ANGLESEY’S county council has proposed a council tax rise of 8.5% after receiving more money from the Welsh Government.
The local authority had originally proposed a 9.5% rise before additional settlement funding from Cardiff was confirmed.
The council said the new proposal means the tax increase will be one of the lowest in North Wales.
It would mean the charge for a Band D property would be £1,705.95, an increase of £133.65 for the year, or £2.57 per week.
The council’s executive today [Thursday] agreed the draft figure ahead of a final decision from the full council on Thursday, March 6.
The previous planned 9.5% increase had been calculated after the council heard it would receive a settlement increase from the Welsh Government of 3.3%.
But the amount was increased after the Welsh Government set its funding floor at 3.8%.
Deputy leader Cllr Robin Williams, the portfolio holder for finance and housing, said: “The settlement we received originally from the Welsh Government increased, by the middle of last week or end of the previous week.
“It had become apparent that the Welsh Government was looking at introducing a floor figure, likely to be 3.8%, our report had been based on that.
“What we did not know at that time was that additional money was going to come to us in grant form, money towards our social services, so as a result of those two things, there is a change in the proposal from the recommendations.”
The council has now been able to cancel several proposed savings schemes, including a plan to reduce the number of days that the council’s Gwalchmai and Penhesgyn recycle centres would open.
“There was also a proposal that we would start making a service charge for our business and industrial units,” Cllr Williams added.
“We are keen not to bring those service charges in, we realised there will be an effect on our small and medium sized businesses due to the changes in national insurance.
“There are other small savings we now don’t have to implement.
“We were going to increase the council tax to 9.5% but I am today able to tell you that our rate will be now be 8.5% including the levy for the fire service.
“Additional money has also come from Cardiff for social services, but we had put additional money into the budget already, so we’ve been able to move money around.
“As a result of that we can give a smaller increase in council tax than we had intended.
“What we understand is that apart from Denbighshire we will have the smallest increase in council tax in North Wales this year.”
The changes come after a period of public consultation over the council’s proposed budget.
The council’s finance boss Marc Jones said: “The results of the consultation showed that most people did not wish to see an increase, who wants to pay more tax? That’s understandable.
“Thirty six percent wanted us to use our reserves to fill our funding gap rather than increasing the council tax.
“The council does have reserves for specific reasons but using it to balance the budget can only be used once, then we will be back in the same situation next year.”
Council leader Cllr Gary Pritchard said: “Throughout the process of setting this year’s budget we have called on Welsh Government to provide a settlement that matches the pressures on both council services and budgets.
“We have had to make incredibly difficult decisions as the settlement clearly falls short of meeting these pressures.
“As an executive, we have worked hard to try and reduce the proposed council tax increase as we are well aware of the financial pressures facing the residents of Ynys Môn due to the ongoing cost of living crisis as well as increased National Insurance contributions and the energy price hike.
“The announcement last week of extra grant funding coming to local authorities for social care means we have been able to adapt the budget proposal and reduce the proposed council tax increase by 1%.”
