Council leaders plead for more funds from Welsh Government ministers
Richard Evans, Local Democracy Reporter
Senior Conwy councillors and officers met with Welsh Government chiefs this week to plead for more money, spelling out the county’s underfunding.
Leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey said he handed over detailed statistics to Welsh Government ministers, demonstrating how Conwy received £300 less per head of the population than neighbours Denbighshire.
The meeting was also attended by Conwy’s deputy leader, Cllr Emily Owen; chief executive, Rhun ap Gareth; director of care and education, Jenny Williams; as well as the director and head of finance, Amanda Hughes and Gareth Evans.
The Welsh Government ministers attending included cabinet secretary for finance, Mark Drakeford; cabinet secretary for housing and local government, Jane Bryant; and cabinet member for transport and North Wales, Ken Skates.
Underfunded
At a council meeting at Coed Pella this week, Cllr McCoubrey told councillors he explained to ministers how Conwy had been underfunded for over a decade, leading to huge council tax rises and cuts in services.
Whilst Conwy had a marginally improved local government settlement from Welsh Government this year of 3.6%, Conwy has traditionally received some of the lowest annual funding rises year on year.
Conwy received the joint lowest annual settlement rise in Wales in 2024 of 2%, compared to much higher rises in South Wales, with Cllr McCoubrey criticising the funding formula as outdated.
Council leaders argue Conwy’s high proportion of elderly residents means the care bill faced by the authority is disproportionate, among many other population-demographic reasons.
“Members will often have heard me say that the role of local government is undervalued, and it is definitely underfunded,” he said.
“We are all aware of the situation in Conwy in the current year but also the really difficult decisions we’ve had to make over the last number of years.
“Amanda (Hughes, director of finance) and I prepared a lot of quite detailed statistics. We are aware that all local government counties across Wales are struggling, but the situation is far more acute in Conwy, given the inequities of the current funding formula, which as you know, provides £300 a head more for residents in Denbighshire and £160 per head more in Gwynedd.
“So I’ve long been an advocate for change, so it is really telling when you see that sort of statistical data over a 10-year period about the level of cuts, the level of reserves, and the level of council tax rises. It is a real close correlation between the level of funding that goes to each authority, which I suppose wouldn’t come as a massive surprise.
“Clearly if you are the bottom of the pile in terms of the level of funding you are getting as a council, that is much more severe, so the data is there.”
‘Engaging’
He added: “It was a good engaging meeting, and they were certainly prepared to listen. I think there will be a lot more to be done, but what I really want to press is that the huge increases we’ve imposed on council-tax payers over the last three years to essentially protect those statutory services leaves us caught between a rock and a hard place.”
“We know it impacts more on people on lower incomes, but they are the people who most rely on our services, and that is an incredibly difficult balance to make.”
Conwy has increased council tax by around 30% in three years, but Cllr McCoubrey went on to explain the council funded around 12,000 hours a week of domiciliary care to keep people out of hospital.
The leader said Conwy would continue with evidence-based arguments to lobby to increase funding for the authority.
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Yes, I agree, but council leaders need to sit down with his or her county councillors and seriously look at how they are wasting money hand over fist on unnecessary expensive projects, outside advisors, six men to do the work of two (all six with a vehicle each), paying through the nose without question for contracted works, hiring road signs and traffic lights, started and unfinished building projects with expensive hired scaffolding constructed all around doing nothing at all, roundabout sculptures which are a distraction to motorists, the same road signs adjacent to each other on both sides of roads… Read more »
There is undoubtedly some waste; but the reality is that 70% of any Council’s budget goes on education and social services, with costs on both increasing exponentially. There is precious little left for anything else such street cleansing and grass cutting. And even less in a few weeks time after the spending review and with Welsh Government pouring anything extra into the NHS.
Social care should be merged with health and centrally funded. It’s not fair that ctax payers in council areas with older populations have less for other services than those with younger populations.
I see your point; but there there are two issues with that. First, politicians lack the will to address social care reform – 15 years after Dilnott came up with most of the answers. Second, merging health and social care wouldn’t improve the budget position of the latter. Welsh government put more and more cash into hospitals at the expense of everything else (however it’s organised).
This article is about council budgets. Centralising social care would help with that even if social care didn’t get any more money, although the overlap between health and social care would still yield efficiency benefits.
Seeing Wales was robbed of its HS2 consequential by both English Conservative & Labour in London, who also denied the Welsh Government the devolution of Wales Crown Estate, power afforded to Scotland in 2017 by the Conservatives , control that raised between the years 2023/24 over £1.1 billion for the Scottish Treasury. Imagine what good we could have done with money raised from our Crown Estate, HS2 consequential stolen, but more importantly, our water resource, that’s piped out of Wales into England for absolutely nothing. Still think we live in a United Kingdom, have fair and equal society, and that… Read more »
Wrong on HS2. The devolution of rail infrastructure was offered to Welsh Government 20 years ago. They declined so robbed themselves. I think I’m also right in saying that the water may be Welsh; but the pipes were paid for by English local authorities.
If your neighbour paid for a tunnel under the fence to help themselves to a gold seam under your garden, that’d be ok? A fair per-litre abstraction charge is all that’s needed.
Yes, it would. My neighbour would have to consult me about the tunnel. But If I chose not to invest in his/her scheme and s/he cleans up, that’s tough luck for me. We need to get out of this mindset that we expect to benefit once someone else has met the upfront costs.
Maybe gold is a bad example because that would belong to the crown.
Imagine your neighbour invested in a ladder that let them hop over your fence and help themselves to your wild carrots, even when you objected.
>> “Eight hundred acres of land were bought by compulsory purchase, which had to be approved by parliament, but 35 out of 36 Welsh MPs voted against.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/oct/13/water.society
Simply too many Councils in Wales. Tory single tier local government legacy and yet the Senedd will not grasp the nettle. Too many Labour run authorities for Labour to do anything about it.
Perhaps Plaid will put this back on the agenda. Financial incentives can be put on the table but it should be voluntary with decisions to merge made locally rather than forced by a top-down reorganisation. Local government must feel local to residents.