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Opinion

No fat left to cut: Councils are buckling, but so are we

27 Oct 2024 7 minute read
Oliver Twist: ‘Please Sir, I want some more’

Stephen Price

In unsurprising news this week, another Welsh council declared a council tax increase for next year – a far from modest 16% rise for Gwynedd as it tries to ‘balance its books’.

The same council approved an “unprecedented” 9.54% council tax rise in the current financial year – with news reports at the time urging struggling families to seek help.

Gwynedd Council’s chief executive Dafydd Gibbard has warned of “difficult decisions” ahead over the potential council tax rises and service cuts.

Councillor Paul Rawlinson described the financial picture as one of great concern, saying: “The problem is not one of over-spending, but one of underfunding. We’re just not getting enough Government resources.”

This was due to a “combination of factors” including increasing pressure on domiciliary care provision, higher staffing costs and sickness levels.

The chief executive said: “‘Overspend’ is a technical term, what it really is, is a lack of funding.”

Some good news (if you’re already rich)

In brighter news for the haves, not the have nots, second homes council tax premiums in Pembrokeshire are to drop from the current 200 per cent rate to 150 per cent, despite warnings it could lead to a council tax rise next year of as much as 14 per cent – all thanks to Tory Councillor, Diane Clements.

At a meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council’s full council on 17 October, two attempts to lower the second homes council tax premium in Pembrokeshire were made, with members hearing the changes could lose the council between £2.6m and £5.2m, and could increase next year’s overall council tax rise to as much as 18.8 per cent.

Tenby harbour. Photo by Beata Mitręga on Unsplash

Pembrokeshire is currently expected to see a slightly less hair-raising 11.14 per cent council tax rise in the next financial year – but again, this comes on the back of previous unsustainable rises for many.

Cllr Tony Wilcox said that any reduction in the rate for second-home-owners would impact on ordinary council tax-payers in the county.

“Why are we penalising 85-95 per cent of our own people to pander for a political point?” he asked, adding: “The overwhelming majority of our residents aren’t affected by this, we are going to penalise the majority.

“I really can’t see how we are contemplating really high council tax rises for the majority of our county.”

Council leader Cllr Jon Harvey, who said Cllr Murphy had previously been supportive of the 200 per cent rate, warned: “On this proposal we are talking about £2.6m loss to the council, or about three-and-a-half per cent on council tax. What additional services are you prepared to cut, or are you prepared to increase council tax over and above?

“I am not prepared to justify to our residents why I voted to reduce second homes tax and then put that burden or service cuts on them, they certainly will be worse off in my opinion if this goes through.”

That the council has, in its power, the ability to charge second home owners 300% and yet chooses to reduce the amount in the current economic climate is both bizarre and downright offensive, yet here we are.

Gorsaf Bleidleisio / Polling Station

And will these councillors get a beating at the ballot box next time they’re asking Pembrokeshire residents to vote for them? I very much doubt it, since we are so estranged from the processes and the feeling of having any actual power, many of us don’t even bother to vote.

I expect Diane will be rewarded by Tory supporting second home owners when the time comes. She, undoubtedly, knows where her bread is buttered.

“No fat left to cut”

Against the backdrop of unsustainable rising council tax bills (for some of us), council chiefs have warned of “no fat left to cut” with leisure centres and libraries across Wales facing the threat of closure due to “unprecedented” financial constraints.

The Senedd culture committee took evidence from councils on October 24 as part of an inquiry on the impact of cuts on the arts, culture and sport.

Emily Owen, deputy leader of Conwy council, said: “Everything’s on the table that isn’t statutory at the moment, we’re in that much of a difficult financial situation.”

The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), the national voice of Wales’ 22 councils, warned spending on culture, recreation and libraries has fallen by up to 43% over a decade.

Cllr Owen said: “Last year, our economy and culture service had a 20% cut and the year before it had an 11% cut. That’s a serious amount of money that has gone from services.”

Spiralling

With the WLGA warning of a £432m funding gap across Welsh councils, Cllr Owen told the committee the council is trying to avoid closing leisure centres.

“We strongly believe that once they’re gone, they’re gone,” she said.

Entire communities (two within a stone’s throw of where I’m from, namely Blaenafon and Nantyglo) now without the joy, the community, the fitness, the health and economic benefits from a leisure centre.

The impacts will be felt for generations.

The Labour councillor cautioned, quite rightly, that cuts have had a considerable direct impact on participation of the most vulnerable people amid a mental health epidemic.

Cllr Thomas, who is culture, arts and leisure spokesperson for the WLGA, told the committee Cardiff is facing a £60m gap in the coming year.

He said: “We’re at the toughest point of budget setting I think we’ve experienced even in 14-15 years of austerity.”

Cllr Thomas cautioned it is increasingly difficult to find savings after 14 years of austerity, adding that councils are overwhelmingly prioritising services in areas of higher poverty.

Drip drip drip

I’m sure I don’t just speak for myself here, but I won’t be seeing a 16% pay rise in April.

I didn’t receive a 9.54% one this year either.

I wish shopping bills had, however, gone up by only that percentage point.

I wish my mortgage looked more like it did a few years back too, and so on and so forth.

I know a few who are shielded from the costs because of high wages, savings or through benefits and reductions, but for most of us whose financial situation lives somewhere in the vast and undefined middle ground, we’re the ones with no fat left to cut.

The councillors can go home after a hard few hours talking around the table with little personal consequence, but for all their emotive language and ‘understanding’, it’s not their money that is being cut or being used to fill the gaps, it’s ours.

Artist impression of the proposed Twyn Hywel wind farm as seen from Alexandra Terrace, Senghenydd. Credit: LUC

Answers on a postcard please

So what’s the answer?

More cuts to services while more costs land on our doorsteps?

Major reform and less duplication of services, such as is happening with a shared chief executive for Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent?

300% as a bare minimum for second home owners?

Councils demanding that any wind farms in Wales that purport to produce enough energy for ‘x percent’ of the local populace actually get more than a few crumbs to, I don’t know, provide ‘x percent’ of energy and profit for their own populace?

Or more rebellion, and a little more than ‘please sir, I want some more’ from our council leaders, who should be demanding that the Senedd and Westminster make this the urgent priority it is.

It’s not just our arts and culture sectors or health and leisure services that are buckling. We are too.


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Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
6 days ago

Councils…six figure payouts…stress sick notes…
let someone honest tally up the ‘scams’…

Linda Jones
Linda Jones
6 days ago

Council tax is such an unfair tax where the burden is larger for the least well off while rich student landlords pay nothing. Nor do their students. It needs scrapping

J Jones
J Jones
6 days ago

Councillors should be a small number if individuals meeting up occasionally to question or rubber stamp recommendations from full time qualified officers.

The problem was summed up by a councillor moaning about his ‘pay rise’, he does not get ‘paid’ as he doesn’t have a job, councillors get an extortionate ‘allowance’ that bears no resemblance to their professional qualifications or ability.

Mawkernewek
5 days ago
Reply to  J Jones

I’m not sure things would be much better if council officers were just left to their own devices.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
6 days ago

Red rag…

Bring on the Bumbles, how much will you give me for these fine specimens ladies and gentlemen…

They are no strangers to hard work, let me assure you, they will work day and night like the last lot to tie you into deals that cost three generations their ability to save…I mean make your country grow, come, what am I bid…

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
5 days ago

Year on year they demand more pleading poverty, where the hell do they think we can get it from…mouths wide open like big fat cuckoo chicks…

Last edited 5 days ago by Mab Meirion
Old Curmudgeon
Old Curmudgeon
5 days ago

“I am not prepared to justify to our residents why I voted to reduce second homes tax and then put that burden or service cuts on them, they certainly will be worse off in my opinion if this goes through.”… I’m confused. So if not the public who elected them, who are they obliged to justify their action to?

Mozart
Mozart
4 days ago

Does a country with a population of 3m really need 22 different local authorities and all the waste that goes with it?

Arthur
Arthur
4 days ago

We think that raising council tax on second homes means an increase in overall council tax take do we ? And vice versa ( inverse proportionality). Not the experience in Ceredigion ( I have done the research) and the Conservatives discovered the same of Pembrokeshire CC – see Janet Finch-Saunders website Business Statement. Anyway, I thought the rationale for the second homes premium was to create a fund that would enable more affordable house building for local residents ! – nothing whatsoever to do with generating / reducing available revenues for ‘ general ‘ council purposes.

Mark Drakeford
Mark Drakeford
16 minutes ago

Council tax has gone up year after year after year. Where has all this money gone? Am I the only person who hasn’t noticed an improvement in local services? Maybe it has gone towards Haverfordwest’s £19 million new bus station to replace a perfectly functional bus station and £6 million on an ‘Instagrammable’ pedestrian bridge right next to a perfectly functional pedestrian bridge. Or maybe it has gone towards the chief executive’s salary which is more than the first minister’s and nearly as high as the prime minister’s. Yes, times are hard in County Hall and, Pembrokeshire being a dairy… Read more »

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