The budget and local services 2025-2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Last updated: 15 October 2024
Where does the Council's money come from?
Why is there a gap in the budget, where does it come from?
The biggest part of the funding we receive (68%) comes from Welsh Government (WG) in the form of its Revenue Support Grant (RSG).
Since 2008, due to reductions in funding by United Kingdom and national governments, Flintshire County Council has reduced its spending by £125m so there are very few opportunities left to further cut back on spending.
The budget gap for 2025/26 comes from things like:
- costs of energy, food, fuel and other services
- increasing demand for services such as homelessness and social care
- increasing costs from external partners e.g. North Wales Fire and Rescue, North Wales Coroners Service and the providers of social care services
- workforce pay increases (excluding teachers) – councils have no control over these increases, they are negotiated and agreed nationally but councils are given no extra funding to pay for them
How big is the gap for 2024/25?
The Councils forecasted gap currently stands at £38.4m.
Are all Councils struggling to balance the books or is it just Flintshire?
It is well documented that all councils across the UK are facing significant financial challenges. Some English councils have invoked S114 Notices declaring that they are unable to set a legally balanced budget.
A news release issued by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) on 10 October 2024 states: “Councils across Wales are grappling with extraordinary budget pressures totalling an estimated £559 million in 2025-26 which, if left unfunded, would significantly impact councils’ ability to deliver essential local services.” The full news release can be found on the WLGA’s website.
What is a Section 114 (S114) Notice?
A Section 114 Notice is invoked when a council’s authorised Finance Officer reports that it cannot meet its legal obligations to set a balanced budget under the Local Government Finance Act 1988. This is usually because what it needs to spend exceeds its available income.
Once issued a council must stop all spending, except for essential statutory services e.g. social care, education, children’s safeguarding, planning, waste and recycling.
A council then has 21 days to consider the report and agree urgent action. The council’s external auditors would be notified and here in Wales Welsh Government would also be notified and could step in to provide advice and support.
Fortunately no Welsh council has yet issued a S114 Notice and it is not a situation Flintshire wants to find itself in. Councillors and officers are continuing to work hard to find solutions to bridge the Council’s £38.4m budget gap
Does Welsh Government give each Council the same amount to fund services?
When allocating its overall budget Welsh Government assigns a portion to fund council services. This money is then shared out between all 22 Welsh councils. The amount each council receives is worked out through the Local Government Funding Formula. This looks at things like the geographical size of the council, how rural it is, the size of its population, the economy of the area in terms of wealth and poverty.
Flintshire has the sixth largest population in Wales, however, under the Funding Formula, Flintshire is a low funded Council, positioned 20 out of 22 Councils for the amount of money it receives per head of population (see table below). This is £159 lower per person than the Welsh average. If Flintshire received the Welsh average, it would be around £24.7m better off financially.
In addition, the position is compounded by the fact that we received the second lowest year on year percentage increase on our Welsh Government grant at 2.2% (see table below):
What is the difference between Revenue and Capital expenditure?
The easiest way to explain the difference between Revenue and Capital is in household terms, where capital buys rarely purchased, big items (a house or car) and revenue pays for the everyday things to keep them running like heating, lighting, food, diesel, etc.
The Council uses its Capital to invest in things that will last a long time, things like improvements to school buildings or care homes. Revenue funding, as well as paying for day to-day things such as wages, heating and lighting also pays for all of the day-to-day costs of things like weekly bin collections, care packages for older and vulnerable people, accommodation for the homeless, etc.
Although under existing rules it is possible to use Revenue funding to help support a Capital purchase, it is not usually possible to use Capital money to pay for Revenue costs. For example, if the Council sold a piece of land, the money received would be Capital and could only be spent on other Capital projects. It could not be used to pay for day to day running costs or expenses.
What steps has the Council taken in recent years to balance its books?
For well over a decade Flintshire County Council has cut back on its spending by £125m.
We've achieved this massive reduction by doing things like:
- a 50% reduction in senior management and their support
- a reduction in middle management posts
- administration and clerical posts and costs reduced by 40%
- 30% reduction in all service budgets - some even as far as 45%
- office accommodation reduced by 20%
- the disposal of two large office buildings and 50% demolition of County Hall Mold
- six depots merged into one new and a more efficient facility at Alltami
- sharing buildings with partners such as North Wales Police in Holywell and Flint
- saving money in the way we buy and operate Council vehicles
- changing the way we provide services - NEWydd - a wholly Council owned trading company providing cleaning and catering services
- working with local communities where there has been interest to take on and run local services, e.g. Holywell Leisure Centre, Café Isa.
- NEW Homes - a wholly Council owned trading company providing homes for local people
- SHARP (Strategic Housing and Regeneration Programme) building new Council and affordable homes
- Double Click - a new social enterprise providing social services for adults with mental health issues and learning difficulties
- integrating services with other councils in the region to share costs e.g. education
- procuring or bulk buying with other councils to get better deals e.g. computer hardware
- annual review of fees and charges
- 6% real-term reduction from schools’ delegated budgets in the last two financial years (2023/24 and 2024/25)
Why can’t the Council use up the money it has in reserves to help balance the books?
When we refer to ‘reserves’ we are talking about the money the Council holds each year to pay for unexpected expenses or emergencies, for example the cost of an extreme weather event.
The Council doesn’t hold large reserves and like household savings once we dip into them to pay for something then the money is gone. The Council has increased its current base level of reserves to £8.984m which is only 2.44% of the Council Fund Revenue Budget. This is the Council’s last line of defence in the event of unforeseen circumstances and is very low compared to other councils in Wales.
Over and above the base level of reserves we have a contingency reserve which has been built up from previous years underspends. The estimated amount available is only £0.337m which does not give the Council very much resilience in the current financial climate.
The Council also holds various earmarked reserves which are set aside for specific purposes and can be drawn down as and when the additional spend occurs.
The Council’s net budget for 2024/25 is £368m so overall available reserves equate to 2.53% of the budget.
The budget and your Council Tax
For every 1% of Council Tax collected the Council receives approx. £1.055m in income to help pay for services.
The Council has not yet set Council Tax for 2025/26.
In December 2024 Welsh Government will announce how much it is giving to Welsh councils to spend in 2025/26.
We cannot set any Council Tax increase until we have that information.
Information about Council Tax increases applied in 2024/25 can be found by clicking here.
More information about Council Tax for 2024/25 can be found in the Council Tax Frequently Asked Questions area of the website.
Why don’t you reduce your workforce?
Over the past decade the Council has streamlined its workforce to such a point that many services are now running at critical capacity and any further reductions could result in unsafe levels.
Why is the Council moving to three weekly black bin collections?
Welsh Government targets now require Welsh councils to recycle 70% of the waste they collect. Failure to meet this target can result in councils being fined, known as “infraction fines”.
Over the past four years here in Flintshire, recycling performance has failed to meet the past target of 64% and Flintshire is facing fines totalling £1.2m.
As of yet Welsh Government hasn't decided whether to issue these fines, but if it were to, the Council would need to find this additional £1.2m.
Now the target has increased to 70%, the council could be facing further fines of up to £1m per year if we don’t make changes.
We are not saying this is what would happen, but to put this into context, if there was no other way to find the money than by passing it on to Council Taxpayers, Council Tax bills would need to increase by 1% to cover the cost of the infraction fines.
On top of this last year Flintshire County Council spent over £3.5m to dispose of 30,000+ tonnes of waste, of which 23,000 tonnes was collected from black bins. The more waste we reuse and recycle the less waste goes into our black bins. This improves our performance, reduces costs and reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses, such as Carbon, emitted.
More recycling placed in the individual containers, provided by the Council for weekly kerbside collections, and less waste placed in our black bins, means black bins can go for longer without collection, it costs the Council less to dispose of it and avoids expensive disposal fees and potential fines. More information about what you can recycle can be found on our website.
If it costs the Council less to collect and dispose of it, then what we save can be spent to support other vital services.
More money to spend on other services, helps our overall budget position, which in turn helps the Council’s budget, including the Council Tax you pay, go further.
Why does the Council pay commercial businesses to deliver some services it could deliver itself?
Growing demand often means the services provided by Flintshire County Council are oversubscribed or the need can be so specialist that Flintshire is unable to provide it, for example residential or nursing care for older people or residential/educational places for children and young people with complex needs.
Sometimes the need is so specialist that we have no choice, however demand is often so great that the Council just doesn’t have the capacity to deliver the service itself and needs to pay commercial businesses to do it instead. This can be very costly and with more and more people needing these services costs are going up every year.
Over a number of years now the Council has been investing to save and by working with partners has developed and extended services to build greater capacity, for example:
- at Llys Eleanor, Shotton – Llys Jasmine, Mold – Llys Raddington, Flint - Plas yr Ywen, Holywell, providing independent living opportunities for older people with the benefit of onsite care and support where needed.
- Marleyfield House, Buckley – expanded and redeveloped to provide accommodation for 64 people - doubling its capacity – supporting people with long term residential care and short stay reablement for people leaving hospital before returning to live independently at home.
- New Croes Atti, Flint – currently under development and which will provide similar facilities to Marleyfield House.
Whilst investing to save in this way is designed to help the council’s financial management, most importantly, increasing capacity in this way enables more people to retain their independence for longer, delaying or in some cases even removing the need for long term intensive support.
Why is the need for homelessness support increasing?
Each year more people in Flintshire are either at risk of becoming homeless, or are homeless and are at risk of rough sleeping. The Council has a legal responsibility to help these people.
The continuing cost-of-living crisis along with housing market conditions is contributing to this situation.
Many private sector landlords are selling their rental properties which not only means are there less private houses available for rent, it can also contribute to the number of people becoming homeless as they are asked to leave once properties are sold. With fewer rental properties available there are fewer options available for people when they need to move on.
Whilst Flintshire and other social landlords have invested heavily in social housing over the past few years, there is still insufficient supply to meet demand. Over the past five years we have also found that fewer people are moving out of social housing so there are fewer vacant properties becoming available to let.
With a lack of available affordable housing the Council has no option but to place people into temporary accommodation that is costly and often unsuitable for their needs.
Current forecasts suggest that demand on homelessness services and accommodation will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.
All of these factors are placing significant strain on the Council’s resources both financially and practically.
Through investing to save the council is working towards reducing homelessness costs through the development of preventative services and other forms of homeless accommodation which will be less expensive and more suited to peoples needs.
Who pays for the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service?
North Wales Fire and Rescue Service protects residents, businesses and communities across the region through preventive and responsive services including home safety, fire prevention, extinguishment, responding to road traffic collisions, and other emergencies including severe weather events.
Each year, the County Council must pay into a combined fire service fund to meet the annual costs of the Fire and Rescue Service. This is known as the annual Fire Service Levy. For 2024/25 the Council will need to pay a levy of £10.906m.
Although there is no Council Tax ‘precept’ shown on your bill for North Wales Fire and Rescue Service - part of the Council Tax you pay helps the Council fund the fire and rescue service.
North Wales Fire and Rescue Authority is also under pressure from increasing costs and it is expected that in 2025/26 North Wales councils will need to contribute more to its budget to help it balance its books. For Flintshire this additional amount is estimated at £1.090m.
Click here for more information about North Wales Fire and Rescue and the role of the Fire Authority.
Who pays for the North East Wales Coroners Service?
The North East Wales Coroners Service has a statutory responsibility to investigate a death reported to it which may be violent, unnatural, of unknown cause or where the cause of death arose in prison or otherwise in state detention. These investigations can lead to a type of court hearing, called an inquest.
The North East Wales Coroner’s Service is funded through contributions from Conwy County Borough Council, Denbighshire County Council, Flintshire County Council and Wrexham County Borough Council. The amount each council pays is related to the number of people who live in each county. Flintshire County Council has the largest population so pays the largest amount, 31%. Our contributions are paid quarterly and the total amount we pay in any given year is determined by the number and complexity of inquests which are held. In the financial year 2024/25 Flintshire’s contribution to the service is £423,278.
Although the full cost of the four councils’ contributions is not known until the end of the financial year, the coroner’s service is also experiencing risings costs for the services it needs to buy in, for example pathology services. This means that for 2025/26, as part of our share towards the overall running costs, Flintshire is estimating to need to make an additional contribution of £21,000 over and above the 2024/25 costs.
More information about the Coroner’s service can be found by visiting Denbighshire County Council’s website.
What is happening with County Hall?
The future of County Hall has been under discussion for quite some time and has featured regularly in our budget updates. Since its partial demolition in 2020, infrastructure planning has been underway.
It is now the Council’s plan to vacate County Hall by February 2025 with employees relocating to Ty Dewi Sant Ewloe and ultimately progressing to full demolition of the remaining building.
Flintshire, along with every other council in the UK, continues to face significant financial pressure and in the context of a very difficult budget position for 2025/26 and beyond, it is quite simply no longer financially viable to retain County Hall and all the costs associated with it.
What do you mean by ‘savings’ are you referring to ‘cuts’?
In the past we have used the term ‘savings’, to describe the different things we have been able to do to find solutions to bridge the budget gap. By doing things differently we have been able to 'save' the council money and keep services running.
We have done this by doing things like:
- running efficient services and 'saving' money
- being more entrepreneurial in the way we do things
- reducing the amount of money services are given to spend
- increasing the amount of money we have to spend by charging for some services
After well over a decade, we have exhausted all our ‘efficiency’ opportunities and there are very few, options left open to us.
We are currently forecasting a £38.4m starting gap in our budget for 2025/26.
Without any additional funding Flintshire has no choice but to make some very difficult decisions in terms of “cutting” further the amount of money it currently spends on some services.