I came across these two tables during my late-night researches into the recent increases in council tax here in Pembrokeshire.
The first shows the levels in the 22 Welsh local authorities back in 2018 and the second the situation in the current financial year (2024/2025).
Unfortunately, as I don’t have the exact figures from 2018, I have had to “eyeball” them from the table as the statisticians like to say.
So there may be some minor errors in my calculations, but nothing to overturn my basic conclusion: that Pembrokeshire taxpayers have had a raw deal/been handed the rough end of the stick/been quietly shafted – take your pick.
What the figures below show is that, over the seven year period, Pembrokeshire has had by far the biggest increase at 75%, against a Welsh average of roughly 40%, with Flintshire on 57% in silver medal position.
As I explained in my recent column, only a small proportion of this increase can be attributed to “lowest council tax in Wales” and the rest must either be the result of PCC being faced with higher funding pressures than the rest of Wales, or some other reason.
Clearly, the roof didn’t fall in when we had “the lowest council tax in Wales”, so, having climbed up the table, then, unless Pembrokeshire has been subject to larger cost pressures than the rest, we should now be in clover.
The Pembrokeshire Herald had an interesting article recently on PCC’s burgeoning reserves and I have a feeling that the answer lies in that direction.
However, transparency is not the first word that comes to mind when discussing PCC’s finances, so my enquiries into this paradox continue.
