How the revenue budget is spent
The budget is spent on hundreds of different services for residents and businesses.
Around two-thirds (£282.7m/70%) is spent on Schools/Education and Social Services. The rest is spent on:
- Environment and Regulatory Services
- Democratic Services
- HR
- Digital Services
- Contributions to outside organisations etc.
Education and Lifelong Learning (ELLL) Directorate
The budget provides investment of £121.129m for the delegated schools budget and £34.331m into the ELLL Directorate – an increase of £14.671m for schools and £1.206m for ELLL compared to last year.
This investment will be used to educate around 22,000 children and young people and to tackle specific issues such as persistent absenteeism, to meet significant pressure for specialist planned places for children and young people with complex needs and to ensure all pupils get the appropriate specialist provision for their needs. Currently nearly all specialist provisions are at full capacity. Historically, secondary schools in Neath Port Talbot have been among the most underfunded in Wales and this proposed budget will address this.
Social Services, Housing and Community Safety Directorate
The budget provides investment of £127.219m, an increase of £13.520m or 11.9% compared with 2024/25.
This investment will be used to support 2,400 vulnerable children and their families, more than 2,500 adults needing care and support and 250 people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. It will also increase the number of placements for those with complex needs, maintain a stable social care workforce and go some way to offsetting the increasing costs of care.
In preparing the proposed 2025/26 budget, Neath Port Talbot Council’s Cabinet listened carefully to residents’ views. And following engagement with the public a number of proposals have been dropped including introducing three weekly waste collections, removal of wheelie bins and the introduction of green waste charges (saving £730,000), reducing the neighbourhood services workforce (£379,000), reducing the highways repair team and highways maintenance budget (£210,000) and recovering immediately the full costs of school cleaning – now phased over two years (£157,000).
More information
Read the full Budget report.
Read more about our ‘Let’s Keep Talking’ campaign and what people told us.