Telford & Wrekin Council leader warns of financial pressure

The council’s cabinet held its first meeting since the local elections were held last month when council leader Shaun Davies warned of the pressures the council was facing, while promising to keep council tax low for the forthcoming term.

He said: “We’re not immune to the rising costs of energy. We’re not immune to the rising costs of wage demands. We’re not immune to the costs of contractual inflation.

“It will mean that some of the things that we really want to do over the next few years might have to be delayed. They might have to be put back slightly in order for us to be able to afford them and to do them right.

“I will make no apology that we will always put the financial stability of this council at the heart of what we do. We will keep our council tax the lowest in the country as we have done in the last six years, with the exception of the royal borough of Windsor.

“But we will have to make tough decisions because at the moment the government grant is not keeping up with the cost pressures that we have as a council.”

Newly appointed cabinet member for finance, Councillor Nathan England brought a financial outrun report to Thursday’s meeting.

He congratulated the previous cabinet member for finance, Councillor Rae Evans, who had overseen the balanced budget for the financial year 2022/23.

Councillor England said that the report showed a small budget underspend of £12,000 on the council's £135million net general fund revenue budget.

“Last year was an extremely challenging one financially and the additional investment we had to make into children’s safeguarding totalled just under £6.7m and the additional investment into adult social care was just over £8m,” said Councillor England.

“These pressures were offset by active management of budgets to generate underspends from most other directorate, by using the £3.95m budgeted contingency together with just under £4m from treasury management and some use from one-off funds.”

Councillor England highlighted revenues the council had received and added that the financial year ended slightly ahead of target for council tax and business rates collections.

Councillor Lee Carter said that the financial report was a ‘heartening tale of financial prudence’ and a ‘well managed council’. He said that the council’s success has been ‘underpinned by solid investments’.

“If we hadn’t invested in things like New Place, the solar farm, Growth Fund and attracting businesses to Telford and Wrekin then frontline services in this town would be millions short in terms of funding,” he said.

“We have commercialised services and sold services out to the wider public and private sector. That has generated millions of pounds for frontline services and supporting the services that matter most to people.”