Finance chief concedes ‘it’s getting tougher to make cuts’

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

A Powys County Council finance chief has warned that it is getting increasingly difficult to find budget savings each year.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet this week, senior councillors received the final position on the 2024/2025 budget which showed a £5.3 million surplus at the end of March on its £341.6 million budget.

This is long way from the doom and gloom of a £3.938 million deficit prediction that was made at the end of last September, and a massive improvement on the £894,000 surplus the council was predicting at the end of last December.

But the report does point out that the council failed to deliver on its cost reduction target.

It shows that £8.9 million in savings and cuts were made during the year against an initial target of £10.7 million, which rose to £12.9 million when undelivered savings from previous years were added to it.

A further £1.2 million had been achieved through “temporary mitigation” which means that a total of undelivered savings stood at £2.7 million last year.

Over £3.7 million worth of savings and cuts have been rolled over and will be added to the £12.3 million in cost reductions that are expected to be made this year.

Finance Portfolio Holder, Cllr David Thomas (Labour), said: “If I can make one point on the savings, it’s certainly seen a downward turn from previous years when we improved our savings delivery quite substantially.

“I think it’s worth noting that this reflects how difficult it is to achieve savings, because we have already lost £85 million from our budget over the last five years and £120 million over the last 10 years.

“It really underlines the fact that Sustainable Powys is absolutely essential to this authority moving forward.”

Council Leader, Cllr Jake Berriman (Liberal Democrat), said: “We did find in-year savings to counterbalance some of that which was useful.

“It’s a timely reminder that we need to manage our portfolios diligently as we go through the year. Congratulations to everyone for getting to the point that we got so close to what we anticipated.”

Cabinet noted the report and agreed the departmental money transfers, which are called virements.

Sustainable Powys is the umbrella term used by the council to describe potential cost-cutting projects which is supposed to see council services reduced and centred on the five hub towns of Brecon, Llandrindod Wells, Newtown, Welshpool and Ystradgynlais.

It is seen as a concept rather than a clearly defined programme of works and apart from the framework of five core towns little detail on the future shape of Powys council services has been made public so far.

The budget turnaround that has been seen in the finances according to the report is down to the Welsh Government awarding the council £2 million in March that lessens the impact of spending pressures in several parts of the council, including Additional Learning Needs (ALN), Homelessness, Social Services and Highways.

The surplus can also be attributed to an increase in Council Tax collection as the report explains that the council received £118.1 million from residents, which is a £11.4 million increase on 2023/2024.