Budget Overview

Our council budget explained

As mentioned, Caerphilly County Borough Council is facing unprecedented economic challenges.

Over the next 2 years, the council will need to save £45 million of running costs.

To fully appreciate the magnitude of this challenge, it is important to understand how the council allocates money to our services. The vast majority of the council’s net revenue budget is spent on education (39%) and social care (29%). There are other significant costs that are explained in the graphic below:

budget

  • Education & Lifelong Learning - £173m (39%) Schools, Youth Services, Early Years etc
  • Social Services - £129m (29%) Adult Services, Childrens Services, Home Care etc
  • Economy & Environment - £56m (13%) Highways, Public Protection, Waste & Recycling, Parks, Sports & Leisure etc
  • Corporate Services - £34m (8%) Legal, Finance, HR, IT Services etc
  • Miscellaneous Finance - £47m (11%) Council Tax Reduction Scheme, Precepts, Debt Charges etc

Caerphilly Council currently has an annual net revenue budget of £439 million and this significant sum of money is used to deliver a wide range of services to support the needs of people of all ages across the county borough.

Here is the full breakdown of where the money came from in 2023/24:

 

Financial contribution from Welsh Government

£340m

77.5%

Council Tax income

£83m

18.9%

Use of reserves

£16m

3.6%

Many people believe that Council Tax pays for the services delivered by the council, but this element makes up only 18.9% of the council’s net revenue budget.

What does this mean?

There are two primary factors that are causing significant pressure on our budget:

  • The rising costs of delivering and maintaining our services and,
  • Welsh Government financial contributions failing to meet the rise in the rate in which our outgoings have increased.

These two combined factors have created the need to rapidly reduce the running costs of our services. This programme of change has been designed to do this in a way that not only contributes towards this saving but also allows us to capitalise on the opportunity to redesign our services and provisions to better suit the needs of our residents.

At this critical time for our county borough, it is imperative that you – our residents, are at the heart of these decisions.

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