Council’s budget row ends with 5.3% council tax rise

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

A Welsh county council has approved plans that will see the average council tax bill in the borough rise by almost 5.3%.

Wrexham County Borough Councillors voted by an overwhelming majority to accept the budget proposals that would see the authority increase council tax to fiund its services by 4.3%. Added to that was a 0.6% increase in the north Wales Fire Service levy, a 7.01% increase in funding for North Wales Police plus the amounts requested to fund community councils.

On average a resident in a Band D property – the middle council tax band – will see their charges increase from £2,192.90 last year to £2,308.88 this year.

Community council charges mean council tax levels vary within the borough too.

The most expensive place in Wrexham to live is Coedpoeth, where Band D council tax will be £2,380.50.

The cheapest place to live is Erbistock, where Band D residents will pay £2,242.03.

The amount raised in council tax in Wrexham will this year breach the £100m barrier, with the authority taking in £100,766,012. Added to the improved Welsh Local Government Settlement of £268,026,029, Wrexham Council will have a budget to deliver services of £368,792,041.

The approved budget includes £5.2 million of ‘assumed’ savings, with a significant chunk of that coming from a pension revaluation and £931,000 from every council department except schools being asked to find 0.5% savings through the year.

Rising costs and pressures

Wrexham Council Leader Cllr Mark Pritchard said: “Rising costs and demand pressures, particularly in respect of services to children, continue to outstrip the funding made available from central government. The increase in numbers and the complexity of cases continues to put financial pressures on budgets.

“I want to take, at this moment in time to thank the Welsh Government for the extra additional funding they provided in the settlement. But we received only 50% of what we needed.

“I think that there really needs to be a debate, an honest debate, about how they support local government going forward in the future because it is certainly unsustainable at this moment in time.”

Cllr Pritchard pointed to just over £7m in additional funding for social care – a key statutory requirements that the authority has no control over – and just over £4.5m invested in schools, education and early intervention as evidence the authority was protecting the most vulnerable.

But as members in the chamber looked set to approve the budget, Wrexham Progressive Independents Cllrs Anthony Wedlake and Jerry Wellens presented an alternative proposal.

They claimed their plan – devised following consultation with residents and community organisations – would allow the authority to increase its portion of council tax by just 3.3% by drawing down on £1.2m of council reserves.

Their proposal also said it would protect council jobs from savings cuts and would invest £130,000 in community transport, funding their plans by increasing the council tax rate on second homes from 50% to 100%, reducing the number of Executive Board members on the council by two, getting rid of one council committee chair post and introducing a visitors tax from 2027/28.

Fed up

Cllr Wedlake said: “People are fed up of paying more council tax for less council services.

“I am pleased to see the increase in commitment to increased spending which, which generally has been in the areas that people have been telling us are really important to them.

“But we are still continuing to ask our council taxpayers, year on year, to pay a greater percentage of their earnings in council tax as we continue to see proposals for council tax increases significantly above inflation. I recognise that that increase is lower this year, but it is still an increase.

“It is just not right that we ask council taxpayers to stump up for a council tax increase which is more than four times greater than the general inflation assumption of just 1% that is in our own budget.

“Council taxpayers will see us receive an inflation‑busting increase in our pay of 6.4% next year and we cannot justify continually taking those increases without demonstrating to the people of Wrexham that we want to be part of the solution when it comes to the squeeze on spending that is being outlined.”

Not supporting budget

Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr David Bithell, was the first to attack the proposal.

“They have put forward a reduction in council tax – that is credible,” he said. “We don’t set our own salaries, that’s done by the Independent Remuneration Panel.

“I also have to come back on the Executive Board. If you’re going to reduce that and reduce chairs, there is a process to do that. It’s called the Constitution Working Group.

“The reality is, I’m not going to be supporting a budget which, in my view, is not credible by raiding the reserves.”

Cllr Pritchard also criticised the proposals.

“I’m staggered that councillors in this chamber are prepared to take a chair away from scrutiny,” he said. “This council authority doesn’t want less scrutiny, it wants more scrutiny, because the more scrutiny you have in this council, the better this council is run.

“I’ve always said that I would support looking at the executive board numbers and at the same time looking at all chairs but do it properly.”

Visitor tax

Cllr Hugh Jones took aim at the suggestion of a visitor tax to raise revenue.

“I can’t believe that any councillor could vote for a tourist levy, because just think about what that will do for our bid for City of Culture,” he said. “So we want to host the City of Culture, but we want to tax the people who we need to come to it. Do you think that’s going to help or support our bid? It will do absolutely the opposite.”

The proposals did garner some support.

“I think this is a disappointing budget,” said Plaid Cymru group leader Marc Jones. “While it’s welcome that there’s a reduction on the previous council tax rises in the past two years, I don’t think that’s really what people are feeling at the moment.”

“They’ve had two, three, four years of cost‑of‑living crisis – it’s not going away. Costs for people’s budgets are running out of proportion in terms of their incomes and this is another blow to those budgets. So it’s not a surprise that we, Plaid group, are going to support this motion.

“We’ve had a long‑standing belief that the executive board could be slimmed down. I don’t see why we can’t, and we have to start at our own feet, basically. I think it’s really important that we acknowledge that the settlement is tough, but we can see that that is a saving that can be made.

“There was a comment made by the deputy leader about dipping into the reserves. I remember a budget a couple of years ago where we effectively went in with a £1.7m black hole that was unaccounted for and we were told that was acceptable.

“If that was acceptable, I think taking £1.2m out of reserves to reduce the council tax increase to 3.3% is acceptable as well.”

Engagement 

Cllr Wellens, having listened to the arguments, said the authority needed to engage more with the community to deliver a better budget.

“I want to emphasise, because it seems to have got lost in this pile‑on, the need for and the effectiveness of active engagement with the community when we’re looking at budgets.

“When we actually went and did the work outside that chamber and engaged with representative groups and community councils, there was a keenness to be involved with this process.

“I just feel that whatever the barriers to active consultation in the future, it should be considered an investment.”

Ordinary people

The final word went to Cllr Wedlake.

“I take exception to being lectured about timing,” he said. “I don’t know how you can expect individual members of this council to be able to put forward an alternative budget when we don’t know what the budget looks like?

“I don’t accept that being positive supporters of our City of Culture bid is at odds with a visitor tax. I don’t think that all that money that has been described will go into the pockets of the ordinary people of Wrexham – but the ordinary people of Wrexham will have to pay for the wear and tear on the city.

“I’m disappointed that a lot of the response to this alternative budget has been bluster – not considering the opportunity we might have to just work that little bit harder. To understand what revenue we could create and the impact of another inflation‑busting increase on the council tax payers of Wrexham.”

The proposed amendment was defeated as the majority of councillors endorsed the original budget under consideration.