Every year, one of the biggest challenges we face is to plan ahead with a new budget, balancing the huge demands made on our services against the income we get from the Welsh Government, from other grants and from you, our tax payers.

This is shaped by our priorities, by the demands placed upon us by governments past and present, and of course by our community. We must never, ever forget that in the public service sector, we are working for you.

Which is why we place such a great emphasis on consulting with you and with our community partners. And why we engage with the Welsh government and others in sensible discussions about balancing all the demands in a sustainable way.

Every year we face the challenge of continuing - or improving – our services while facing higher costs caused by price rises, increases in demand and from increasing complexity, especially in social care.

This time our fruitful negotiations mean that our core grant will rise by 5 per cent, taking everything into account and, with additional specific grants, we have been able to present a balanced budget without having to make further savings from within our services or adjust the proposed council tax increase.

We have also found room to increase our health and social care budget by 10.6 per cent and our education spending by 11.3 per cent. There’s an additional £1-million to help restore post-Covid school attendance levels and more for our ground-breaking approach to helping neuro-diverse children and those with additional learning needs.

I want to thank everyone who took part in the public consultation on the budget. The questions and observations we receive help us to understand priorities. One result has been to maintain the opening hours of the four town-centre community hubs.

As ever, our intention is always to try protect the services that mean the most to residents. We know how important our public services are to you, from the moment you step out of your door in the morning, to the moment you return home at night; from a first day in school, to care in later years.

To support these services we need to increase council tax by a 7.8 per cent. This will provide support for our schools, for care-givers and your vital services. It allows us to meet our need to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

And last, but by no means least, at allows us to continue to protect the environment, keeping Monmouthshire on a sustainable, progressive trajectory.