THERE was a budget surplus of nearly £900,000 at Merthyr Tydfil Council last year.
In the council’s provisional revenue budget out turn report for 2024/2025, a net revenue budget surplus of £899,000 has been reported with a proposed transfer of £1.71m to earmarked reserves.
General reserves at March 31, 2025, have increased from £6.01m to £6.46m, being 3.75% of the council’s budgeted net revenue spend for 2025/26 in line with council policy. They had been worth £5.72m at March 31, 2024.
Of the £899,000 provisional net revenue budget surplus, the proposal agreed by cabinet on Wednesday, July 9, was to transfer £459,000 to general reserves and £440,000 to the budget reserve.
This out turn is subject to audit and the final audited revenue out turn position will be reported to council once it has been audited by Audit Wales.
The cabinet report said: “This year again saw the council managing its budget in an extremely challenging economic environment.
“Inflation and pay awards have continued to impact costs across all services, although on the whole this has been managed well through mitigating action.
“The financial position of the council has been monitored closely throughout the year with quarterly reports presented to cabinet.”
It said a significant number of grants were received in the last quarter of the financial year, the majority of which were unanticipated including £887,520 from Welsh Government to address in-year revenue cost pressures.
And it said that given the changes that had occurred which had resulted in a better financial position at the end of the 2024/25 financial year, the council was able to earmark some of this funding to support its transformation programme which is being designed to deliver sustainable services to the residents of the county borough.
