Jobs and services under threat as council finalises budget proposals
SCHOOLS in Bridgend will no longer receive a 1% cut to their funding next year under the final draft budget proposals released by Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC).
The local authority’s cabinet members had warned in the summer of having to make decisions previously thought “unthinkable” saying the local authority had reached a “critical point”.
It said if financial pressures were not relieved the council would be forced to consider cutting “precious services” – closing libraries, leisure centres and day care services, ending full-time nursery education for three-yearolds and reducing budg- ets for primary, secondary and special schools.
But this week council leader Huw David said that following the outcome of additional grant money from Welsh Government and an improved funding settlement the situation was no longer as serious as it had looked.
However there will be cuts to services and job losses with the council having to find savings of £7.6m over the next financial year.
Councillor David said: “It will still be difficult next year, there will be people who regrettably lose their jobs.
“There will be redundancies and services that will be cut – it’s not as dire as we thought it may be but it could be in future years.
“We have to set a balanced budget.
“We are hoping that when the Prime Minister says austerity is over it really is over and it needs to mean the funding increases for councils in Wales.”
Interim chief executive Mark Shephard added: “It’s still really challenging.
“The challenge we have is that the low hanging fruit has gone and we are constantly looking at what else we can do.
“£70m cuts over eight or nine years makes a huge difference to what the authority can do.”
Finance officers say that based on current assumptions and pressures, the council would have to make £35m cuts over the next four years.
This would involve £7.6m in 2019/20, £10.7m in 2020/21, £8.5m in 2021/22 and £8.3m in 2022/23.
Cabinet members will be asked to approve the budget for 2019/20 this wekk before it goes to full council next week.
Below are some of the main points in the final draft budget for 2019/20: Schools There will no longer be a 1% cut to school budgets as previously forecast.
In a scrutiny committee meeting last week head teachers from schools across Bridgend issued a stark warning to the local authority saying any further cuts to their funding would result in standards dropping among children, larger class sizes and staffing levels being hit.
Councillor David said: “We have listened to teachers, schools and parents – it’s not something we have ever wanted to do.
“The Welsh Government settlement is not as difficult as we first expected, and its added some additional money so we are no longer proposing the 1% budget savings – there will be no 1% cut.”
Last year the schools budget was just over £90.3m – the proposals now involve increasing that to £94.8m.
Councillor David said: “We recognise a large part of that £4.5m increase will go on awarding pension and pay pressures – most of the council tax increase will in fact go on that.
“It’s difficult for schools – some are saying they have very little flexibility in their budgets which is why they would struggle to make further cuts, particularly with pressures like significant increases in teachers’ pensions costs.
“The number of pupils in our schools is growing and there are additional pressures of funding additional learning needs.
“We have listened to the responses in the budget consultation and the feedback was ‘let’s protect social services and schools’”. Council Tax Council Tax will be going up by 5.4% if the final draft budget proposals are approved.
Councillor David said: “We have funding pressures we can’t avoid – we have less funding from government but more pressures.
“We know every council in Wales will be increasing their council tax – with many broadly between 5% and 10%.
“A big driver for council tax increase is the increase in pension contributions for teachers, firefighters and police officers – it’s not increasing the pension they receive but funding the existing scheme.
“That decision is not by BCBC but by UK government.”
Each of the 10 local authorities covered by the South Wales Fire & Res- cue Service contributes towards its budget.
The amount is based on the number of people living in each area – for 2018-19 the levy on Bridgend for the fire authority was £6.6m.
Councillor David said: “Lots of people don’t realise they’re paying for the fire service in their council tax as well as refuse collection, social services, homelessness services etc.
“As a council the proposed increase in the fire authority’s levy on Bridgend is £330k, a 4.9% increase for which the council has received no additional funding.”
Day care services and learning disabilities services
The council is no longer planning to close some of the day services it runs for older people and people with learning disabilities but will “remodel” some services.
Day services include day centres which offer older people the chance to socialise, day opportunities with support within local communities and the Bridgend Resource Centre which offers support during the day and prevents the need for adults with severe and complex needs to live in a specialist placement.
Councillor David said: “We have listened to the public and they were clear they did not want to see closures.
“We needed to consider it when we started as we did not know what our financial situation was going to be – we share their view on how important they are.
“Our first principle if at all possible is to make services more efficient rather than withdraw that service because they are valued by the people they serve – if we can do things dif-