No one with any germ of reality would envisage that balancing a budget in these perilous times was going to be easy.

It is certainly not straightforward for the thousands of households across Monmouthshire and the rest of South Wales, indeed the nation.

And it was never going to be a walk-in-the-park for an enterprise as complex and vital as a local authority.

So despite all the challenges and tough decisions, I am proud of the fact that we have been able to agree an inflation-busting set of proposals. I am proud of the fact that we have done so by working with councillors of other political persuasions.

From the day I was elected as leader last May, I set out my stall as someone who wanted to work collaboratively, not confrontationally. And that approach has allowed us to agree a budget in a council where we do not have overall control.

Let us not pretend that everything in the garden is rosy. There have been painful cuts. Services pared back. Resources limited when residents ought to be able to expect better. Like you, we have had to fine-tune our spending to fit the limitations of our funding.

But we have also managed to offer some protection to areas which are at the very core of everything we stand for, with vital increases for schools, for social care and for health.

Of course, the budget is, in a sense, just a road map: it sets out our intentions for the future. Now the challenge will be to ensure that we can deliver for all the people of Monmouthshire.

The last twelve months have been as unpredictable as any period in our recent history – and there is every chance that the period ahead will throw up many curved balls to test our ability to manage the vital services on which residents and businesses rely.

So, it is really heartening to see that our councillors can and do work together. We are never going to agree on everything. We all have our red-lines that we will not cross. But antagonistic confrontation serves no useful purpose. We have shown that in a minority administration, more can be achieved by councillors working than by digging in to entrenched political lines.

Ever the optimist, this week I feel we have moved on and in doing so have delivered a stable budget which is the best we could have done for Monmouthshire.