Swansea Council is aiming to invest extra money in schools and boost literacy skills as part of its spending plans for the next 12 months.
Schools are due to receive an extra £1.2 million above the Welsh Assembly Government’s Education Funding Guarantee.
And also included in the Council’s draft revenue budget is £400,000 targeted towards helping improve literacy in schools.
The literacy project and additional funding for schools will help build upon previous work, especially in light of the recent Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) of 15-year-olds that found Wales lagging well behind the rest of the UK.
Stuart Rice, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance, said, “Pupil services is one of the Council’s priority areas and that is why the Cabinet is proposing to spend £1.2 million above the Assembly’s funding guarantee to help schools.
“We intend to invest £400,000 in a literacy project to help ensure children are equipped with the skills they need to fulfil their potential.
“The Cabinet also wants to protect lifelong learning and Employment Training to help give people extra skills to boost their employment chances in these tough economic times.”
The Council has a shortfall £15 million in the coming year and the draft budget proposals include savings of more than £7 million through scaling back management costs, voluntary redundancies and making services more efficient.
The proposals being discussed by Cabinet on February 17 also include protecting the most vital services as well as extra investment in child and family services.
Cllr Rice added, “Due to the pressures on public sector finances the Council has a shortfall of £15 million next year alone, as well as meeting the rising costs of inflation, extra demand for child and family services and the new landfill tax.
“The Cabinet’s first priority has been to squeeze management costs, reduce staffing levels through voluntary redundancies and make our services more efficient so that the Council is leaner and more cost-effective.
“However, despite making these savings, we have had to propose reductions to some services in order to protect our priority areas of street scene services, pupil services and vulnerable people.
“By doing this we have identified more than £11 million in savings and we’ve avoided widespread cuts to the services that people value the most.”
Under these proposals council tax for a Band D property would rise by 3.4% which is below inflation and is 62p extra a week.
Cllr Rice added, “Families across Swansea are feeling the effects of rising prices in their weekly shopping and fuel bills.
“It is important to try to cushion families from further financial pressures while ensuring the Council has the finances to continue providing front-line services.
“The proposed rise in council tax is below the current rate of inflation. It works out an extra 62p per household per week.”
The draft revenue budget will be discussed by the Cabinet on February 17. Full Council will consider the budget proposals on February 28.
