FAQs
Increase in demand for certain services, such as adult social care and pupils with additional learning needs
Increasing cost of delivering services to meet the needs of residents, due to inflation and other factors.
Rising energy prices
Inflation
Increasing interest rates
Increased pay for teachers and council workers
Earmarked reserves – these are already committed to be spent on specific schemes or projects, like building new schools.
General reserves – these are for responding to unexpected events and it is prudent to keep a certain amount of funding for these eventualities.
What’s the budget shortfall for 2024/25?
The Council will receive just under £209 million for 2024/25 from the Welsh Government, this accounts for half of the income needed to deliver services, with the rest made up of Council Tax, charges for some services and a share of the business rates collected across Wales. Taking into account a proposed Council Tax increase of 6.7% the Authority is still facing a £7.8million budget shortfall in 2024/25.
Why is there a budget shortfall?
The Council is facing a projected budget shortfall of £7.8million, this is the gap between the projected cost of delivering our services and the amount of money we have available.
There are a number of reasons why the Council is facing a budget shortfall, including:
How does the Council propose to find an additional £7.8million?
The Council proposes to do a number of things to balance its budget. These include increasing charges for some services in line with inflation (6.7%) offering some sports clubs and community groups the opportunity to manage their own facilities, running some services on a cost recovery basis and reducing the number of buildings it occupies in order to reduce costs.
Why is Council tax increasing but services are reducing?
Council tax provides approximately 30% of the Council’s overall budget. The Council provides hundreds of services to residents across the Vale of Glamorgan and the demand for and cost of delivering certain services is increasing year on year.
74% of the Council’s net spend is on Schools and Social Services. This means there is very little flexibility when the Council is setting its budget and difficult decisions must be taken on allocating the remaining funding to other services, like recycling and waste collections. 
Why can’t you use reserves to meet the budget shortfall?
Reserves are money that has been put aside to pay for something in the future or for emergencies. This money is a little bit like the Council’s savings account. The Council must be very careful in how it uses this money because once it’s gone, it's gone.
There are two types of council reserves:
Whilst reserves can be used to fund a shortfall on a short-term basis, they cannot be used to fund continuing spend (e.g., staffing costs) as they are one-off amounts of funding. Once they are spent, the council would be exposed to the risk that if some serious unexpected expenditure is necessary, there won’t be any money available for it.
The Council plans to use £2.5m of reserves in 2024/25 to help balance its budget.
If the Council chose to fund all of its increasing costs using reserves rather than making savings, generating additional income, or increasing Council Tax then it would spend them all in two years.
What are you doing to save money?
The Council has an ongoing programme of work to find efficiencies and cut costs. £7.8m of savings have been identified for next year. This includes reducing our office space and the number of staff employed by the organisation. Alongside this we will also continue to introduce digital ways of working that allow us to deliver our services at a lower cost.
What about the large sums of funding announced recently for Barry?
Barry has been granted £20m in levelling up funding from the UK Government and £20m from the UK Government Towns Fund. These are grants with specific conditions on how they can be spent. We hope we can use this money to make further investment in the regeneration of Barry Waterfront and Barry Town Centre. But it cannot be used to fund our core services.