(Title Image: Bridgend County Borough Council)
Within the last week or so, Bridgend Council (BCBC) has launched their “Fit for the Future” consultation exercise, asking Bridgend county residents their views on future budget and policy priorities.
The consultation is taking place with one eye on the Covid-19 pandemic. BCBC estimates the pandemic has cost them £10million in lost income and additional spending.
Budget consultations usually focus on changes to spending for a single year, but this exercise is a bit different in that it aims to gather views on priorities for the council for up to the next decade.
Bridgend Council’s annual budget is usually in the £270million range (with the vast majority of that being spent on schools). BCBC won’t have a clear idea as to how much they’ll have to spend until the draft Welsh budget for 2021-22 is published at the end of 2020, which is itself dependent on the size of the block grant from the UK Government.
The Welsh Finance Minister recently said that local government will be second in the queue behind the NHS (as a spending priority) in the next Welsh budget.
The matters covered in the consultation include views on how BCBC has handled the pandemic, digitisation of customer services and service priorities.
“Fit for the Future” is available (link) as a straightforward online survey, youth survey, easy read survey and large print. The consultation is open until 13th December 2020.
There’s also a pretty extensive and useful FAQ section at the bottom of the council webpage explaining how BCBC works and how they manage services and budgets.
