Welsh provisional local government settlement

In 2025-26, Welsh local authorities will receive £6.1 billion from the Welsh Government Revenue Support Grant (“RSG”) and non-domestic rate (“NDR”) to spend on delivering key services. This is a 4.3 per cent increase in funding for local government than it is currently.

Provided through the Autumn Budget, this additional funding is welcomed after a long period of economic austerity imposed by previous Conservative governments, as well as a series of economic crises and periods of inflation. This makes the Welsh budget settlement £1 billion more than it would have been under the previous UK government, but the Welsh government also integrate that one increased budget cannot recover fourteen years of constrained public funding.

Jayne Bryant MS, cabinet secretary for housing and local government said: “I want to pay tribute to the incredible amount of hard work and resilience shown across the sector by both officers and elected members over many years. We have been through a long period of public sector austerity with an increase in demand for major services, a pandemic and an extra-ordinary inflationary period.

In a written statement by the Welsh cabinet, Jayne Bryant MS urges local authorise to manage council tax responsibly, and repeats, as announced on 10th December, a package of non-domestic rate support which will benefit every ratepayer in Ales, as well as promising to invest an extra £78 million support for retail, leisure, and hospitality businesses with their non-domestic rates bills. 

Further measures set out in the draft Budget raising general capital funding for local authorities to £200 million to account for inflation, as well as increasing funding the the Low Carbon Heat Grant to £30 million, as in line with the Net Zero Wales plan.