Caerphilly County Borough Council is to have its budget cut by 3% from 2014/15, the Welsh Government has announced.
Announcing details of the funding, Local Government and Government Business Minister, Lesley Griffiths acknowledged the financial settlement was an extremely challenging one.
The amount councils receive is calculated using a formula based on factors such as population projections, pupil numbers, number of houses, road lengths and claimant counts.
Mrs Griffiths said: “I acknowledge this is an extremely challenging settlement for local government in Wales, which reflects the unprecedented, challenging financial context we are operating within.
“The persistent pressure on our budget from the UK Coalition Government has forced us to make some difficult choices. Despite this, the Welsh Government has consistently achieved a better outcome for Welsh local authorities compared to England, and we continue to do so with this settlement.
“I could not have been clearer about the future financial reality facing local government in Wales and I have provided warning of the likely shape of budget reductions.
“For the last three years, the Welsh Government has shielded local government from the full force of the cuts to allow them to prepare for the transformational change necessary to maintain vital local services, whilst limiting any additional financial pressure on hard-pressed households.”
By 2015/16, the Welsh budget will be nearly £1.7 billion lower than it was in 2010/11.
The Minister outlined a number of steps she had taken to ease the burden on local government in managing difficult financial decisions, as well as help to sustain crucial local services and continue to ensure the best outcomes for the people of Wales.
These include a damping mechanism ensuring no single local authority faces an unmanageable reduction in their allocation compared to the previous year and the transfer of over £30 million of specific grants, from the Local Government portfolio into the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) to give local authorities greater flexibility in managing their resources.
The settlement also maintains funding of £244 million for the Council Tax Reduction Scheme following the abolition of Council Tax Benefit by the UK Coalition Government.
The Minister added: “I have worked hard to ensure the best possible outcome for Local Government given the funding constraints we face and to increase flexibility, achieve fairness and provide additional support. The decisions I have taken reflect the value the Welsh Government places on the wide variety of services provided by local government in Wales.
“The focus must be on intensifying efforts to maintain quality services which deliver strong outcomes through more efficient, innovative and collaborative ways of working. Today’s settlement emphasises the Welsh Government is committed to working in partnership with Local Government to manage the challenges ahead and to continue to deliver for the people of Wales.”
The Minister’s announcement on the settlement marks the start of a consultation period which will end on November 20.
The local government settlement from the Welsh Government is part of its draft budget published earlier this month.
The minority Labour government announced the budget after agreeing a deal with the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru.
A spokesperson for Caerphilly County Borough Council said: “We are going to have to make some very difficult decisions in the wake of this extremely tough budget announcement. Even though the situation is very challenging, Caerphilly is in a good position compared to some other Welsh local authorities and this is largely down to the sound financial strategy adopted by the council over the last few years.”
Speaking at a special council meeting last week, Deputy Leader Keith Reynolds said: “We have got some extremely difficult decisions to be making over the coming months. We’ll be having a critical examination of all the budget heads – there is nothing we can rule out.”
Councillors were told the authority would have to make savings of £14.5m for 2014/15 with additional savings of £6.5m for 2015/16 and £7m for 2016/17.
Commenting on the publication of the local government settlement, Janet Finch-Saunders AM, Shadow Minister for Local Government, said: “Labour, the nationalists and Lib Dems agreed a very challenging settlement for Welsh local authorities, which means tough decisions and a forensic scrutiny of council spending. The challenge for local authorities is to resist the easy options of putting up the Council Tax bills of hardworking families or cutting frontline services.”
It's easy for the Tories to say that authorities need to resist the easy options of putting up council tax or cutting frontline services. We don't want to do either. Her party has slashed funding to the Welsh Government leaving less money for local authorities.
The Tory – led UK Government could easily safeguard funding to the Welsh Government and local authorities by adopting socialist policies. Protecting the most vulnerable should be the first priority of any government but we can't expect that from this lot.
Instead of spending tens of billions replacing nuclear weapons why don't they cancel Trident and reflate ailing budgets. Instead of bringing taxes down for the richest in society why don't they increase taxes at the top end and use that money to invest in public services? Why don't they reverse the Bedroom Tax, clamp down on tax avoidance and stop demonising the millions of people on out of work benefits who are competeing against 10 people for every job?
There is a different way of doing things. It just grates on you when those in power at Westminster have no concept of how people living in the Caerphilly Borough will manage as a result of their austerity measures.
Please be more specific as to how socialist policies will protect funding to the Welsh government so we can critique your ideas? I believe that socialism is fundamentally flawed, much like pantisocracy.
I would agree with you that reductions have been made in the wrong places. Although I support a Trident replacement I do not support increases in foreign aid, the EU budget, HS2 and green subsidies. Why is it that Welsh ministers support HS2 when official figures show that the majority of Wales will be worse off as a result?
I think you are missing the point of the people, James, when it comes to taxation. People don't want to see tax increases for the wealthy, they want to see tax reductions for the poorer. Instead of balancing out tax cuts for the poor with tax increases for the wealthy as eventually it will drive them off shore and encourage them to use the loopholes which could mean they end up paying less tax, balance it with cuts to foreign aid, the EU, green subsidies and HS2.
Interesting point you make in you last paragraph. Unfortunately all leaders of the main parties are career politicians and know nothing about how the majority of Britain lives.
I have to take issue with what you say about people not wanting tax increases for the wealthy. I believe there is majority support for tax rises on the super rich. Cerainly the reduction in the top rate of tax was very unpopular, especially when the minumem wage and benefits were being cut in real terms.
The point you make about driving people offshore with higher taxes was a similar point made by business leaders when the Labour Government were preparing for the minimum wage to be introduced. "It will cost jobs" "business wont be able to afford it" "it will cost two million jobs". None of that materialised, unemployment fell after the introduction of the minimum wage.
I think the public recognise that capitalism isn't working in this county. The many are paying for the mistakes of the few at the top, those of which have no real conception of how then average person is living.
The point I'm making is that if socialist policies were introduced we would see a far more fairer distribution achieved. Cancelling Trident would save tens of billions which can be spent on re – investing in communities, generating jobs in the process. More money to local authorities would mean local councils could replicate such policies. I know you won't agree with these points but this is the whole point of debate.
I do not want to join the interesting debate on capitalism versus socialism here but look at the three percent cut in support. I think that any half competent manager should be able to arrange that a cut in budget of this magnitude makes no difference to service provision or price (price being taxation in local government terms). In private industry managers routinely make this sort of adjustment as markets wax and wane.
The first area of saving to look at is why we need a chief executive and deputy currently on 'gardening leave' at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million pounds per annum. Their role is currently being done by a former chief executive on about £100,000 per annum who works part time. Why not declare the chief executive role, and about 20 other senior roles redundant. Advertise a set of new positions, at realistic salaries based on industry, which are to be filled by applicants internally or externally recruited.
This measure alone would save around one third of the target reduction in budget with not a single service being affected.
"… would save tens of billions which can be spent on re – investing in communities, generating jobs in the process. More money to local authorities would mean local councils could replicate such policies." – I didn't think I would be saying this but I agree with you as long as it was HS2 instead of Trident.
So it's not socialism you want but the possible outcome of socialism – redistribution of wealth. The only trouble, and you make a valid point about the minimum wage which I agree with fully, is that emigration has already happened with the most wealthy Britons look at the location of the bank accounts of the Dragon's, Branson, Sugar and the rest of the Sunday Times Rich List.
I agree with Richard too, recently we made a 5% reduction in operating costs by cutting expenses to our employees, reducing the number of days deliveries take place on and staff niceties in the canteen. The council can do similar. A great example of potential savings can be seen with the way the Highways department operates. Recently, 5 potholes on a road near me were filled in. Most people would expect that the potholes were all filled in together in one afternoon but it actually took 4 days to complete. The workmen spent longer on the road driving to the potholes than they did filling them in.
Ultimately, a 3% reduction can be made by increasing efficiency and not by decreasing council spending.
A 3% cut actually equates to a real – terms cut of 5.5% if you take inflation into account. We can all look to where savings can be made and of course most organisations should be able to make limited efficiency savings. The council however is faced with the prospect that there will be tens of millions of pounds worth of savings to be made over the next few years. There comes a point where efficiency savings become exhausted and the cuts start hitting the frontline.
My argument has always been for local councils to be given more responsibility to run things for local people. The people of Caerphilly Borough generally vote for parties or individuals of a left of centre persuasion in local elections. The people of this Borough don't agree with the type of cuts to public expenditure that this Tory -led Government are imposing. Only investment in our communities will get us out of the recession, and I don't care when Cameron and Osborne quote rises in GDP. People are not feeling it in their pockets. It should never be the case of the poor bailing out the rich.
There are a number of, so called, `front line` services which can be cut or abolished altogether without any measured effect, and certainly no real effect in respect to residents of borough noticing.
I am awaiting with some interest to outcome of the current `cuts` debate, to see if the obvious cuts are made which do not effect us, FIRST.
On Dean`s point about Highways repairs, those who turned up to repair the 5 potholes probably turned up in 4 trucks, a white van to check it all afterwards, and another with a tin of yellow point to highlight a few more defects further down the road, which will be put into next years budgets for highways repairs.
I see that Cllr Pritchard blames the UK Tories again. He wants it both ways by having the Assemby but won't lay one critisim at their door. The Assembly does not like local authorities and is trying everything to make them fail at their voters expense. It was the Assembly that wanted to put £52M+ into the airport and continues to waste money on nonsense projects.
Then of course is Cllr Pritchard just worried that the council might not have enough to pay the top executives this year or the legal fees on he fiasco of the pay deal
The Council have wasted enormous amounts of money in the last four years or so, money, which we would not have been expected to know about as residents of the borough. As it turns out ALL Councillors are also denying any knowledge of some these `payments` to various recipients, outside contractors, senior employees, and `others`,some judged to be illegal payments, let`s hope the police and Wales Audit Office follow the money trail to establish that ALL such payments made from the public purse were and are legally made, that remains to be seen.
£159,000 on secret filming by outside `contractors` of staff and members of the public. Enormous payments to selected staff to `buy back` an agreement on very generous car allowances, leaving the way open for them to continue to claim ` very generous car allowances`.
Add this together with the pay hikes fiasco, the suspended officers continued pay packets, and all the other things yet to be declared and it adds up to considerable fiscal mismanagement.
The very same people who were involved in the `management` of the past are shortly going to be judging what is best value for the public purse in balancing the books because of the reduced Welsh Assembly Settlement, and, presumably, deciding where best our money is going to be spent and saved. Is there a public confidence issue here somewhere???????
In answer to Tax payer, I don't believe many people would agree with you that the "Assembly is trying everything to make local authorities fail". That sounds a pretty barmy suggestion to me. My concern has been for the well – being of the people not only in my ward, but elsewhere in the borough.
I don't agree to cuts in public expenditure. There is always an argument for efficiency savings to be made and every organisation should look over their books to try and reduce waste. But as a councillor when your being told that there isn't the budget for this, and there isn't a budget for that, you have to go back to constituents with that news.
In answer to me attacking the Tories, I won't relent from attacking them for their austerity measures. They have chosen to slash budgets to the Welsh Assemnly. Local Authorities are having less as a result. You do the maths.