Rhondda Cynon Taf residents to pay 4.7% more in council tax next year

Anthony Lewis – Local democracy reporter 

Residents of Rhondda Cynon Taff look set to pay 4.7% more in council tax next year.

The budget for 2025-26 approved by full council on Wednesday, March 5, shows this proposed council tax increase would mean band A properties pay £1.02 extra per week and band D properties pay £1.53 extra per week.

Increasing council tax by 4.7% would reduce the remaining budget gap by £769,000, the budget report said.

Plaid Cymru had put forward an alternative proposal for council tax and reserves use which would see the council tax increase for the 2025-26 year reduce from 4.7% to 4% by taking £1.22m out of the transitional reserve to balance the budget but this amendment was unsuccessful.

In the budget approved by full council, the plan is for schools to be allocated funding next year to cover in full all their pressures, which will see an extra £2m allocated to the individual schools budget (ISB).

This will see the schools budget increase by £11.2m for next year, or 5.6%, the report said. Resources for teachers’ pension costs have been allocated to schools and the ISB base budget requirement has been adjusted to reflect lower energy budget requirements.

Pressures

The report also highlighted £500,000 of one-off funding which the council used to support the schools budget for 2024-25, ring-fenced for ongoing cost pressures associated with additional learning needs.

The report said the schools budget would increase from £198m to £212m, an overall rise of 7%.

A decision to close Cae Glas care home in Hawthorn will reduce the budget gap for next year by a further £1.16m.

Efficiency measures and budget cuts of £5.75m had been found including £3.75m in general efficiencies, £1m in capital charges and interest receivable, and £1m from service restructuring and vacancy management.

The report said officers had provided assurance the measures proposed could be delivered operationally and without a significant detrimental impact on frontline services.

A 5% standard rise in fees and charges was included with some areas seeing their own treatment and this will bring in £633,000 in income for the council.

These measures, along with £50,000 in extra funding from the final Welsh Government settlement, reduce the budget gap from £6.82m to £457,000.

The council will use 457,000 of the transitional funding reserve to fill this remaining gap leaving £4.26m in this reserve.

The overall council revenue budget for 2025-26 is set to be £668.17m.

The final funding settlement from Welsh Government for Rhondda Cynon Taf confirmed an increase in funding of 4.8%.

Increase

Labour leader of the council, Councillor Andrew Morgan, said that while he’d like to see a bigger increase in funding, the increase they’d had from Welsh Government of 4.8% did mean they’d had substantial extra money which had helped with the budget gap and protected jobs and services.

Cllr Morgan said efficiencies were becoming more difficult and cuts were starting to harm more and more so they were trying their best to reduce that.

“I think what the cabinet’s brought forward and officers have presented in the report is a balanced approach. It means we can invest in protecting those key areas around education, social services.

“It means we’re not making substantial further cuts as part of the budget strategy in our other core services.

“We’re keeping the council tax rise at 4.7 which at present appears to be the second lowest in Wales.”

And he said they were using as little transitional funding as they could this year while putting money aside to replenish reserves and make sure there were resources available for severe weather.

He said: “We don’t put up council tax lightly. Every one of us in this room pays it, our families pay it, our friends, our neighbours pay it.

“It is a difficult balance between making cuts to services, managing the priority investment areas such as schools and social services and managing at a time when we’ve seen a significant hike in the cost-of-living pressures for families.”

But he said what was being proposed was a right and balanced approach and that it was a fair way to do it.

In proposing the amendment to council tax and the use of reserves, Councillor Karen Morgan, leader of the Plaid Cymru group, said this time last year the transitional funding reserves stood at £2.027m and were replenished during the year to the current figure of £4.724m.

Reserves

She said taking £1.226m would still leave £3.498m in there which would be £1.471m more than the amount that was in the transitional funding reserves this time last year.

She said there was no reason why the transitional funding reserves would not replenish again.

Cllr Karen Morgan said: “I am content that this council can sustain the reduction in council tax that’s set out in the amendment.

“I would point to the fact that it would still leave one of the best transitional balances going forward untouched in many a year.”

She said the purpose of the amendment was to recognise the pressures residents were facing and make a small change of 0.7% less which might make a big difference for communities.

But director of finance, Barrie Davies, responded to the amendment saying it was recommended as being prudent to keep the use of this reserve to a minimum level in support of next year’s budget, in order to protect the subsequent year’s budget strategy from having to address a more significant underlying budget shortfall.

Councillor Karl Johnson, leader of the Conservative group, said they’d be voting with Plaid Cymru to keep council tax as low as possible for residents.

He said that while it was quite low it was still an added cost to residents in their communities and additional to the 7.3% rise in the police precept, 3% inflation, and energy bills and water bills going up, meaning household budgets were getting stretched further and further.

Turning to school transport changes, he said they were giving with one hand and taking with the other on education because they were saving £1.1m on “not getting children to school.”

He said it was always said that transition funding was to be used for a rainy day, saying: “Well, it’s not a rainy day, it’s pouring and residents in Rhondda Cynon Taf are really struggling.”

Rainy day

Councillor Mike Powell, leader of the RCT Independent group, said he would not be supporting the amendment saying: “I don’t think it’s a reasonable position to take because the money is there for a rainy day.

“I also won’t be supporting the budget because of some of the things which you actually intend to spend money on or not spend money on which I would disagree with.”

He said the £633,000 income from fees and charges assumed that those currently using those services continued to do so.

He said an alternative to the changes to school transport in RCT could have been to do with the Park and Dare and Coliseum theatres in Treorchy and Aberdare what had been done with the Muni in Pontypridd.