Some people benefiting from council help for care home placement fees in Cardiff may need to start partly funding them next year.
The proposal is in Cardiff Council’s 2025-26 budget consultation document, which is set to be agreed by cabinet members at a meeting on Thursday.
In the next financial year, the local authority will have to save £23.4 million – a much smaller budget gap than the £60 million it initially expected to face before it received the proposed Welsh Government funding settlement.
Almost half of that gap is planned to be met through efficiency savings, like back office reductions and reducing staff numbers through voluntary severance.
However, the council will once again have to look at changing the way it runs certain services and consider charging more for some of them.
The consultation on the budget proposals will open on Thursday and run until midnight on Sunday 9th February.
Here is a closer look at the proposals people will be asked about:
Adult social care
There are no details in terms of figures for proposed adult social care charges in the consultation document. However, the proposals being posed to residents gives us a clue as to what is being looked at.
Under one of its proposals, the council states set rates will be published for the provision of domiciliary care (home care) and care home placements and these rates will be the maximum the council will pay for care, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The consultation document goes on to propose “where someone chooses to move into a care home that charges more than our set care home rate, they will need need to arrange to pay the difference between our set rate and the cost their chosen care home charges."
“They may need to move to another care home if they no longer have the funds to pay the additional charge.”
Underneath this, the council proposes:
⦁ People will only be supported by the council in a care home if they have an assessed need for that level of care.
⦁ We will put in place a Care Home Framework; this is a list of homes that meet quality standards and which deliver care within our set care home rates. Individuals in need of a care home will be asked to choose from the homes on this list.
Parking
The only mention of parking in the consultation document is a proposal to increase the cost of residential parking permits.
At the moment, the council is looking at increasing this fee from £30 to £35 for the first permit and from £80 to £120 for the second.
Burial and cremation
It could cost more to use burial and cremation services in 2025-26, with the council currently looking at an increase of £100 to £1,140 for the burial service charge.
The cremation service charge could go up by £40 to £910 and the cost of purchasing a grave is proposed to go up by £65 to £1,295.
Cardiff Council is also proposing to increase the additional surcharge fee for weekend and bank holiday burials by £341 to £650 “to better reflect the cost of providing this service”.
Adult education
Fees for adult education courses are proposed to go up in 2025-26.
Cardiff Council said before the Covid-19 pandemic, fees paid by people to join courses covered the cost of running them. However, there are now fewer people attending the courses run by the local authority.
The council said it spends £220,000 a year in subsidies to keep them running. The increase being proposed is from £7.10 to £7.85 per hour.
There is also a concessionary rate available for certain groups, like people claiming certain benefits and full-time students. It is proposed this increases from £5.35 to £5.90 per hour.
School dinners
The charge for secondary school meals in Cardiff is £3.40. It is proposed this will go up by either 10p, 15p or 20p.
Respondents to the questionnaire are asked which one of these, or an additional option of “no increase in the cost of secondary school meals”, they would prefer.
Cardiff Council currently subsidises the cost of school meals for secondary school pupils, which continues to rise with inflation. Children eligible for free school meals will continue to benefit from this service.
Council tax
Although Cardiff Council said it is proposing an increase in council tax, no figure has been set.
On council tax, it asks residents in the consultation document which of the following options they would prefer:
⦁ Increasing council tax to help protect some services
⦁ Keeping any council tax increase as low as possible, even though this means more services will be reduced or stopped
⦁ Don’t know
Council tax accounts for about 26% of the council’s budget, with the remainder provided by the Welsh Government. Each 1% increase in council tax generates a net income of about £1.9 million.
In March 2024, Cardiff Council voted through a 6% council tax increase.
Full details of the budget consultation will be available on Cardiff Council’s website from Thursday, with printed copies available in libraries, hubs, and council buildings for those unable to participate digitally from next Monday.
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