Welsh council’s plans to hike council tax by 9.5% clears first hurdle

Alec Doyle – Local democracy reporter

A council’s plans to increase council tax by 9.5% while introducing further cuts to services have cleared their first hurdle.

The budget for 2025/26 was formally recommended by Flintshire County Council’s cabinet on Monday morning despite predicting a deficit of just over £23 million.

It will now go before full council on Monday afternoon.

Deficits

Included in the budget are plans to raise council tax by 9.5% as well as cuts including ending free school meal provision during school holidays, reducing bus subsidy contributions and ending school crossing patrols.

The council also plans to cut the schools budget by £2.5% despite its own Education, Youth and Culture Overview and Scrutiny Committee advising against the move – with schools facing a cost pressure of £12.3m.

The ‘top-slicing’ will see the education department hand back just over £2.9m to the council, with the authority also axing its £750,000 fund to ease school budget deficits.

Flintshire County Council drafted the budget before the Welsh Government announced a floor of 3.8% in its Local Government Settlement – the funding each authority receives to pay for the services it provides – last week.

That floor gave Flintshire an extra £1.2 million in funding compared to the draft settlement announced in December.

Reserves

But the small increase was slammed by Flintshire Council leader Dave Hughes as the council revealed the uplift would be put straight into it’s dwindling reserves in readiness for unexpected costs next year.

Reserves are used to cover unknown additional costs, such as those coming from social care and extreme weather events.

“It’s a drop in the ocean,” said Cllr Hughes. “We can drown in six feet of water or six inches, the only thing that matters is whether we can get our heads above the waterline.

“I was expecting then settlement to increase much more. The average increase across Wales was 4.3% – I was expecting that to be the floor. If the Welsh Government had done that we’d have an extra £26.9 million.

“The Welsh Government was given an extra £1.7 billion from the UK Government for spending. That’s plenty to set the floor for all councils at 4.3%.

“Instead we are disappointed because it doesn’t help us get close to the waterline. At the same time the councils who do better out of the Barnett Formula because they class as deprived areas have huge reserves of cash and are still getting the most.”

That waterline Cllr Hughes is speaking about is stark. Flintshire County Council is still crunching the final numbers on it’s current deficit.

“Our deficit did reach £47.5m  in December but we have taken measures since to reduce that,” said Flintshire cabinet member for finance Cllr Paul Johnson .

“We are still working on the accounts for the end of the year so we can’t say what our final position for 2024/25 will be yet.”

Cutting

Among the more radical cost-saving measures in the 25/26 budget include Flintshire’s partnership with specialist temporary homelessness accommodation provider D2 Propco.

That has allowed the council to propose cutting spending on discretionary homelessness prevention, the No-one Left Out initiative and the strategic homelessness coordinator role – saving around £563,000.

“We’ve already had to cut £125 million and we are still cutting, even though we have nothing left to cut,” said Cllr Hughes.

Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government Jayne Bryant MS did not respond to a request for a comment on the new settlement for Flintshire.

Flintshire County Council will debate the budget at 1pm on Monday, February 24.