Council tax in Newport could rise by almost eight percent

This would represent an average increase of £89.04 a year for a band D property.

A base four percent increase in council tax is already included in the medium-term financial plan each year.

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The leader of Newport City Council Cllr Jane Mudd said that it is always hard to strike the right balance with council tax.

She said: “Newport has consistently had one of the lowest council tax rates in Wales – however much we might not want to do it, we have to consider raising it, but even then we would expect to still be very low in comparison to other authorities.

“At this stage, we are considering a rise of 7.95 percent – the majority of our households are in bands A to C, which would mean a rise of between £1.14 and £1.52 a week.”

However, leader of the Newport Conservatives, Cllr Matthew Evans said the proposal was outrageous.

He said: “That’s completely outrageous (to increase council tax by 7.95 percent).

“They should have announced it on the Wednesday before the election and I am angered by it.

“It’s the same old story.

“It’s easy to put council tax up rather than making cuts elsewhere.

“This is going to be a massive burden on residents across the city.”

And he called for the consultation period to be extended way into the New Year.

Over the last five years the council has made cuts of £41 million and says that cuts of £22 million will need to be found by 2023 based on current projections.

The council draft budget proposals for 2020-21 include £5.74 million in cuts.

What are the key cuts proposed?

Staffing across children’s services is set to be the hardest hit with cuts of more than half a million proposed.

Newport City Council has identified a mixture of operational management staff, non-case holding staff and identified social worker posts totalling £543,000.

The summary of the savings proposal says: “Reducing the number of posts across Children’s Services will be challenging against a background of rising referral numbers and increasing caseloads.”

The posts identified include social workers, a residential care team manager and a family support worker.

The draft budget also proposes to slice £45,000 off school transport.

This includes the termination of the non-statutory additional learning needs (ALN) home to college transport for students in further education and the removal of the post-16 travel grant to mainstream schools and colleges.

A further £440,000 could be saved from the council-tax reduction scheme, which exists to subsidise household occupants who are on low incomes.

Other key cuts include a reduction in the day opportunities budget within adult and community services of £100,000 because demand is below capacity and a reduction in the budget for Barnado’s, of £75,000.

This would impact on the ability to deliver family support services for children and families.

Councillor Mudd said: “We have already made significant savings and efficiencies and have reduced the size of our workforce by almost a quarter.

“However, the demands on services, particularly in social care and education, show absolutely no sign of diminishing.

“We are trying very hard to plan for a sustainable future, but with less money, fewer staff and stretched services, it is incredibly difficult.”

How will the budget be funded?

Newport City Council receives 76 percent of its funding from the Welsh Government through the Revenue Support Grant (RSG).

The provisional settlement figures are expected to be released on Monday (December 16).

The Welsh Government’s local government financial settlement is normally announced in October, however uncertainty over Brexit and the recent General Election has resulted in a delay.

This means that the draft budget proposals outlined by Newport City Council could change.

In addition to the RSG, a number of one-off specific grants were received in 2019-20 to fund reoccurring costs, which the council expects to be included in the Welsh Government settlement.

This includes £1.5 million for social care, £390,000 for the teachers pay award and £3.85 million for teacher pensions.

The council’s final RSG will be announced on February 25, 2020.

What happens now?

The proposals will be considered by cabinet on Friday (December 20).

Following cabinet’s approval, the draft budget proposals will go out for consultation between December 20 and January 31.