NEATH PORT TALBOT Council reported a net underspend on its budget for the 2024-25 financial year.
The report came at a cabinet meeting in September 2025 where members heard how there had been an underspend of £2.1m from their annual revenue budget with the final savings being transferred in to reserves.
These saving came from a net revenue budget of £376.5m which is used by the council to cover its day-to-day cost for running essential services such as waste services, schools, and social care services.
The report said the underspend was mainly because of “unexpected additional grant income received from the Welsh Government” though it also noted there were still overspends in a number of areas.
It said: “The actual net expenditure resulted in a net underspend of £2.1m after accounting for ring-fenced reserves. This underspend is mainly due to unexpected additional grant income received from the Welsh Government.
“Following agreement between corporate directors and the director of finance £382k of the underspend will be transferred to specific reserves to fund anticipated future costs. The remaining balance, £1.74m, will be transferred to the contingency reserve.”
Despite what was said to be a”very positive report”continued pressures were still noted in areas such as home to school transport which had an overspend of £498k along with an additional £408k on the children’s social work budget.
Other areas of overspend included highways maintenance and waste management as well as a £1.25 million overspend on the children’s residential care budget.
Addressing the chamber officers at the meeting said they were “delighted” to have delivered the services within the overall cash budget, which was not a picture being seen across all authorities in Wales.
Councillor Alun Llewelyn said: “We have an obligation to have a balanced budget set at the beginning of the financial year so it’s obviously very positive that on a professional level we’ve ended the year within the budget that had been set.”
The report came alongside a separate one for the authority’s capital budget which showed a spend of £62.2m on agreed projects and represented a 95% delivery of the programme.
Some of these works included the waste fleet relocation at Crymlyn Burrows as well as £4.274m to schools capital maintenance and highways and engineering maintenance improvements.
