Conwy Council Leader, Cllr Charlie McCoubrey, has responded to the Welsh Government’s recently published draft budget, acknowledging the additional funding provided while cautioning that significant financial challenges remain.
Councillors will discuss the provisional settlement in detail when they meet next month to discuss the indicative budget for the 2025/26.
Speaking ahead of those meetings, Council Leader, Cllr Charlie McCoubrey, said:
“The settlement from Welsh Government accounts for about 70% of the money we’ll have available to spend on services next year.
“As it currently stands, Conwy will receive a 3.7% increase in funding from Welsh Government, this is below the Wales average of 4.3%.”
“And whilst any increase is very welcome, it won’t be sufficient to meet the funding shortfall that the Council faces as a result of increased demand for services, national pay awards, price inflation, energy and fuel increases.
“We’re currently estimating a resource shortfall in the region of £19million before any reimbursement of our additional Employers National Insurance contributions, which is not included in the provisional settlement announced today. As Welsh Government have highlighted today, Councils will again have difficult decisions to take to set a balance budget for 2025/26.”
“Our Finance Team will now work on the provisional figures to produce a detailed report for councillors to discuss in January. We’ll face a significant challenge complying with our legal duty to set a balanced budget for 2025/2026, and we’ll have difficult decisions to make, but I’d like to thank all the officers and councillors that have contributed to this work so far.”
“In the meantime, a resident survey is about to be issued to seek community views. I’d urge everyone who lives or works in Conwy to take a look at the information we’ve put together about the financial situation. The full details and the survey will be published on the Conwy website next week.”
Welsh Government published their provisional funding for local government on 11 December 2024.
Conwy’s final settlement is expected to be announced by Welsh Government on 25 February 2025.
The Council will meet on 27 February 2025 to finalise and agree the budget and Council Tax for 2025/26.
