A near 10% hike on fire service council tax share

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Powys householders are going to be coughing up a lot more next year to cover an extra million pounds to pay for the running costs of the Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

The final figures will be worked out after the Welsh Government announces the allocation of revenue support grant to each of the 22 local authorities in Wales just before Christmas.

But at a meeting at Powys County Council yesterday (Thursday), fire service chiefs explained why they need to increase their share of the council tax again this year, with the levy is set to rise by £5.889 million to £68.554 million in 2024/2025.

Powys’ share of the costs is set to go up from £9.081 million this year to £10.171 million.

The funding hike would partly be covered by a contribution from the Welsh Government coming through the local authorities funding allocations, but around £700,000 would need to be found from the council’s own coffers.

This equates to a 0.33% increase on contribution from the total Powys budget, the largest hike of the six authorities that are in the fire service area, which are Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, and Neath Port Talbot.

The increase was supposed to be 7.6%, but a revaluation to the fire fighters pension fund has caused the revised figure of 9.4% to materialise.

The Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Authority which oversees the running of the fire service is currently chaired by Powys County Councillor for Llansantffraid, Cllr Gwynfor Thomas.

He assured the council that members of the fire authority had been “given a real good challenge” to the budget figures.

Cabinet Member for a Learning Powys, Cllr Pete Roberts, said that the council is “expecting” a 3% increase in Welsh Government funding for next year.

Cllr Roberts said: “You are asking us to add approximately £700,000 on top of what we would get in additional from Welsh Government?

“You say you are a small component of the (Powys) budget – but so is planning so is highways and our protected services.”

Cllr Roberts said that if the fire service was treated as a council department they would have needed to find savings to trim their budget down to 3%.

He claimed that the council would have to look again at departmental budgets to find more savings or add “somewhere between” 0.5 and one per cent onto next year’s Council Tax bills.

Fire service section 151 officer, Sarah Mansbridge, said: “It is very difficult. We are a very different type of statutory service; we have very little discretionary areas. We can change service delivery but we’re talking about closing stations and whether we would be able to respond to emergencies.”

Chief Fire Officer Roger Thomas explained that they could close fire stations but the emergency calls “would still come”.

He said: “What you are then doing is mobilising from a further distance and a fire has more time to take hold or the road traffic collision will take longer to attend.”

Deputy Council Leader, Cllr Matthew Dorrance, said: “We feel quite strongly that this is an unreasonable ask. I don’t think there’s been any real pace behind the need to transform or change or find savings before you come to us.”

He wondered if the fire service staffing model is right and whether it would be better to have full time stations rather than so many that are staffed by retained fire fighters.

Mr Thomas explained that each fully staffed fire station costs around £1.3 million while a retained station would be around £150,000. and that resources were put where the highest risk is identified – such as near Tata Steelworks in Port Talbot.

“To put full time stations in Powys would be a very costly overprovision,” said Mr Thomas.

Council vice-chairman Cllr Jonny Wilkinson added: “We do appreciate your work and we don’t want to see your ability to respond in a prompt and timely manner compromised.”