Budget 2021-2022

Newport City Council is planning for the coming financial year and how it will deliver key services within the available budget.

Cabinet met on January 8, 2021 to consider a range of proposals which will allow the council to make the savings required in 2021-22 and into following years. 

View agenda

Budget proposals 

The council’s Cabinet has considered a draft budget for 2021/22 and how services could be delivered within the limited resources available. The public consultation will now run until 12 February 2021.

Read full details of the consultation proposals (pdf) and complete our consultation survey below.

Complete consultation survey

As the council is committed to being open and transparent, all cabinet member and head of service decisions are available to view, although are not subject to the full consultation. All responses will be considered by Cabinet ahead of their meeting in February 2021.

View delegate decisions (pdf) 

2020 has been a very challenging year – not only has the Covid-19 affected the delivery of ‘business as usual’, it has further affected the demand on services and meant that the council has had to change the way it operates.

Newport City Council is planning for the next four years spending on the hundreds of services it delivers against a backdrop of ever-increasing demands.   The council received a positive draft budget settlement in December. This is the amount of money we expect to receive from Welsh Government. The draft increase for Newport in 2021-22 is 5.6 per cent - £12.7m in cash terms and the highest increase in Wales. More than three-quarters (76 per cent) of the council’s budget is funded by the grant from the Welsh Government.

More than three-quarters (76 per cent) of the council’s budget is funded by a grant from the Welsh Government. The balance is funded by council tax. For every one per cent cut in Welsh Government grant, council tax would have to increase by four per cent to maintain the same spending levels.

Increasing demands faced by the council include:

	An ageing population, more dependent on care, requiring more complex and expensive support to help people stay in their own homes. Care costs have risen from £38 million in 2017/18 to a forecasted £45million this year.
	A 55 per cent increase in the number of children in independent fostering arrangements since 2017/18.
	1,295 more pupils than three years ago, 68 more pupils with additional learning needs and three more schools to run.

Like councils across the country, Newport has been dealing with the impact of austerity and tightening budgets for several years.

The council has taken significant steps so it can continue to provide frontline services while the city’s council tax payers have among the lowest bills in Wales.

	Over the past five years, the council has saved a total  of £35 million.
	The council’s workforce has reduced by almost a quarter over the last five years

Despite this, it is likely that more savings will have to be made for the future. 

It is estimated that the council will have to save at least £10 million over the next three years.

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