WREXHAM Council’s spending has been cut to the bone and the only way to address a predicted £33.6m budget gap is now reducing services.
That was the stark warning by Wrexham County Borough Council leader Cllr Mark Pritchard ahead of this week’s Executive Board meeting where councillors will consider the next phase of the authority’s Change Programme.
Over the last two years the council has cut £60m of spending and found £4.7 million of savings through its Change Programme – largely through a review of some contract arrangements, changes in staffing structures, improved efficiency in internal processes and a programme of voluntary redundancy and early retirement.
The next phase will need to address the anticipated budget gaps facing the council over the next three years – £12.1m in 2026/27, £10.7m in 2027/28 and £10.8m in 2028/29.
Alongside his deputy leader Cllr David Bithell, Cllr Pritchard said that efficiencies through working practices had all been achieved and to make further savings would mean a reduction in services and potentially the size of the council.
“All the low-level fruit has gone,” said Cllr Pritchard. “The skin and the flesh have gone, the bone has gone, everything’s gone.
“We’ve done everything we can. We can’t do any more now.
“We’ve already found £60m of savings, add another £30m that’s £90m of savings we’ll have had to find.
“This council will shrink, it has to. I haven’t got the ultimate decision here, I go to the Executive Board, I go to full council. I’ve got my own ideas, David’s got his own ideas, I’ve got 10 Executive Board members and full council and the decision on the budget is made by full council.”
The leader suggested that the upcoming 2026 Senedd elections may provide some relief.
“There’s an election coming, let’s hope we have a very good settlement,” he said.
“If there is a change in the administration in Cardiff – I don’t know what that change will be – hopefully the new administration will fund local authorities appropriately.
“If this continues as we are we will be losing jobs and we will be closing down services. We’ve got no choice.”
Cllr Pritchard said the primary focus would always be on preserving statutory services first – such as adult social care, children’s services and education – to protect the most vulnerable.
The council’s Interim Chief Executive Officer Alwyn Jones said that to date the public had been largely protected from the impact of the savings.
“There are two things at stake here – short-term financial sustainability and demands within statutory services.
“Part of the medium and longer-term vision is how we can influence those demands. That’s not easy in terms of how we care for our older people and people with disabilities and how we support our communities to become more resilient.
“Part of the reason the public may not have felt some of the change work we have done last year is because a lot of it has been about improving how we do things.
“The challenge we’ve got is how we avoid getting into a position where we stop doing things. That’s the work we are doing, to make changes that do not impact on communities but that’s not easy.”
Cllr Bithell added that no thought had yet been given to how or which services may be at risk, he said that was a decision for the wider council.
“The last couple of years has been really difficult but we haven’t made mass redundancies and we’ve retained our services,” he said.
“But that is becoming more difficult. The demand on services is immense. We’ve tried to improve performance with less staff and the difficulty we’ve got is when you shrink the organisation can you continue to do that without dipping in performance or dipping into service changes.
“We’re at that critical point really where we might have to merge departments and shed staff, we might have to close services down but we haven’t gone out and deliberately done that because we are all for services and communities.
“I know we take criticism all the time but we’ve done this in a measured way so far. It’s getting more difficult to do it in a measured way, we might have to take a bit more of a critical approach if we have to make up over £30m.”
“This isn’t pleasant,” said Cllr Pritchard. “Of the 56 councillors we have in Wrexham, and all the councillors across Wales, none of them come into local politics to close down services.
“We all come in to improve services. We’re compassionate people. But there’s no wiggle room now, it’s gone.”
