Full Council set to debate budget with council tax rise

Confirmation that council tax in Wrexham is set to increase by 4% is likely to take place this week when the Full Council meets on Wednesday.

The proposed budget sheet details the £280m council income, made up of £73m from council tax and £207m from Welsh Government funding, up from £70m/£188m for 21/22. That comes on the back of Welsh Government announcing the ‘best settlement in decades’ for Wrexham Council, the sixth highest increase in Wales.

Previously Council Leader Mark Pritchard told us about the 4% rise, saying “I’m really pleased that the decision has been made by the Alliance, coalition, working in true partnership to keep the council tax law within Wrexham. We worked really hard on it, and we are announcing that the council tax will be set to 4%.

“That’s an agreement between the three groups, David Bithell’ Independent group, the Conservatives and ourselves. I’m really pleased with that because we’ve worked extremely hard to bring the council tax down in Wrexham, but also to continue to deliver the valuable services on the back of very demanding times.”

In the report before all councillors for Wednesday’s meeting it gives a ‘highlights’ of the budget, with the council detailing the below five points:

• It continues to support Council Plan priorities, including significant additional investment of £6m to fund current demand and workforce pressures in social care next year
• it provides an increase of 8.16% in the Council’s total net expenditure
• As well as inflationary pressures of £11.3m, additional commitments for 2022/23 amount to £9,597k and reflect current year budget pressures as well as emerging pressures as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to the direct additional funding to social care, the budget recognises key pressures across a range of service areas totalling £937k
• Provision of £1.4m is included as part of the commitment to pay the Real Living Wage of £9.90 to those eligible working within the care sector
• Service efficiencies of £300k are included. This represents 0.1% of the net revenue budget and will be delivered without detriment to service delivery it highlights the risks associated with the proposed budget and the need for close management of them during the year (see Appendix 2)

Interestingly for fans of the possibly terminal Local Development Plan the below graph is included in one of the supporting documents in the budget pack. The decrease of population indicated is quite the contrast to a now obviously dated key piece of the LDP framework, that in 2014 noted: “The projections forecast an increase in population of over 20% on the 2011 baseline, the second highest figure in Wales and significantly higher than the Welsh average” and had us down as one of the top three population growth centres, with more recent LDP evidence base documents refer to a range of projections, that could indicate a 152k to 158k total population range – still an increase.

More detail is also given in the appendices on the budget pressures in the Children’s specialised residential and fostering placements budgets, as well as within the budgets for the associated specialist education costs, along with an increase in agency costs.

The reports explain, “The growth in specialist placements the council is dealing with is not a unique position and is a pressure facing a number of councils across the country. It is in part a consequence of the impact of Covid-19.”

A table is included that “highlights the increase in placement numbers across both fostering and residential over a 12 month period and numbers continue to increase.”

The table shows between Q2 2020/21 and Q2 2021/22 a 30% increase in placements over the period, noting that an increase of 65% had
occurred over the previous year.

The historical budget context is also provided to councillors, and the public, showing over the last ten years the Council’s funding gap (the difference between net expenditure and funding) has been met by making cuts or ‘efficiencies’. Since 2010/11 budget period, that total is around £59m.

The council’s net expenditure has grown 21% since the start of the figures below, and is now over a quarter of a billion pounds.

In a more forward looking section the way the council intends to operate and create budgets is also discussed, with a range of policies detailed – two are copied below:

• Stopping/cutting services and reducing service levels: In areas that are not a priority, services may have to stop, reduce or charge more where appropriate, over the course of the MTFP. This will impact on both discretionary and mandatory services. Our budget approach is no longer solely about re-shaping services – our services are continually being reshaped, it is about re-prioritising services to ensure that priority and essential services are sustainable and resilient.
• Making efficiencies in the way we deliver services: The scope for genuine efficiencies is very limited given that much of the previous ten years’ savings have been in efficiencies. However we will always work hard to identify and deliver more.

Previous Full Council budget debates have seen some firm encounters and even alternative budgets tabled. You can view the meeting online live on Wednesday at 4.00 pm where the overall budget and supporting documents will be discussed and voted upon.