Home » Blaenau Gwent schools will receive £4.88m extra in council budgets

Blaenau Gwent schools will receive £4.88m extra in council budgets

A FUNDING boost worth over £4.88 million is set to be given to Blaenau Gwent schools over the next two years.

And cash strapped Aneurin Leisure Trust (ALT) is also set to be given extra funding worth £400,000 next year.

On Friday, February 7 the county borough council’s Corporate and Performance scrutiny committee will hold a special meeting to probe the 2025/2026 budget proposals which include a 4.95 per cent Council Tax rise.

This equates to a £95.04 rise on the bill of a Band D property in Blaenau Gwent.

The report said: “Maximising learning is one of the council’s key priorities and the positive settlement provides the council with an opportunity to provide additional financial support to schools to rebalance budgets.

“Additional funding of £2.44 million per annum has been built into the draft budget for 2025/2026 and 2026/2027.”

This is supposed to addresses funding issues in the schools sector which is carrying £5 million in cost pressures due to increasing teachers’ pay and higher utilities costs.

School balances have been dropping and are predicted to be in an overall deficit of £3.5 million by the end of March.

Tredegar Comprehensive School (Pic: Google Streetview)

ALT will be awarded an extra £400,000; on top of the annual £3.17 million management fee the council pays them.

The trust is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2014 which delivers leisure, learning and cultural services across Blaenau Gwent.

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The organisation runs sports centres at Abertillery, Ebbw Vale and Tredegar, as well as Parc Bryn Bach and Bedwellty House.

In October last year ALT told councillors that it had posted a £888,000 deficit for 2023/2024.

To balance the books ALT had “exhausted” their reserves.

Due to the financial problems the report explained that the trust needs to start talks with the council over the future of leisure services in the county borough.

The report explained that since then a working group of councillors had been established to “support” ALT with the challenges they are facing.

Councillors will look at a variety of options including reduction of services and closure of facilities.

The report said: “During the budget engagement, members have raised the need to provide additional financial support to the trust to protect services.”

In December, the council were told they would receive a 4.8 per cent funding increase from the Welsh Government for 2025/2026 which was above the 4.3 per cent national average settlement for Welsh local authorities.

This equates to an increase of £7.092 million and will see the county borough funding rise from £147.44 million this year to £154.532 million for next year.

The council estimates that it will need £198.647 million to run its services next year but with Council Tax expected to produce £42.185 million next year the total this leaves of shortfall of £1.930 million.

This sum will need to be plugged by cuts or reductions to produce a balanced budget.

Abertillery Leisure Centre (Pic: Google Streeview)

Comments and recommendations from the committee will be added to the budget report which will be presented to senior councillors in the Labour Cabinet on Monday, February 10.

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