The amount of money councils in Wales will get from the Welsh Government in the next financial year has been announced. Councils get a grant – the revenue support grant – from the Welsh Government which makes up the bulk of their funding. They also get money via business rates and council tax.
Councils will get £6.1bn from the Welsh Government’s revenue support grant and non-domestic rates, a letter to councils says, up 4.3% on the previous year. The government will try to increase it further, the letter says, by the time of the final budget. Cabinet member Jayne Bryant says in a letter to councils: “While this is a significantly better settlement than was envisaged at the beginning of this year, I recognise that there will again be difficult local decisions to be made”.
Cardiff gets the most (£674m) while Merthyr Tydfil, Wales’ smallest authority gets the least (5.1%). However there is also a difference between the rise each authority gets compared to the previous year. While the entire local authority grant has gone up 4.3% some get more than that and some get less. Cardiff for example gets a 5.3% uplift, while Monmouthshire gets 2.8%.
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“For 2025-2026 the un-hypothecated revenue settlement increases by £253m. In determining this increase,we have wished to respond to the pressures you identified in our discussions which focused on pay and pressures in front-line services. In particular, I am conscious of the powerfulpoints local authority partners and schools have made around pressures in ALN and wider education provision. Our decisions on funding also recognise our critically important policy and delivery agenda in social care including steps towards the removal of profit from children’s care, continuing the real living wage, improving access to social care and maintaining the care cap at £100 per week alongside supporting the ‘whole system’ approach to care closer to home.”
“We will continue to work with you,” she says.
Mark Drakeford announced in his draft budget on Tuesday, December 10, that councils would get an uplift of 4.3% in their funding, and his cabinet colleague Jayne Bryant has revealed the figures. Mr Drakeford’s plans included rises in every government department, a marked change from a year ago when millions were slashed from almost all areas the Welsh Government has control over. You can read more here.
The budget for 2025-26 is now public in its draft form, but the final vote isn’t until March. Before then, the Welsh Labour government need to find another politician in the Senedd who will back their plans. The party has exactly half of the 60 Senedd seats so requires another party to support it. The Conservatives said they would be unlikely to back it, Plaid Cymru said they would not, which means it would likely fall to Jane Dodds, the sole Lib Dem. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Earlier in the day, finance minister Mark Drakeford told BBC Radio Wales the uplift in council funding of 4.3% compared to last year was “at the better end of what they will have been expecting”.
“Some local authorities will do better than that, and some will not do quite as well. I think it does allow local authorities to move back from the brink, and that’s where they’ve been forced to in the last 14 years, and particularly in more recent years, as austerity has bitten and bitten too many local authorities, too many public services in Wales have found themselves driven to the brink.
“This budget doesn’t solve all their problems. It doesn’t make up for all the losses they’ve had in those years.”
Each council’s provisional figure:
Ranking out of the 22 authorities in brackets
Isle of Anglesey: £135.6m
Gwynedd: £246.8m
Conwy: £218.5m
Denbighshire: £215.2m
Flintshire: £274.7m
Wrexham: £249.5m
Powys: £250.1m
Ceredigion: £143.9m
Pembrokeshire: £232.9m
Carmarthenshire: £375.7m
Swansea: £468.4m
Neath Port Talbot: £306.2m
Bridgend: £276.6m
Vale of Glamorgan: £223.4m
Rhondda Cynon Taf: £521.2m
Merthyr Tydfil: £133.1m
Caerphilly: £373.9m
Blaenau Gwent: £154.5m
Torfaen: £192.2m
Monmouthshire: £133.7m
Newport: £329.1m
Cardiff: £674.5m