Cabinet backs 9.5% council tax rise
On Tuesday, PCC’s Cabinet met to discuss and back proposals for next year’s budget which reveals where the cuts have been made to make savings of nearly £12 million for next year.
This means that the bill for a Band D house will go up by £9.41 and does not include Community/Town Council or Dyfed-Powys Police precepts that are set independently and added on to the bill.
Finance portfolio holder, Cllr Aled Davies, explained: “We’ve lived and breathed this budget for the last 12 months. This budget will pass on extra money to the schools’ budget and protect the investment made in Children and Adults Services and will help us keep developing our key priorities in our Vision 2025.
“To bridge the gap we have made significant savings across the council. Our senior management team is much smaller now, that will save us £1 million.
“Reduction in management and staff office back room functions will save another £3.3 million and there are significant changes to assets across the county.
“Since 2013 we sold 81 buildings and further changes in the next financial year will deliver us almost £400,000 worth of savings.
“The council has also started to take a transformational approach to how we deliver services. We are also looking at withdrawal of funding from some areas so that we can focus and prioritise on our main and most important areas which will give us a further saving of £2.4million.
“But most importantly, this budget does not rely on reserves or one-off sources of funding.”
Montgomery Councillor Stephen Hayes, cabinet member for Adult Services, said: “It’s worth acknowledging we’re in uncharted waters with this budget. It’s very difficult to communicate just how little room for manoeuvre there is for drawing up a budget of this sort.
“That takes into account the council’s statutory responsibilities and the year on year reduction in funding that we have had. And of course increased pressures as new legislation is passed and extra responsibilities are passed on to councils.
“But we have a duty to set a budget that enables us to go on delivering services to keep the council functioning. So that when people wake up on April 1 their recycling will still be collected. Children are still being educated. The most vulnerable in society are being supported.
“It’s not a budget I would have like to be supporting but one I feel I have to recommend to council.”
Audit committee chairman, Cllr John Morris, responded: “This is the biggest high risk budget I’ve ever known. Because of that we need to be able to monitor this budget on a daily basis.
“There’s a feeling that transformation still lacks pace and we are a number of years down that road and if we don’t do it in this budget we will really struggle.”
Acting chief executive, Mohammed Mehmet, said: “It’s important to emphasise that probably every local authority in Wales is setting a difficult budget and many with significant risk.
“So what is being proposed in Powys is not very different to our neighbours and other parts of Wales.
The net Revenue Budget for PCC will be £255.2 million for the coming year with £174.3 million (68.3%) of that coming from the Welsh Government.
The Budget will be discussed and voted upon at a Full Council meeting on Thursday, February 21, and then at a meeting on March 7 the final budget will be set.
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter
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