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Posted: Thu 16th Jan 2025
For every million pounds of additional finding Wrexham can secure from its Welsh Government settlement the authority will reduce planned Council Tax increases by 1%.
That pledge came from Wrexham County Borough Council leader Mark Pritchard as he said councils across Wales were ‘fighting for their lives’ to get a better financial package from Welsh Government.
He revealed that through the council’s budget-setting processes the chief finance officer calculated that Wrexham Council needed to increase council tax by 9.9% next year.
But there are still additional factors to include that could see that number rise further, with Cllr Pritchard warning a Senedd committee last week that the final increase could be 15% per household in Wrexham.
“Our settlement in Wrexham is an improvement and that’s appreciated,” he told Members of the Senedd. “But it isn’t enough money because the demands are outstripping the services.”
This week he has revealed that every percentage point that council tax goes up is worth £700,000 to the authority – and he promised if councils successfully negotiate more money from Welsh Government, Wrexham will reduce its council tax increase by one point for every million pounds of extra funding.
“Where will the final council tax level end up?” Cllr Pritchard said. “I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know. Will it need to go to 10%, 11 %, 12% or more? It depends what the pressures are and what our final settlement from Welsh Government is.“For every one per cent that we take off the increase, it’s £700,000 the council has to cut.“But if we can secure an improved settlement from Welsh Government that would be passed on directly. For every £1m extra finding we receive from the Welsh Government, we would reduce the council tax increase by one percent because why wouldn’t you?”
Cllr Pritchard said that he was disappointed that councils had to fight for extra money after the Welsh Government received an additional £1.2 billion to fund services.“This is not political, this is where we are. We are all fighting for our lives to get a better settlement and the money is there. So what we want is more money going forward to deliver a service.“I’m disappointed the additional £1.2 billion was allocated and we are still having this debate.”
Cllr Pritchard also criticised the Welsh Government for finalising the settlement after council budgets have been set.“It shouldn’t be done this way,” he said. “We won’t know what the Welsh Government Settlement is until after we’ve set our budget.“There’s the National Insurance question. We were told that 100% of the cost of the increase brought in by the UK Government would be covered by Welsh Government. Now Welsh Government are telling us we won’t find out for certain until spring.“If we set our budget and they decide to only give us 50%, we could end up with a big hole in our finances. Then we would need to look at everything – libraries, resource centres, social care. We would have to leave no stone unturned.”
Cllr Pritchard said that there was growing opposition in the Senedd against the Welsh Government’s proposed budget and he was hopeful that would strengthen local authorities’ case for a better settlement.“On a national level the Conservatives have said they won’t support the budget,” he said. “Plaid won’t, there’s one independent MS who will not work with the Welsh Government on it and Mid and West Wales MS Jane Dodds, who I think could be very influential in this process.“We’re all waiting to see what discussions and deals are done to get that budget over the line.”
He praised council employees for their efforts to maintain services in the face of a decade of budget challenges, but said that unless the settlement improved, the council would have to consider compulsory redundancies.“We have a fantastic team here in Wrexham who work hard to deliver our services,” said Cllr Pritchard. “I think what we’ve done in the last 10 years to deliver a service standard that is acceptable is quite incredible.“But we’ve got nowhere else to go now. We’re at that point. We have already looked at Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy and we just 15 – there’s no appetite for staff to leave us.“Will we have to revisit compulsory redundancies? Yes, if we don’t get the right amount of money and we don’t set the council tax at the level it should be.“I don’t like increasing council tax, believe me. But we have to to keep on delivering a service. I tell councillors all the time, if you don’t want to set the council tax at that level, you have to support the cuts that will come in the future.”
By Alec Doyle – LDRS
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