Council reveals its spending plans for the following year
RHONDDA Cynon Taf Council has revealed how its spending plans will affect the services it provides for the coming financial year, 2019/2020.
The council is proposing a council tax rise of 3.6% for the next year as it bids to close a budget gap of £6.49m.
The council received a 0.8% increase in funding through the final Welsh Government settlement which equates to just over £367m.
We’ve taken a deeper look to see how some of the financial decisions the council is planning to make will affect you. The council is planning a £5.2m increase for 2019/2020 which is equivalent to a 3.5% rise in the schools budget.
This will look to address the pressure of the teacher’s pay growth, go towards restructuring costs and provide support.
This means the RCT schools budget will increase from £148m to £154m.
The council says that schools are being treated more favourably than other services but recognises that savings will still need to be made at school level to balance their individual budgets.
The council says it is still waiting for an announcement about whether teachers’ pensions will be centrally funded. There is set to be a standard increase of 2.9% for council fees and charges which it says will reduce the budget gap by £42,000.
The price of meals on wheels is set to go up by 15p (including day centre meals).
The current price for both meals on wheels and day centre meals is £3.70 and the proposal is for the price of both to be increased to £3.85.
Across Wales, current prices range between £3.30 and £5.36. for non-residential adult social care.
This was agreed in September and will see the maximum charge go up from £70 to £80 in line with Welsh Government plans.
Monthly and annual membership costs for leisure centres and swimming pools have been frozen until January 2020.
But general leisure fees went up by 2.9% last month, bringing in an additional £15,000 for the council.
On the spot fines for littering, contamination of recycling, fly-tipping, fly posting, graffiti and bins on the highway were increased from £75 to £100 last month.
Burial fees are also going up by 2.9% in line with other fees and charges. There will be no increase in charges for car parks, summer and winter playing fields, school meals, Pontypridd Lido, Rhondda Heritage Park admissions and cinema entrance fees. The council is proposing to reduce the budget for the council tax reduction scheme by £300,000, taking it to £24.33m. The council has found £90m of so called “efficiency savings” over the last decade and it says it has identified a further £121,000 over and above its £6m target for 2019/2020. The council is looking to save £517,000 by cutting back on council office space.
This includes leasing the Ty Dysgu building in Nantgarw, leaving the Heddfan Centre in Pontypridd and filling theValleys Innovation Centre in Abercynon.
Have your say on this story at www. .co.uk There are two Welsh Government grants that the council is waiting for more information which could help ease the pressure on social services and children’s services.
The social services grant is worth £30m Wales wide and the children’s services £2.3m Wales wide and the council estimates it will get an additional £2.6m through these although specific allocations for each council have yet to be revealed. The council also aims to save £1.03m on capital charges because of its use of internal borrowing and therefore lower costs in paying back external loans. Cabinet agreed last October to a plan to recycle the council’s waste more efficiently by taking on a material recovery facility at Bryn Pica Eco Park which will result in lower processing costs to the council and save £458,000 In November, cabinet approved new additional licensing schemes for HMOs.
As part of this, the fees charged were revised and will now be paid in two parts.
One will cover administration and determination costs for a licence which will be £420 for a new applicant and £400 for a renewal
The other part will be for ongoing regulation and enforcement which will be £170 for new applicants for buildings up to 12 units and £50 for every unit thereafter and £140 for renewals and £35 for every unit after 12. RCT is looking at using one off transitional funding of £1.42m through its 2019/2020 reserves to plug the remaining budget gap after all the other measures have been taken into account leaving £3.4m in that reserves pot.