Council budget consultation to be launched – would you support council tax rise of 6% ‘to protect front-line services’?

A draft of the consultation document has been released today ahead of formal sign off next week, so we are able to preview the questions you will be asked – along with what cuts and changes are proposed.

The consultation will be much shorter than in previous years, essentially asking:

– Do you have any suggestions for other ways in which WCBC could generate income / make savings?
– Your preference on black / blue three weekly collections, and a £30 charge per green bin, or both. (later it notes the green bin charge would net £590k)
– Make changes in one or two areas of library services, or have a full review.
– Would you support a council tax rise of 5% to help support adult & children social care and education budgets, or 6% which would also also help cover fire service funding.

Several of the above questions are prefaced with the note that ‘due to the level of cuts we do not have an option of doing nothing’.

Senior controlling councillors on Wrexham Council’s Executive have said they are being ‘as explicit as possible about the difficult decisions proposals’, and are hoping for a bigger response from you the public to the consultation when it is launched next week.

The consultation is planned to take place from October 24th until 28th November 2018 and it is proposed to carry out a survey, which will primarily take place online (with paper copies available on request) There will also be a consultation event held on 28th November.

Wrexham Council’s Chief Executive Ian Bancroft believes the scene has been set in terms of the options offered up to the public, with previous requests for a ‘fair’ budget settlement from Welsh Government not coming through: “What we are saying is the budget settlement is not fair. We will need to look over the next two years at major changes. We are ready. It is only because what we call an unfair settlement.”

Mr Bancroft described the consultation as asking ‘specific questions about specific service areas’. Going off previous consultations, and actions, responses will be used to base strength of support for proposals.

Cuts were not the only topic, with Mr Bancroft noting that income generation is being consulted on, with ‘options’ on council tax being offered as ‘quite focused’ questions.

Council Leader Mark Pritchard called the settlement from Welsh Government ‘wicked’, adding: “We are a very well managed authority and will bring our budget in, but it will be a most difficult and dark time. We will have to revisit every department.”

Today’s document release has also provided a list of possible new future budget cuts, job losses and price rises, not limited to:

– Charging £30 for green bins would raise £590,000.
– Possible library cuts to save £130,000, detailed as “Consider options for community run libraries and lone working options for branch libraries and identify where further costs can be reduced for non front line services”.
– £5000 saving by ‘Transfer Trevor toilets to Canal River Trust’.
– Tennis Centre will see a £13k saving by ceasing contribution for Tennis Development Officer.
– Several vacant council job ‘deletions’ to save £238k
– Nearly £100k saved by reducing training and development for staff, ‘reducing commissioned training and provide more-in house’ along with ‘Reduce spend on health and safety, cease face to face training and increase the use of eLearning.’
– The ‘Senior Management Restructure’ will see savings of £130k
– Microsoft software licensing costs could increase by £152k.
(full list included in the PDF document here)

Usually there is an almost set-piece yearly budget process, however that is set to change with Mr Bancroft saying: “This will have to be an ongoing process, we need to look again at impacts to services, and look thoroughly in all areas. The original plan was not affecting adult, children or schools, but we have to go back and look at those again. This will have a real impact.”

Cllr Pritchard continued his attack on Welsh Government, and calling out Assembly Members for a public meeting: “We can’t accept the continual low funding to run an organisation of our size. We have done merging of departments, restructures, had consultants in who didn’t find anything we didn’t already know.

“We are now on the cliff edge. We are there now, it is unpalatable and ugly, and forced on us by Welsh Government.”

“In the past we had AM’s criticising when we looked to close things, it is hypocritical. ‘I am OK in my ivory tower in Cardiff Bay, here is your money but do not close anything’, they are ridding themselves of responsibility. I am open to have a public meeting, debate, conference whatever to thrash this out. They are closing down local authorities by default.

“Next time I have a letter off an AM or MP they will have a sharp reply from me, it is the AM’s imposing the cuts. Wicked is about the best word I can use. They know where we are as a council, and they are still doing it. They are not listening.”

Cllr Pritchard said £370m ‘extra money’ had been passed to Wales from Westminster, “That was supposed to be pass-ported on, where has it gone? Why have you not invested it?”

Earlier today Wrexham’s AM Lesley Griffiths had her say on the debate – you can read her comments here.

(Pic above: Executive Board earlier this year taken from webcast without permission thus ‘potato’ quality)

Wrexham.com related to Wrexham’s Chief Executive, Council Leader and Deputy Leader how common points made by readers when budgets cuts are mentioned usually revolve around questions on the cost of having a Mayor, councillor or senior council staff. The latter in the context of increases to numbers of councillors and pay rises proposed recently plus the possibility of the number of Executive Board councillors being reduced.

Further we noted the Tŷ Pawb development had a headline £4.5m investment, part from Wrexham Council, with the capital spend and revenue budget previously defined as the ‘cost of culture’. We asked if any of those were off limits in the consultation and future cuts.

Mr Bancroft spoke on senior salaries noting a ‘senior management review’ outcome due to be discussed publicly next month, with the indication that will show the council ‘making a significant saving’ – as above now noted as being £130k

Both Mr Bancroft and Cllr Pritchard both tackled the topic of the Mayor.

Mr Bancroft said: “I will give an Officer view of the Mayor. We are the major urban place in North Wales, to not have civic function would be really really poor showing a lack of ambition and civic pride.

“I can’t speak highly enough of the work that is being done this year from an officer perspective, to show just the value and impact a Mayor can have touching peoples lives in terms of rewarding and recognising contributions people make to our local community.

“In terms of getting people people interested in local democracy by making it an open thing, and in terms of major events that we should be hosting as being the major urban place in North Wales , giving that an independent neutrality as a council to says ‘this is important’ ”

“I think those types of things are even more important at times like this when we face this level of severity in terms of cuts, we still have to have pride and recognise what an important place we are as Wrexham.”

Cllr Pritchard described the topic of the Mayor, and the numbers on the Executive Board, as a ‘political hot potato’, adding: “We have already reviewed the department, and have made substantial savings in there, and now that mayoralty is a fantastic contribution to Wrexham.

“We deliver it for very little money in the scheme of things, we have taken money out of there, and I think we have done what we can with it.

“As for the Executive Board, yes we will consider it, we will consider everything. No stone will be left unturned because of this wicked settlement.”

Cllr Hugh Jones pointed us to look at the business plan of Tŷ Pawb (that has been altered, however that is not public, so we can’t) adding: “Over a three year period the cost of delivering that is going to be less than the cost was to deliver our arts and culture service previously’, ‘Tŷ Pawb is effectively going to costs us less than the Oriel did’.

As Cllr Hugh Jones was taking questions on the ‘Difficult Decisions’ consultation , and along with fellow Executive Board member Cllr Andrew Atkinson is a member of the Conservative Party. Due to the recent Conference, which one of them attended, where Prime Minister May indicated ‘austerity’ is over, we enquired if he saw a corner being turned in the near future with things due to get brighter for public finances.

Cllr Jones told us: “I think given all the circumstances and given the economic crash suffered we in 2007 the overall management of the UK economy has been sound in terms of the fact we have the highest level of employment we have ever had. You don’t need me to tell you that, as that is what the party will tell you, we have got the highest number of people in work we have ever had.

“Yes as part of that austerity local authorities have had to carry a burden. Local authorities in the UK that are directly funded will tell you that.”

“My personal view is the time has come for austerity to be over, I think there is some evidence of that in terms of settlements for our emergency services and NHS settlements. I think the time is right to be looking forward to a brighter future.”

Cllr Pritchard said he had been ‘critical’ of both governments: “This time for the first time has been a choice by Welsh Government to put extra into local services, and it has not been passed on.”

Cllr Pritchard spoke on the possible rise in Council Tax: “There is a lot of debt in Wales and in Wrexham with lots of people on the breadline. It is hard to keep a home running on a weekly basis, and council tax has a huge impact.”

“Council tax is not the answer, if thats what local authorities are going to have to do it is the wrong way. You can’t keep putting up council tax every year to amount what people cant afford as then debt comes in.

“It is a balancing act for me, and I think we have done it very well in the past. What the future holds for council tax, we are at that place and have that discussion of do we increase it and what do we increase it to. That is because of the settlement. We had put in a plan of 3% as we always do and we were comfortable with that. Because of this settlement, everything comes back on the table.

“I think it is unfair for people to pay for inefficiencies of local authorities and poor settlements.”

“If there is a pressure on adult social care, children’s services, education, three key areas to protect, and we said to the public of Wrexham ‘Right, we are going to put your council tax up, and that money will be ring fenced for those services’. You might find the people of Wrexham might support that. I don’t know. We are going to have to have that dialogue. ”

We asked about the new ‘One Council’ in-it-together style approach that has been filtering downwards since the appointment of a new Chief Executive politically as well as an organisation, and how that fits with the usually acrimonious budget process, where ‘alternative budgets’ are presented and voted down.

Cllr Pritchard found the notion of an alternative budget entertaining, saying he did believe there had been such an alternative budget despite some opposition groups believing there was, “I have never seen one!”

“There will be a lot more dialogue, discussions and a coming together so we can all work as one. Unfortunately there is a thing called politics, and we have some opposition groups. Honestly for me, and people who know me, I will work with anyone and will try my best.

“I don’t see the Conservatives, Labour, Plaid or Independents, I see us all as people now and hope we can go forward as one”.

“I think once the elections have come and gone, we should work together to make wrexham a better place until the next election, then gloves come off again. In the interim we should run the council together.”

Cllr Hugh Jones added: “In fairness we always have had an open process on consultation. There is a whole stream of budget processes, four or five budget workshops where every member of the council can put their ideas forward. When we get to the budget meeting the whole raft of new things come out, some without detail to discuss without knowing if they will work.

“Our plea to councillors is put ideas on table and we will seriously look at them and work with you to see what can done.”

The Revenue Budget for 2019/20 is formally before a special Executive Board meeting on Tuesday, and the consultation is due to start the day after.

Keep an eye out for the ongoing coverage, and information on how you can take part in the consultation – as we will be writing about the number of responses, weight of feeling and extra comments you send in to it – so we are keen to make sure you have your say too!