Agenda and minutes

None

Councillor Endaf Edwards disclosed a personal interest with regards to discussions regarding Staff Salaries.

Councillor Rhodri Evans, Committee Chair, outlined the meeting procedure and welcomed the Leader of the Council, Councillor Bryan Davies, Councillor Gareth Davies, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement Services, Committee Members, the remaining Cabinet Members, non-Committee Members and Officers to the meeting.

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Bryan Davies, presented the report on the draft budget for 2024/2025. The Leader stated that this was an extraordinarily difficult financial situation faced by the Council with considerable financial pressures. He stated that during his time as a Councillor he has never known such a challenging financial situation as Ceredigion only received a 2.6% increase in the draft 24/25 settlement from Welsh Government.

He advised Committee Members that he has met with some Town and Community Councils to discuss the financial situation and has more meetings scheduled this coming week.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement, Councillor Gareth Davies, presented the remaining information in the report. Councillor Davies also stated that this is by far the worst financial situation he has faced as Councillor in setting the budget.

It was advised that areas from Enclosure A of the agenda papers that this committee may wish to give consideration were as follows:

a) Section 3 - The 24/25 WG Provisional Settlement outcome for Ceredigion.

b) Section 4 – High level Budget Considerations including:

• Section 4b) - Total level of Revenue Budget Cost Pressures.

• Section 4d) - Total level of Revenue Budget Reduction proposals.

• Section 4f) - Cabinet’s proposal on Council Tax Premiums

• Section 4g) - Potential Council Tax position

c) Section 5 – Draft Budget Requirement

d) Section 6 – Budget Risks

e) Section 7 – proposed Multi-Year Capital Programme

f) Section 8 – Financial resilience (including Reserves & General Balances)

g) Section 9 – Medium Term Financial outlook

h) The 11 Recommendations agreed by Cabinet on 23/01/24.

i) Any other Budget matter that the Committee deems appropriate.

Welsh Government (WG) have openly stated that their 24/25 Draft Budget is ‘the starkest and most painful since devolution’. Ceredigion has only received a 2.6% funding increase (14th out of 22 Local Authorities), this also equates to Ceredigion receiving the lowest increase per head of population across all of Wales. It is therefore also Ceredigion County Council’s starkest Budget yet which is  worse than was previously forecasted and less than the 3.1% referenced by Welsh Government in the Autumn.

The headline from the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement in England was a 6.5% overall uplift in funding with £1bn in additional grant funding for Social Care compared to 23/24. Being a devolved administration Welsh Government are free to use their funding as they see fit. Consequently, there are several different policy decisions that exist in Wales as compared to England.

The Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement outcome, combined with various individual Specific grants being cut, as well as highly significant Cost pressures on Services that show no signs of abating, means it is no longer possible to continue to protect  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

It was AGREED to confirm the minutes of the 7^th of December 2023 Committee meeting as a true record, subject to noting Councillor Eryl Evans’ apologies.  Councillor Evans also stated that she had expressed apologies for the 19^th of October 2023 Committee meeting that had not been recorded.

There were no matters arising from those minutes.

Any other matter which the Chairman decided is for urgent attention of the Committee

There were no other matters raised.