Monmouthshire County Council agreed its budget and council tax level for next financial year at a meeting last in County Hall last week.

The budget was agreed on Thursday February 27, and is intended to protect front line services and education spending, increase social services spending, introduce for the first time a living wage for low paid employees and meet a £9m cut in Welsh Government funding. 

Council tax will rise by 3.95 per cent and all front line services will continue, although some will be subject to charges for the first time to combat the continued low funding from Welsh Government. 

Through their consultation process with the public, several of the ideas brought up at these meetings were implemented, following member seminars, scrutiny committees and detailed discussions with the Trade Unions and the Schools Budget Forum.

The result of these consultations has meant that many areas have been safeguarded from cuts, but the Conservative/Lib Dem Group have expressed that it was not possible to achieve this with all aspects of the contributions brought forward by the above groups.

Therefore the budgets do mean that there are cuts to pest control, post 16 transport and street lighting and reductions to street cleaning, but they have said that despite the fact that TIC and museums also fall into this category, savings have been identified in alternative ways thus protecting them.

Councillor Phil Murphy, the council's cabinet member for finance, said, "This has been a long and inclusive budget process. We have chosen to spend this time responding to the challenge with purpose and in line with our stated priorities.  Our priority has been to see continued investment in things that matter to the people of Monmouthshire. 

"That is why the agreed budget will safeguard our: schools, vulnerable people – young and old, youth service, libraries, museums, leisure centres and adult learning programmes.

"Unlike most other councils, we are not closing things.  We are working hard to keep services open and maintain the things that make our county special. 

" This does come at a cost and so council has agreed to ask people to pay a little more council tax (76p a week for a Band D household). 

"We are matching this by reducing the reserves that we hold as a council – this seems fair to us and we still expect our services to improve.  Our major commitment to start building new secondary schools, the first in Caldicot and the second in Monmouth, remains".

The Conservative/Lib Dem Group also claimed they have taken all precautions to find the most suitable way to find the savings of £9m for 2014/15, and that most importantly their budget is not being built for just the one year.

Councillor Murphy added, "We are not just building a budget for one year – we have done the outline work for the next four, because we need to think into the medium term.  

"The attitude and engagement of the people of Monmouthshire in this process over the last six months has been inspiring – you have told us about what matters to you and we have built our budget around this.  We are determined to continue adopting innovative approaches to maintaining as many services as we can.  But I know that some of what we propose to do – especially around street lighting and litter picking – will be more visible to people in their day to day lives than the significant back office savings that we've already made."

Following the decision to adopt the budget, Councillor Peter Fox offered his thanks to all of the Monmouthshire County Council officers for their work on creating the budget, as well as the public for their time taken to engage in finding the best solutions to the difficult financial times ahead.