event brought together:

  • 100 attendees

  • 50 local employers from the energy sector

• The event helped develop a new Skills Roadmap for Moray, supporting future workforce planning and training opportunities.

Making Childcare More Accessible

Affordable and accessible childcare helps parents and carers enter or stay in work.

• Six new school-age childcare projects are being developed.

• Funding is being used to improve transport options for childcare, particularly in Duffus and Speyside.

• A childcare careers programme helped attract new workers to the sector.

• 12 people completed the "Step into Childcare" course at UHI Moray.

What success looks like

These achievements support Moray's goals by:

• Creating more opportunities for people to live and work locally.

• Helping attract and retain young people and families.

• Improving access to fair work, training and skills.

• Supporting local businesses to grow and create jobs.

• Reducing barriers to employment, including childcare and transport challenges.

• Building stronger, greener and more resilient communities for the future.

We are working with local people to create places where communities can thrive. This means investing in housing, improving town centres, listening to residents and making sure services meet the needs of the people who use them.

Investing in Places and Communities

New projects are helping make Moray's towns and neighbourhoods better places to live, work and visit.

• Major progress has been made on the Elgin City Centre Masterplan regeneration project.

• The South Street development will deliver:

  • 38 affordable homes

  • New business and enterprise space in the heart of Elgin

• Plans are advancing to improve Cooper Park, including:

  • Accessible pathways

  • New biodiversity planting

  • Better leisure and recreation areas

• Early design work is underway to transform the former Gordon Arms Hotel into:

  • A creative arts centre

  • Pop-up retail space

  • Office space for local businesses

Giving Communities a Stronger Voice

A key priority is helping communities influence local decisions and shape services.

• Communities in Buckie and New Elgin played an active role in local planning and community projects.

• In Buckie, support continued for:

  • The Hub

  • Community lunches

  • Buckie Area Forum

  • Findochty and Buckie Development Trust

• In New Elgin, The Link provided:

  • A food larder

  • Family activities

  • STEM and craft sessions

  • Daily support and drop-in services

• 19 Leisure and Library User Groups were established across Moray, helping local people shape and improve services.

Improving Local Services

Residents are playing a bigger role in helping design and improve the services they use.

• User groups were established in all 11 library branches across Moray.

• Feedback from communities helped shape new ways of delivering library, learning and heritage services.

• The new Moray Engage online platform was launched, giving more people the opportunity to share their views and help inform council decisions.

Planning for Future Schools

• Extensive consultation took place on the future of Moray's learning estate.

• Phase 1 was completed as planned.

• Community feedback is helping inform plans for the future location of Forres Academy.

Increasing Affordable Housing

Providing more affordable homes will help meet local needs and support thriving communities.

• The Affordable Housing Investment Programme set out plans for future housing development across Moray.

• 228 affordable homes were either under construction or planned to start by March 2026.

• Developments include projects in:

  • Lossiemouth

  • Aberlour

  • Elgin South

What Success Looks Like

These achievements support Moray's goals by:

• Giving communities a greater say in local decisions and services.

• Creating attractive places where people want to live, visit and invest.

• Delivering modern, sustainable community facilities and infrastructure.

• Increasing the supply of affordable housing.

• Improving town centres and public spaces.

• Supporting biodiversity and environmental improvements.

• Ensuring schools and public services are fit for the future.

• Building stronger, more resilient communities across Moray.

We’re working to improve people's lives, grow the economy and protect the environment. Here are some of the key achievements from the past year.

Social

We continued to support children, families and people facing financial challenges.

• More families received help through the emergency infant formula pathway and crisis support funds.

• Support increased through:

  • School holiday payments

  • Education Maintenance Allowance

  • Breakfast clubs

  • Concessionary travel

  • Free sports activities

• The Parents Project helped more parents move into:

  • Employment

  • Self-employment

  • Volunteering

  • Education and training

• Schools continued work to reduce poverty-related attainment gaps and support every child to reach their potential.

• 93.5% of school leavers moved on to positive destinations such as work, education or training.

Economic

Investment in transport, skills and childcare is helping create opportunities and support local businesses.

• 7 out of 8 Moray Growth Deal projects met their interim targets.

• The Speyside weekend bus service is now fully operational, improving travel and connections.

• Plans are progressing for:

  • A new electric bus

  • More charging points

  • Better transport services using AI and data

• The Community Wealth Building Portal attracted:

  • 22 community groups

  • 10 businesses

• A new Skills Roadmap for Moray was developed to help match training with future jobs.

• Six school-age childcare projects are being developed.

• Funding was secured to improve transport to childcare services.

• The gender pay gap continued to narrow.

Environmental

Work continued to improve towns, community spaces and public buildings while supporting climate goals.

• Progress was made on the Elgin City Centre Masterplan and the new Creative Arts Centre at the former Gordon Arms Hotel.

• Planning continued for better flood and surface water management at the Sawmill and Auction Mart site.

• Work progressed on new allotment projects in Buckie and Lossiemouth.

• The Forres Allotments Group secured a site licence.

• Demand for allotments remains high, with 92 people on waiting lists.

• Plans for the new Forres Academy moved forward following public consultation.

• School improvement works were completed at:

  • Cullen Primary School

  • Rothes Primary School

  • Mortlach Primary School

  • Alves Primary School

• Local authority carbon emissions reduced slightly, although more work is needed to cut emissions further.

What this means for Moray

These actions are helping to:

• Support families and reduce the impact of poverty.

• Create jobs, improve skills and strengthen the local economy.

• Improve transport and childcare access.

• Invest in communities and public services.

• Create greener, healthier places to live.

• Build a more sustainable future for Moray.

Our main risks are:

• Future funding, with Scottish Government finances under pressure and being targeted to specific priorities;

• Significant funding at UK and Scottish Government level coming from bid funds, requiring expertise and effort to access and with considerable monitoring requirements;

• Risks arising from recent higher inflation and increased interest rates, with impact on pay claims and general increases in prices across the board;

• Demographic pressures and emerging social needs;

• Significant difficulties in recruiting staff and attracting suppliers to bid for works;

• Moray Integration Joint Board (MIJB) has potential to overspend against its budget and we will have to fund our share of any overspend.

• Increasing demand and investment required to maintain standard of asset base, including learning estate, leisure estate, and bridges and roads infrastructure;

• Meeting our target of carbon neutral will be a financial and technical challenge;

• Continuing to find budget savings after a prolonged period of making increasingly challenging savings will be difficult.

How we’re managing these risks:

• Implementing our Best Value Action Plan and embedding this in what we do;

• Financial planning, monitoring and review, including planning in the short to medium and medium to long term;

• Delivering our Transformation Programme for increased income generation opportunities, as well as service redesigns to reduce the cost burden through improved efficiency and effectiveness measures and spend-to-save measures;

• Working within Moray Economic Partnership to support the local economy;

• Developing Community Wealth Building;

• Developing teams with expertise in bidding for funds;

• Workforce planning, including successful completion of Phase 1 management restructure in 2025/26;

• Tackling capital plan slippage by implementing stronger capital reporting and challenging budget manager optimism;

• Joint monitoring reviews with MIJB officers and officers and Board members from NHS Grampian;

• We are carrying out a comprehensive Learning Estate Review;

• We have mapped out a high-level route map to net zero.

• The Moray Growth Deal, which is continuing to see significant investment in Moray’s economy;

• The Levelling Up Fund, Elgin Neighbourhood Fund Board and Just Transition Fund provide further opportunities to improve Moray’s economy;

• Regional Transformation Opportunities per Highlands and Islands Regional Economic Partnership (HiREP), harnessing social benefits from offshore wind and related developments.

• Our Community Wealth Building Strategy also looking to strengthen Moray’s economy;

• Our Transformation Strategy, redesigning how we deliver services in today’s world to deliver efficiencies, building on our digital strategy, investing in technology that will deliver transformative and sustainable change;

• Our Learning Estate Review, looking at how we can improve the learning experience by enhancing the environment in which it takes place;

• Our Leisure Estate Review, looking to develop a strategic network of good quality leisure facilities across Moray;

• Our Climate Change Strategy, looking to become carbon neutral.

The Council approved a balanced budget for 2026/27 with all savings identified at the time of setting and without the release of non-earmarked reserves. The indicative budgets for 2027/28 and 2028/29 show the need to make further savings in early course. Although our level of funding from Scottish Government will not be confirmed for some months, we expect the need to make savings to continue. 

The Council is taking forward a continued focus on delivering transformation projects already in progress, accelerating and expanding where there is opportunity and developing new areas of work to support the Council’s financial sustainability. Stage 3 of the Transformation Strategy was approved on 24 September 2025 and brought together ongoing transformation projects and new projects and opportunities.

The Council’s Corporate Plan – a key strategic document along with the Local Outcome Improvement Plan. The Accounts Commission published its Best Value report on Moray in March 2024 and we have agreed an Action Plan to implement agreed improvements to the Council’s ways of working.

There are other factors external to the Council, such as the ongoing impact of the Iranian and Ukrainian conflicts; continued cost of living crisis; and current financial markets volatility which affect the Council’s plans. In addition, discussions are on-going between COSLA and Scottish Government officers regarding the potential make up of a Fiscal Framework for Scottish Local Authority funding.

We work in a constantly changing environment and strive to be an agile organisation, well equipped to cope with the many changes we encounter.

Headline LGBF performance results from 2025-26 (latest data) are

Results that improved by 5% or >

Results that worsened by 5% or >