Flintshire Council’s leadership is a little more optimistic about setting the authority’s budget next year now almost £20m can be shaved off the £32m ‘black hole’ it was facing.
The Local Government Settlement confirmed by the Welsh Government’s finance and local government minister Rebecca Evans MS last week gave Flintshire an 8.4 per cent increase in funding, leaving the authority in a better position than expected.
Before the announcement, Flintshire Council was anticipating having to find £32m plus in savings before setting its 2023-24 budget, and it has traditionally received one of the lower settlements in Wales.
Speaking at this month’s meeting of the authority’s Labour ruled cabinet, Chief Executive Neal Cockerton said: “It is better than we had anticipated at 8.4 per cent. We need to reflect now on where that will take us in terms of the £32m gap, because it doesn’t deliver £32m but a large proportion.
“There is further work to do, that work is underway and will continue through the early part of January to understand how we bridge the gap.”
Gary Ferguson, Chief Finance Officer, said there was still more to be done ahead of a budget being set.
He said: “In cash terms its £19.568m additional for us this year, which is higher than the Welsh average.
“There are three large grants still to be confirmed – the sustainable waste management grant, and a couple of homelessness grants.
“From my point of view it’s very helpful, very welcome and significantly in excess of the indicative amount. However we do need to be mindful that it only equates to around 60 per cent of our cost pressures identified in the £32m.
“There will still be some remaining risks we need to work through for example pay awards coming in at 3.5 per cent, it is becoming increasingly likely that is too low so we may have to revisit that before final budget setting.”
Mr Ferguson added: “There is still a challenging scenario to get us to a safe, legal balanced budget, and lots of work to be done over the coming weeks.
“But on the positive side we now know and are clear on exactly what we need to find in the remaining areas of budget contributions – what we need to look at for schools, portfolios and council tax.”
READ MORE; Flintshire Council leader welcomes funding settlement
Options for savings will be produced for councillors to look at in January and February ahead of setting the budget and council tax for next year.
Holywell West Cllr Paul Johnson, cabinet member for finance, praised the work undertaken with the WGLA (Welsh Local Government Association) in securing the council a better than expected settlement.
“The key thing we’ve got at the moment is a lot more clarity about what we can do and the direction in which we have to go”, he said.
“There are a lot of things to be sorted out but I think we’re going to be in a better position putting a budget through when we come to it, but there is still a lot of work to be done with that.”
Leader of the council, Flint Castle Cllr Ian Roberts said he was grateful to the UK Government for passing the funding on to the Welsh Government which is now reaching Flintshire, which he said would “make a tremendous difference” to this year’s budget.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here