It’s the most wonderful time of the year etc. You know the drill.
The final budget is set to be discussed by the Cabinet tomorrow and go to full council for approval on Wednesday (24th February 2021).
The Overall Picture (pdf)
This year’s budget has, as you might expect, been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Largely as a result of that, local government has received a better-than-usual settlement from the Welsh Government for a second year in a row, as well as additional indirect support from the UK Government in non-devolved areas (like the furlough scheme).
BCBC needed to find “only” £1.76million worth of cuts and savings for 2021-22 – the lowest it’s been for a long time.
The main development is that the schools budget has been protected from cuts once again.
Where will the cuts and savings come from in 2021-22? (pdf)
Education & Family Support (-£116,000)
- Loss of an Additional Learning Needs support post (-£61,000)
- Reconfiguration of a team supporting traveller children (-£50,000)
- Savings from a cut in contribution to the Central South Education Consortium (-£5,000)
Social Services & Wellbeing (-£315,000)
- Savings arising from a shift in emphasis within social services towards independent living (-£225,000)
- Remodelling day services for older people & learning disabled (-£90,000)
Communities (-£823,000)
- Savings as a result of the lease on Sunnyside House – the old water board offices – expiring (-£309,000)
- Savings as a result of Community Asset Transfer of sports pitches etc. (-£300,000)
- Savings from energy-efficient street lighting (-£75,000)
- Savings arising from the imminent relocation of Tythegston recycling centre to a new site in Pyle (-£60,000)
- Changes to how a fire suppression system at the waste transfer site in Tondu will be paid for (-£60,000)
- Welsh Government funding towards a new purple bag collection vehicle carried over from last year (-£19,000)
Administration, Chief Executive & Council-Wide (-£506,000)
- Savings on building maintenance borrowing (-£120,000)
- Savings resulting from the UK Government’s public sector pay freeze (-£118,000)
- Cuts to HR and Finance department staffing (-£89,000)
- Efficiencies in the insurance contract (-£75,000)
- Cuts to the IT/telephone budget (-£41,000)
Capital Spending Programme (pdf)
This money is used to pay for new one-off projects and infrastructure.
The vast majority is dedicated to schools, which are either planned, in construction or have ongoing costs after completion. This totals around £11.6million, of which around £282,000 is dedicated to extending Welsh-medium nursery provision.
£4.4million has been dedicated towards the Caerau heat network, though it’s unclear what’s happening there. That’s the same case with the £8.1million earmarked for a new council depot at Waterton which has been on-off for years.
Just under £2.5million will go towards Cardiff City Region projects, while a similar amount of just over £2.5million will go towards Porthcawl regeneration (some of which will come from the eventual sale of Salt Lake land to Aldi).
Just over £1.9million is going towards improved residential care for children, while £1.3million will be spent on road and pavement resurfacing.
Elsewhere, £815,000 will pay for improvements at Coychurch Crematorium, with £540,000 available for road safety improvements at Heol Mostyn in Pyle (probably related to the new recycling centre).
Council Tax, Precepts, Charges & Fees
Council tax is set to increase by 3.9% – which is the smallest increase to council tax in Bridgend since 2017-18.
South Wales Police & Crime Commissioner, Alun Michael (Lab) has approved an increase to the policing precept of 5.5%. He’s up for election this year.
Increases to the South Wales Fire Service precept will result in an additional £308,000 being spent county-wide – which is a smaller increase than last year.
In terms of proposed changes to fees and charges (pdf), they mainly relate to the planning system. These include (subject to approval) changes to fees for non-statutory planning advice, building control fees and planning performance agreements. This is unlikely to affect the public at large.
Similarly, there’s a proposal to reintroduce charges for stopping-up orders and highway registrar functions, which could run to £1,500-per-order.
As for town and community council precepts, on the whole they’ve been kept down compared to last year.
Three councils have cut their precepts (Llangynwyd Lower, Merthyr Mawr and Porthcawl Town), two have frozen them (Coity Higher, Ogmore Valley), St Brides Minor Community Council is increasing the precept by 1p, while a further six councils have kept increases at or below 0.5%.
This is what the council tax bill is set to look like for each band:
