We’ve had some better news on the budget for a change!
Although we’ve only had headline all-Wales figures so far, it looks like we’ll get at least £1.5m extra in 2018-19. This will help us meet some of the shortfall in funding for teachers pay (which will help relieve schools pressures) and winter social care pressures. The latter should help us reduce our forecast in-year overspending by a sizeable bit.
We anticipate getting well over £1m extra revenue grant come the final settlement at the end of December. This is important because the earlier provisional settlement gave us just £18k extra when we spend £434m.
It’s clear the Welsh Government has lots of capital funding and limited revenue resources. As well as the national announcements of an extra £100m of core capital funding there have been other announcements that could give us over £20m in extra capital funding in the longer-term and could save us around a further £1.5m in annual borrowing costs in due course.
The Welsh Government has listened and responded, at least partly, to concerns across local government about the earlier provisional settlement.
Despite this welcome news, the overall pressures remain at the forefront of CMT and Cabinet thinking, given the scale of overspending.
Pressures undoubtedly remain and flat settlements still mean continued austerity and reducing real terms budgets. But moving this far already gives us a better collective chance of addressing the sizeable future budget gaps this council, and all others face
I hope the Welsh Government looks long and hard to see if there is more it can do, and also continues to lobby for the other key missing element of the funding package – sorting out the Treasury’s imposed increases in teachers’ pension costs on all councils, and accessing the same UK Government reserve set aside to help English schools
I met with directors and heads of service to see how we can reduce our discretionary spending in a number of areas including vehicle hire, catering, hotels, advertising, printing and agency and consultancy costs. It’s vital we do all we can to cut spending this year to reduce our overspend and this is another step alongside things like our vacancy freeze.
Supporting staff
CMT discussed potential changes to our occupational health services to better support managers in helping staff who are sick. We discussed improving referrals to OH and ways to support staff to either remain in work or to return earlier when sick. We’ve also taken steps to reduce waiting times to see an OH adviser. We’ll also be providing new guidance to help managers. The potential changes will be discussed by directors and heads of service in early December. The aim is to support managers and staff whilst reducing our sickness rates. I’ll keep you updated.
New priority
We’re reinforcing our contribution to maintaining and enhancing Swansea’s natural resources and diversity by adding a sixth priority to our Corporate Plan. It already lists our five existing priorities as safeguarding the vulnerable, tackling poverty, improving educational attainment, transforming economic and infrastructure development and transforming council services so they are fit for the future.
The new priority – maintaining and enhancing Swansea’s natural resources and biodiversity – will work alongside our other priorities to continue to help shape services.
Parade
You may have seen the fall-out from last weekend’s Xmas parade. This isn’t a reflection of the hard work put in by our staff to prepare for the event. Unfortunately, this has been lost amid the headlines and I’d like to thank them for all their efforts. Next year is Swansea’s 50th birthday as a city and we’ll be making it a year to remember with themed events throughout the calendar.
White ribbon
We’re taking part in a number of events next week in support of White Ribbon Day on Sunday which symbolises hope for women and children living in fear of domestic violence and abuse.
We’re working with Swansea Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Partnership to spread the message that domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women are unacceptable and support is out there. This a great cause and thank you to everyone involved.
Well done
Congratulations to our transport team who won in the Public Sector medium to large Green Fleet category at last night’s UK Green Fleet Awards. This is in recognition of our 40-vehicle electric fleet – the biggest among Welsh councils.
