Tax rises and job cuts warning
INFLATION-BUSTING council tax rises, slashed education budgets and dozens of job losses are among the latest measures considered by cash-strapped South Wales councils as they grapple with the continuing effects of local authority cuts.
Merthyr Tydfil Council and Caerphilly County Council have revealed their latest proposals to hit ambitious savings targets.
In Caerphilly, council tax could rise by nearly 7% and schools’ budgets slashed by £2m as the authority announced savings of more than £8m in its draft budget.
The council’s cabinet will consider a package of cuts totalling £8.485m for the next financial year in its meeting on Wednesday.
The budget proposals include an increase in council tax by 6.95%, which will be in addition to the proposed budget cuts for 2020-21.
The council says the cuts and council tax increase are necessary to provide a balanced budget.
An increase in teachers’ pay and pension contributions has led to increased schools cost pressures of £5.648m.
Cuts of 2% in the budgets that are dedicated to schools are proposed. These total £2.112m. Of this, it is proposed that £2m will come from cuts to the Individual Schools Budget.
The remaining £6.373m will be applied to general fund budgets. Across all other services this will be an average of 2.7%.
The total budget proposed £17.681m.
Council leader Barbara Jones said: “Unfortunately, we need to deliver a package of savings totalling over £8.5m for the forthcoming year in order to deliver a balanced budget.
“This is in addition to the £103m that has already been taken out of our budgets since 2008.
“This has not been an easy task, is but thanks to our effective budget management and prudent approach, we have been able to protect the public from deep cuts and major disruption to frontline services.”
Funding from the Welsh Government for the teacher’s pension scheme will help to balance the budget. The report says that it is expects Welsh Government to fully fund the pensions scheme in 202021 and for subsequent financial years.
Following a cabinet decision on the budget proposals, an eight-week period of public consultation will take place.
If the budget is agreed upon, it will be presented to cabinet on February 2 and full council on February 20.
Meanwhile, Merthyr Tydfil Council has agreed to consult with trade unions on 36 job losses as it aims to save £8m next year.
Full council agreed the move at a meeting on Wednesday.
Nine applications for voluntary redundancy have been received, where staff are waiting on the “bumped” list to leave the council.
Notice of voluntary redundancies has also been served on 11 care home staff and the two staff in the disabled facilities grant team (DFG), which are all due to take effect by the end of January 2020. There are a further seven vacant posts which will be removed altogether.
The authority is currently facing a budget deficit of more than £8m for 2020-21 and a total budget deficit of £15m for 2022-23.
Recently the council considered a £2m package of cuts and price rises to help address the gap, but only some of the measures proposed were passed.
The report to full council blamed an uncertain financial climate resulting from the continued effects of long-term austerity, uncertainty surrounding Brexit and future funding, and additional demand for core council services.