Survey – RCTCBC 2026 – 2027 Budget Strategy

The council has, for a number of years, asked all services to identify ways in which they can operate more efficiently without impacting front-line services. 72% of people who took part in Phase 1 of the budget consultation agreed with continuing this effort, which has delivered over £40M of efficiency measures in the past three years whilst recognising it is becoming more difficult each year to continue to deliver savings at this level without impacting on frontline services.

The Senior Leadership Team of the council has identified further measures for the coming year which would reduce the budget requirement by over £6M.

48% of people who took part in Phase 1 agreed with the council covering all school cost increases, and 95% of people stated that Schools were “very” or “quite “important.

It is proposed that the Schools budget be prioritised for next year, continuing an approach that has been used for a number of years, with a fully funded increase of 4.8% (£10.4M) in order to cover all increasing costs and includes an extra £1M for enhancing capacity for additional learning needs and special schools. This is above the level of increase in funding the Council has received from Welsh Government of 4.5%.

In the Phase 1 feedback 80% of people agreed with the council’s approach of reviewing each fee and charge individually.

The council followed this approach and also took into account the general rate of inflation (the Consumer Prices Index) of 3.4% at December 2025 and specific inflationary pressures being felt of over 5% when delivering some services.

In line with this approach, a number of areas have been identified as requiring a specific approach and other areas being frozen and these are shown in the table below.

 Due to the increase in costs of service delivery, for 2026 – 2027 the council proposes that all other fees and charges should increase by  5%, with the council not passing on to customers / service users the full impact of inflationary increases. The full Fees and Charges report can be accessed at https://rctcbc.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s57775/Report.pdf?LLL=0 and the total estimated additional income that would be raised from all Cabinet proposals is £412,000.

The Cabinet’s proposals alongside alternative proposals put forward by Councillor Lisles and Councillor Johnson of the Non-Majority Group of elected Councillors are shown below. The main changes included within the alternative proposals are to increase the ‘up to 1 hour’ charge in short stay car parks from £0.80 to £1.00 and extend the chargeable period on Saturdays from ‘8am – 10am’ to ‘8am to 3pm’. The additional income from the alternative proposals is estimated to be £20,000 per year and would need to be monitored during the year to confirm this.

1 - Free parking in all other Council car parks other than Aberdare and Pontypridd. For the month of December, free parking extended to Council car parks in Aberdare and Pontypridd after 10am.

Phase 1 feedback showed 55% of people who took part agreeing that a mixture of protecting services and increasing council tax was needed. The highest rate of agreement (47%) was for increasing council tax by less than 3% and the highest rate of disagreement was for increasing council tax by more than 5% (79%). For the option to increase council tax by between 3% and 5%, 52% of people disagreed and 32% agreed.

The current budget is modelled on a council tax increase of 4% for 2026 – 2027 in order to help protect services and take into account the ability of residents to pay. A 1% increase raises £1.151M of additional income (after Council Tax Relief costs).   A 4% increase will increase council tax by 91p per week (Band A property) and £1.36 per week (band D property).

The council has a “transitional funding” reserve of £4.745M which allows us to spread the impact of budget reductions over a longer period. This fund has been used for many years to balance budgets sensibly and is replenished each year.

In Phase 1 feedback, 68% of people agreed with the council’s approach to the use of reserves.

For 2026 – 2027 it is proposed to cover the remaining budget gap (if other proposals such as Council Tax and Fees & Charges are agreed) of £911,000 with money from this fund.