Brace yourself for ‘savage cuts’ – warning issued before details revealed in Difficult Decisions consultation

Wrexham is facing ‘savage’ council cuts, with the Council imminently set to reveal details of possible plans when they go out to ask you what you think.

Last week, the Welsh Government announced its provisional budget settlement, which includes the funding to go to Local Authorities such as Wrexham Council, and their settlement has been slammed by both Wrexham’s Council Leader as well as the Council’s Chief Executive.

Under the provisional settlement Wrexham will see a -0.6% decrease in funding. We are told Wrexham will have to find savings, likely via cuts, of £9m next year which is around £4-5m more than expected.

You can watch the full video below created and published by Wrexham Council to hear full comments from Council Leader Mark Pritchard, and Chief Executive Ian Bancroft:

In the video the Council Leader says the settlement is ‘devastating for us’, and he is ‘shocked, stunned and I am really disappointed and angry’, noting around £70m has been taken out of the Council budget over recent years.

Without naming anyone, he speaks of ‘individuals’ in Welsh Government ‘need to do a lot more’, adding a challenge to AM’s and MP’s to “come and sit down and have a discussion and work alongside me and other elected members and officers to run a local authority on the money that we’re receiving”.

The headline quote comes when Cllr Pritchard discusses political representations at a local level when the council cuts services, contrasting that against the budget cuts, calling it ‘madness’, adding: “I just wondered, and I don’t say this lightly, have the lunatics taken over the asylum?”

“There’s still an opinion out there that there’s plenty of money in local authorities, there is no money in local authorities, we are on the breadline and we’ll have to make savage cuts.”

In what is the new normal for Wrexham residents, you also get to hear from the Chief Executive of Wrexham Council Ian Bancroft, who expresses ‘disappointment’ at the settlement too.

Mr Bancroft notes the 7% increase in the health budget by Welsh Government due to extra money they had available to allocate, and contrasts it against the -0.6% decrease for Wrexham, “We’re the only frontline department in the Welsh Government’s budget to receive this type of reduction. We’ll manage as a local authority and will balance our budget, but the devastation comes because of the impact it’s going to have on our frontline services.

“It will have an affect on schools, it will have an affect on adult and children’s social care.”

“Although we’ll do everything we can to try and minimize that impact, the unfair settlement this year from Welsh government means that’s impossible to do what we wanted to do, which was protect those frontline services.”

Wrexham.com is expecting the detail of Wrexham Council’s ‘Difficult Decisions’ consultation , that has previously been hinted as containing bleak service closures changes to bin collection changes and council tax rises, either later today or tomorrow.

Both Wrexham’s Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council have previously stressed their desire to see as many residents of Wrexham to take part in the consultation – we will provide information on what it contains and how to take part as and when we have it.