Rhondda Cynon Taf Council Leader’s reassurance following Budget

November 17, 2007

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Leader has described this week’s provisional Local Government Settlement as challenging and derisory.

However, Cllr Russell Roberts has pledged the miserly 2.4 per cent increase will not affect efforts by the authority to set a reasonable Council Tax level and to continue to improve frontline services.

Commenting on what the announcement means for the Council, County Borough Councillor, Russell Roberts said:

“While we face a challenging scenario, we have set in place robust medium term financial planning measures over the last three years and reformed our services to eliminate waste and improved performance.

“Thanks to our strong financial management this poor settlement will still allow us to improve frontline services, though not as quickly as we would like, we will also continue to keep our promise over maintaining fair and prudent Council tax levels, as we have over the last three years.

“We are committed to delivering better services for Rhondd Cynon Taf residents and have demonstrated our ability to deliver this, within even with limited resources by making efficiencies in service delivery and this will continue.

“In the coming weeks we will strive to deliver a prudent budget that protects our frontline services and provides further investment in the front line services that matter so much to local people.”

The Council’s Cabinet will now commence developing its budget strategy for consultation with the wider public before presenting the budget to Council and setting the Council Tax in March.

Cllr Russell Roberts added: “The settlement is actually a poor deal for local Council’s right across Wales and provides negligible increases in our base budgets.

“This below inflation increase is unfair, when compared to increases made available to other public services both this year and in the recent past.

“Despite our services having a direct effect on the quality of life of the majority of local people, the funding provided by the Assembly Government this year does not reflect this.

“We will now use the consultation period allowed on the provisional settlement to express our disappointment to Assembly Ministers and push for a fair deal.”

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