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Final decisions on the budget will be made by the Cabinet on March 1st, 2023, then by a meeting of the full council the next day.

Before going to formal public consultation, the council’s Rainbow Coalition held a series of face-to-face meetings with the public across Neath Port Talbot to gauge people’s priorities.

During the formal consultation which followed, almost 1,000 people gave feedback and as a result it is proposed that a 10% rise in fees and charges (in line with inflation) should be cut to 5% for some services. Other actions taking in residents’ feedback include a two-year expansion of the Welfare Rights Service, helping more residents maximise income through benefits advice and streamlining of internal assessment arrangements – ensuring residents find it easier to access what they are entitled to.

It is also proposed that pest control fees will not rise in 2023/24

These final budget proposals include a like-for-like increase in the delegated schools budget of £7.64m or 8% which is greater than the Council’s settlement from the Welsh Government of 7.1% and the Social Services budget is set to increase by £13.8m (15%) – also greater than the settlement provided by Welsh Government.

The proposed 2023/24 budget was probably the most challenging ever given the dire financial circumstances facing the council and local residents and businesses. Even after its provisional Welsh Government funding settlement, the council was still facing a huge 2023/24 funding gap of £23.867m.

A raft of savings measures including a reduction in council buildings, better technology use, maximising savings from hybrid working and other efficiencies are being proposed to help close the  gap. Also, it is recommended using £4.9m of council reserves.

And a 4.5% Council Tax rise, which would mean residents on Band A to C (the vast majority in Neath Port Talbot) would pay between 96p and £1.28p per week extra for their essential services, is being put forward.

A significant slice of Council Tax – which provides just a quarter of the council’s finances with the rest coming from Government funding - is paid as a Fire Service levy. This is the Neath Port Talbot share of the funding needed to maintain vital local fire and rescue services. The proposed budget and prudent use of reserves will also enable the council to keep indoor leisure services operating, protecting some 400 jobs.

Among the many essential services provided by the council is economic development including inward investment - something the council excels at - having attracted the 1,000-job, £300m, Wildfox Resort in the Afan Valley, the £400m GCRE rail testing centre in Onllwyn with the potential for hundreds of quality jobs and being involved in the Celtic Freeport bid, which if successful, promises 16,000 new, green jobs and £5.5bn of investment.

Amongst its hundreds of services the council also offers a library service issuing around 400,000 books, a youth service engaging with 6,000 young people and a further 2,000 adults via community learning provision and theatres presenting more than 200 cultural events a year. Our leisure services contract (a process is under way to bring these back ‘in house’) also enables more than a million visits annually to leisure centres and swimming pools

The council also maintains 860 kilometres of roads, 940 kilometres of footpaths and 15,000 road signs, carries out 3.3m recycling collections and 1.6m refuse collections per year, maintains 19,000 lighting units, repairs 270 potholes per month, cleans 30,000 gullies a year, maintains 1,900 culverts,1,800 retaining walls and 356 bridges.

Annual expenditure on Social Services, Health and Housing in Neath Port Talbot is £120m. It supports hundreds of looked after children, provides elderly services via home care to hundreds of service users and to more than 500 residential care users, provides services hundreds with mental health, physical and learning disabilities and social worker support work to more than 3,000 adults or people with disabilities and a further 1,000 families through children’s Social work teams.

You can read the full budget report here.