Budget

Brief2

Annual budget 2023/24

£5m invested in key services for Newport

Newport City Council’s Cabinet has agreed how it will spend its 2023-24 budget.

In December 2022, a number of proposals went out to public consultation and the response from the public was excellent, with thousands of responses received.

Since the draft budget was announced in December, a number of changes and updates including a positive Welsh Government settlement, reductions in pressures, additional savings and confirmation of other grant funding have meant the Cabinet could allocate an additional £2.5m.

The decision was also taken to re-purpose some of the council’s reserves, meaning an overall additional investment of £5m in 2023/24.

Taking into consideration the views of residents about what services are most important to them, balanced with a challenging gap between the money available and the increasing costs of delivering services, some of the key decisions agreed by Cabinet are detailed here.

View a budget message from the Leader of the council.

FEIAs

Newport facts and figures

  • Newport City Council’s net budget for 2022/23 was £343million
  • Two thirds of the council’s budget is spent on schools, education and social care.
  • More than three-quarters of the council’s budget is funded by the 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.
  • Newport council tax is currently the third lowest in Wales. 
  • Newport City Council has already implemented over £90m of savings since 2011due to several years of austerity and real-term budget cuts.
  • The council provides over 800 services for 155,000 people living in more than 65,000 households. With the impact of Covid-19 and now the cost of living crisis on individuals, businesses, the economy, employment, and health, we are seeing the demand for support-based services continue to rise.
  • Examples of the increasing costs and pressures being faced by the council include:
    • Increased fuel and energy costs - gas is 300% higher, electricity is 150% higher. This affects everything from schools to streetlights.
    • More demand for care - costs have risen from £43.5m in 2019/20 to a forecast £58m this year.
    • Around 1,000 more pupils attending Newport schools in the last three years.
    • Linked to the challenges of the pandemic, more emergency placements for children looked after. A forecast cost of £2.2m in 2022/23 compared to £300k in 2019/20.
    • Inflation rates of around 10% are increasing the cost of all services and supplies bought by the council.
  • Newport has a growing population. Of the Welsh local authorities, Newport saw the highest rate of population growth since 2011 (9.5%). This is higher than the population growth rates for both Wales and England. This growth is across all age groups.
  • Newport also saw the highest increase in the number of households compared with 2011 (8.1%).