Blaenau Gwent Council has been successful in making savings of nearly £4million this financial year and is already looking at how further efficiencies can be made in the future.
In March the Full Council unanimously voted through a budget that helped to achieve these required savings while continuing to protect frontline services, avoiding compulsory job losses, listening to the priorities of local people and approving the lowest Council Tax rise in the county borough for 15 years at 3.2%
Earlier this month the Executive Committee approved the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy which identifies the potential savings that may need to be made in forthcoming years and looked at potential Council Tax increases based on factors such as inflation. Potential savings of £2.4million for 2012/13 and £1.3million for 2013/14 may need to be found.
However, these figures and the strategy itself are to help the Council in financial planning – they are not the Council’s budget. The budget for 2012/13 is yet to be drafted and has to be approved by the Full Council next year.
Blaenau Gwent Council’s cross party Budget Working Group continues to work hard to identify efficiencies, but like all local authorities has to wait for news of its financial settlement from the Welsh Government before drafting up more firm plans.
Over the past few years this group has worked with service areas right across the Council to identify the required savings. These have been achieved through modernisation and new ways of working and the downsizing of staff through natural wastage and restructure. All service areas have contributed to savings and continue to look at ways of improving.
Councillor John Taylor, Executive Member for Resources at Blaenau Gwent Council says:
“Local authorities continue to face tough financial challenges. This year we managed to come up with a fair and balanced budget that protected frontline services and resulted in the lowest Council Tax rise in 15 years.
“It is only prudent that our financial planners look to the future and that is why this strategy has been put together. These are projections only and are certainly not plans that have been set in stone – once we have news of our financial settlement from the Welsh Government then we can begin to draft a budget.
“Service areas right across the Council have worked hard to make efficiencies and we have downsized our staff costs through both natural wastage and substantial savings made by changes to our senior management structure.
“We know that Council Tax must increase based on inflation, but it is far to early to say how much it will increase by and in any event this will have to be agreed by the Full Council. The fact that this year’s rise of 3.2% was the lowest in a long time demonstrates this Council’s continued commitment to keep rises to a minimum bearing in mind the current financial climate.
“The savings that we have achieved this year were the highest our predictions showed we must find over the next few years and I am confident that with our record of good budget planning we can continue to find the required savings.”
