Council Budget 2025/26 & beyond
As a Council we look to plan our spending over a number of years. This involves forecasting expenditure, income and funding from Welsh Government.
Welsh Government funding for councils across Wales from April 2025 ranges from an increase of 5.6% down to 2.8%. Our funding increase is 4.8%. This increase is positive and will help us support pay and pressures in our services. Despite the increase, we still have a funding gap of £1.5million for 2025/26.
The pie chart below shows how our budget is currently divided between different service areas:
To help us reduce our funding gap and set a balanced budget we are taking an organisational approach with several themes. These include:
Building Review and Reductions – We are taking an organisational approach to consider the use of our assets such as buildings and land, and where appropriate, reducing or ceasing our use. This helps to reduce our bills such as energy and maintenance costs as well as on occasions providing opportunities to generate income when we can sell assets. We are looking to find £500,000.
Changing the way we work – We are changing the way we work, by collaborating with our neighbouring Council, Torfaen. We are considering alternative ways of working, considering opportunities to streamline our managerial structures, and investing in new approaches to expensive services i.e. residential care for children who cannot be with their families. We are looking to find £550,000.
Generating Income – We will be looking at commercial rents for the industrial units we oversee. We are looking to generate £380,000.
Review use and provisions of services – As a council we deliver hundreds of services and functions to a range of users including citizens, organisations and businesses. We are assessing the demand for our services and constantly looking for more economic and effective ways to deliver these. We are looking to find £250,000.
Using Digital Innovation to modernise the way we work – like most organisations we want to use improvements in technology to not only provide our services but to improve then and reduce costs. We are initially looking to generate £200,000.
Energy Projects – as a Council we want to use our geographical position to look to generate income from sources such as solar and wind renewable energy. We are initially looking to generate £50,000.
Setting fair fees and charges – For certain services we are allowed to collect fees and charges for providing them e.g. planning and licensing charges. We are looking to find £100,000 by raising fees on average by 3% - (inflation plus 1% (additional)).
We are keen for people to have their say on what they believe are the priority services and the proposed increase in Council Tax for 2025/26. As part of our ongoing financial planning, we outline a proposal each year for Council Tax and for 2025/26 we are proposing an increase of 4.95%.
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