2.3.22
Budget proposals designed to tackle the cost of living crisis, protect the least well off, and deliver new council homes, and improved opportunities for children and young people were approved by Cabinet last week.
The proposals will now be put to a vote at a Full Council meeting on March 3.
If Council votes to pass the budget proposals, it will see the following investments made over the next 5 years...
£419m investment in social housing and new council homes - like these energy-efficient, modular homes on Crofts Street, Plasnewydd built recently as part of our award-winning Cardiff Living partnership, or the 250 new low-carbon homes planned for the existing community at Channel View. It's a £65 million development.
There's also £205 million proposed for building new schools (and £50 million for improving existing school infrastructure).
Why so much on schools? Because a good education, in buildings that look like this, can transform lives.
A recent Estyn inspection identified a sustained improvement in the quality and effectiveness of education services in Cardiff since our last inspection ten years ago.
But we're not resting on our laurels - and that improvement isn't all down to the new schools we've been busy building - so an extra £9.3 million for the overall schools' budget is also proposed this year.
More on that Estyn report here: https://www.cardiffnewsroom.co.uk/releases/c25/28469.html
To help protect the city's most vulnerable residents, social services budgets would also increase by £23.9 million next year under the proposals - with Adult Services receiving £15.5 million and Children's Services £8.4 million.
The budget also includes £28 million for disabled adaptations to help people continue to live in their own homes; £3.3 million to be invested in respite provision for children and accommodation for Looked After Children; and £2.2 million for youth services and wellbeing hubs.
Speaking of Youth Services - it's proposed they get a £750K budget increase - that's the third year running their budget will have grown, and there's also extra investment for the Cardiff Commitment, connecting young people with local business and industry.
And that work to make Cardiff a more Child Friendly city will continue, with a proposed £13miillion investment for parks and play areas, like this recently refurbished one in Llandaff Fields.
There's also £77 million for improvements to transport infrastructure, air quality and active travel routes - investment that will help deliver the new Western Transport Interchange and continue to build the increasing network of cycleways you can see in this map...
...so we can reduce the 41% of CO₂e in Cardiff that comes from transport as we work to achieve our #OnePlanetCardiff vision for a carbon neutral Cardiff by 2030.
Interested in our One Planet strategy? Check out the website: www.oneplanetcardiff.co.uk
Staying with climate change - there's also £13 million for green energy and sustainability projects, continuing the work we've already begun with schemes like the 9MW solar farm we opened last year. There's also £29.6 million proposed to help address flooding and coastal erosion.
£12 million will go towards supporting recycling initiatives as we look to increase recycling rates - and if you haven't already had your say on our draft waste strategy yet, you can do that here:
https://wh1.snapsurveys.com/s.asp?k=163117610866
The strategy is designed to help us get from where we are now, with around 58% of the city's waste being recycled or composted to the 70% target set by Welsh Government by 2025 - and because as well as recycling waste, we want Cardiff's streets to be as clean and litter-free as possible, there's also an additional £1.2 million per year proposed for street cleansing and enforcement.
There's also £35 million for economic regeneration initiatives, including the International Sports Village, Cardiff East regeneration, Cardiff Market, and the wider Atlantic Wharf development (in addition to the primarily developer funded new Indoor Arena).
And many of Cardiff's leisure centres have benefited recently from new gym and studio facilities, upgraded reception areas and improved changing rooms but they're earmarked for a further £3.8 million of investment.
Last but not least, £10 million is being proposed for neighbourhood improvements - the type of work that has delivered external improvements to commercial premises on Tudor Street in Riverside.
And where is all this money coming from?
Well, investment is funded from a combination of grants, borrowing, and capital receipts.
But 73% of our revenue budget comes from Welsh Govt - this year they've given us an extra £52.6m. That's a lot of cash, but it comes with directions that it must be used to fund the real living wage for the care sector, and cover the impact of the Health and Social Care levy on employers' National Insurance contributions.
On top of that, it also needs to account for the closure of a hardship fund set up by Welsh Government to cover the huge costs of Covid-19 to public sector bodies - in our case £120m over the past two years, including £51m of lost income.
In reality, that means a lot of that additional money is already ‘spent.' And of course we still need to make savings - £7.7 million of them next year, on top of the quarter of a billion pounds we saved over the past 12 years.
That leaves us with Council Tax.
27% of our funding comes from it - and a below inflation 1.9% increase (48p per week on a Band D property) is included in the proposals, revised down from initial calculations that a 4% increase may be needed.
If you'd like to dig into the detail on the budget proposals, you'll find it all here: https://cardiff.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=151&MId=6662&Ver=4
And it may not quite rival Netflix, but with £900m of investment in everything from schools to social services, and climate change to clean streets up for debate at Full Council on 3 March, the live stream will make for interesting viewing.
Tune in here: https://cardiff.public-i.tv/core/portal/home
You can read more here: https://www.cardiffnewsroom.co.uk/releases/c25/28546.html