A net revenue budget of £383.3m has been agreed for 2025-26 by Bridgend County Borough Council.
Developed following careful analysis of feedback from extensive public consultation and scrutiny, this will enable the council to continue to provide local communities with more than 800 services. It will provide initial funding of £31.6m for Central Education services, £123.2m for Schools, £115.9m for Social Services and Wellbeing, and £33.7m for Communities.
Schools will also receive up to £7.9m extra funding to cover in full additional pressures such as teacher pay and pension costs for 2025-26
Services within the Chief Executive’s directorate such as Legal, Housing and Homelessness, Human Resources, Finance and Community Safety will benefit from £24.8m, and council-wide budgets covering functions such as the council tax reduction scheme, insurance, discretionary rate relief and more will receive £53.9m.
A council tax increase of 4.5 per cent has also been agreed – the equivalent of an extra £1.59 a week on a Band D property and one of the lowest increases in Wales.
“This budget proves once again that education and support for vulnerable people of all ages remain two of our top priorities, and are in line with the results of the extensive public consultation that we carried out as part of the budget setting process. “With £123.2m allocated to schools, the need for them to find a one per cent saving in their budgets is being hugely offset by the fact that we are also providing additional resources to help them fund pay and cost pressures for 2025-26, resulting in a net increase in funding to schools of £7.9m for next year. We will also be investing almost £14m towards the cost of establishing new English and Welsh medium primary schools in the west part of Bridgend County Borough. We will also be investing almost £14m towards the cost of establishing new English and Welsh medium primary schools in the west part of Bridgend County Borough. “We are no longer seeking to make reductions in the Bridgend Music Service, and have proposed instead to identify alternative ways of making the required savings over the year ahead. Extra funding has also been allocated to support vulnerable adults and children, and with £9.4m to help directorates meet significant recurring budget pressures and an additional £5m to meet pressures that are new or emerging, the council can clearly be seen to be investing through this budget.”
“This is a realistic budget that will help us to steer the council through another very challenging year while continuing to provide local people with essential services. Our capital spending for the year ahead includes £3m for replacing ageing waste and recycling collection vehicles, an annual allocation of £2.4m for disabled facilities grants, and £2m for continuing to transform and improve children’s play areas. “We will invest £590,000 in highways structural and carriageway capital works, £400,000 for replacement street lighting columns, £100,000 to help bring empty properties back into use, and £50,000 to support projects within local communities. “We also received confirmation today that Welsh Government is to support a Local Government Borrowing Initiative to support local authorities in tackling highway repairs. As a result, we will be able to invest an additional indicative figure of around £2.9m into this work in 2025-26. Once exact figures have been confirmed, we will ensure this is invested where it can have the greatest benefit for local residents. Elsewhere, we will continue to invest into housing and homelessness schemes, providing vulnerable adults with an integrated digital telecare service offering faster, improved levels of support, and using Welsh Government funding to support 36 new charging facilities for electric vehicles. “Despite the ongoing local government funding crisis and extremely difficult financial situation that we continue to face, our prudent financial management has once again produced a balanced budget which we believe recognises and protects the council services that residents value the most.”
