Council tax rise lowest in Wales

AT the end of last month, council members approved proposals for setting a legally balanced budget for the 2018/19 financial year.

Despite austerity continuing to place huge financial pressures on local authorities, we have maintained our disciplined and careful approach to managing our budgets, and through this, we have been able to agree to invest £180m of capital spending into our communities over the next three years.

This will enable us to build on the huge successes delivered by the £200m #RCTInvest programme over the last three years, and crucially, this capital scheme will be supported by the £300m of additional investment that we announced earlier this year.

This will mean that the council is able to continue investing in the services and areas that matter most to residents, and will allow us to continue to build better schools, travel on better roads and highways, and continue to invest in our leisure facilities.

Last year, I outlined how we had set ourselves the ambitious target of saving £6m through efficiencies, and I am pleased to say that we have exceeded this by identifying more than £7m of savings for the coming financial year.

This approach has enabled the council to increase the schools budget by £2m for 2018/19, which is double the amount previously identified.

By challenging ourselves in this way, we have also been able to avoid transferring the bulk of the pressures of austerity on to frontline services and residents, and this is highlighted by the fact that RCT will be implementing the lowest council tax rise in Wales at 3.3%.

We recognise the pressures on everyone’s finances and the council is committed to doing all it can to ensure that residents don’t bear the brunt of these tough financial times.

I would once again like to thank to all of those who have engaged in the council’s budget setting consultation process.

I would also like to thank again the many council staff who worked around the clock in tackling the “Beast from the East” earlier this month.

Credit must be given to our crews for the job they did in battling the significant levels of snowfall that threatened to severely disrupt our highways network.