Wrexham’s Citizens Advice service “very happy” says Council Leader after new support unveiled

Wrexham’s Citizens Advice service will benefit from new funding from Wrexham Council as the forthcoming local authority budget firms up.

The details were discussed yesterday during the Executive Board meeting that approved the budget, which by the nature of the debate points to the 4% council tax rise and associated spending plans likely to pass a forthcoming Full Council meeting as well.

Addressing the meeting Council Leader Mark Pritchard said: “The 2022/23 settlement gives opportunities for recovery of ground rather than major additional investment, given the significant demands the council is currently facing and will face over the next few years.

“However, with a significant investment in social care next year, the budget proposals also provide some additional investments into the services which are our priorities.

“The proposals to the executive this morning include a four per cent increase in council tax. This is a lower council tax increase than last year and indeed is lower than the planned figure in the medium-term financial plan. With a proposed increase of four per cent, our current council tax level will remain one of the lowest in Wales.”

The budget proposals discussed at the meeting included an extra £30,000 for the Citizen’s Advice, an additional £30,000 is also set to be invested into the school music service, while charges for blue badge parking permits in Wrexham will be scrapped.

With Welsh Government giving a three year view on the settlement Cllr Dana Davies queried about future plans contained inside the budget, including £300k of ‘service efficiencies‘ and some other specific allocations, “I’ve got no issues at all with 4% Council Tax given the settlement that we have. It’s a moral decision really, isn’t it that we support those residents that we know are going to be financially vulnerable and are going to find the next 12 months or so difficult with the cost of living crisis.”

“The issue I do have is, and it’s not going to surprise anybody, is it is a bit like the Rishi Sunak School of Finance, where there is a reduction to council tax this year, but then over the next two years, we are clawing that back.

Cllr Davies offered to ‘work with’ the administration to avoid that by ‘finding’ a £600,000 sum to avoid future rises, “I’m really concerned that people are going to be in a worse position financially next year.”

Cllr Pritchard welcomed the offer, adding “What we could have done was drop the council tax down to 2%- 3% and then try and catch up later on. The people of Wrexham are not foolish enough to fall for that. As I said, we had lots of conversations with a sustainable budget. We’ve worked out on it. I believe setting the council tax at 4% from April this year will put us in a very good place on the sustainability side to deliver services. Obviously, the following two years are lean as I said in my presentation, and we’ll have to have discussions about that.”

“The assumption is on that for reference is 5.5%, but that is an assumption.”

One of several specific issues picked out was around the £30k allocation for the Citizens Advice service in Wrexham.

Cllr Davies asked about the Citizens Advice figures, “How was that figure arrived at and is that enough? Because we know what’s coming down the road with cost of living crisis, and we know what residents in Wrexham are going to have to cope with – so debt advice, everything else and the legal advice potentially.”

“My question is, have we had any conversations with the CAB around that figure? Has that been agreed with them? Are we open to having more of a discussion with them to actually identify whether £30,000 is enough?”

Cllr Pritchard replied, “Yes, I have had conversations I have met the CAB. I met them once face to face and then obviously the second time virtual. We had a discussion and yes they’re very happy and pleased with the extra money that we’ve put in, and they didn’t ask for any more.”

“We sat down with them, and we’ve recognised that there’s a need and a demand and there will be extra pressure. They deliver the services, so we’ve got extra money because we value the services and what they do for people within Wrexham. So yes, the conversations have taken place.”

Previously we asked Cllr Pritchard about the historic reduction in funding to the Citizen Advice services and music service cuts, and asked if the administration was performing a u-turn. Cllr Pritchard said, “No, it isn’t a u-turn. I think it’s an understanding of what fantastic service the Citizens Advice deliver here in Wrexham. We have to be honest here, we have taken £60 million pounds out of our budget. We’ve lost £60 million, and we had to make tough decisions. We had to. None of us wanted to cut services, none of us wanted to take money away from our partnerships and partners. We didn’t want to, but we had to and that happened all over Wales. What we’re doing very early, is recognising where we have to put some money back in.”

Cllr Alun Jenkins resisted his historic calls for double digit council tax rises, however did indicate his belief that the council should be setting it higher than 4%.  He why the authority was spending approximately £6m less in key areas than the Welsh Government’s standard spending assessment (SSA).
The centrally determined figure sets out how much each authority needs to spend on revenue services, although does not represent an official target.

In response, the council leader said: “The SSA has been with us for a very long time, and I can remember when you were lead member of finance and it was the same problem then as it is now.

“We’ve worked hard to address the SSA and we’ll continue to work hard.”

The budget debate was notable as the scale of the council’s overall net revenue budget was verbalised for what we think for the first time as “just over a quarter of a billion” pounds, a landmark figure.