Social Services chiefs refuse to provide public breakdown of £8.5 million extra costs for 2026/2027
Powys Social Services chiefs are refusing to discuss in public the details of an £8.5 million rise in contract cost pressures for next year
At a Powys County Council meeting on Thursday, February 26, as part of the discussion on the 2026/2027 budget, the secrecy around the breakdown of contract pressures was brought up by a senior councillor.
Last month, the council’s Health and Care Scrutiny Committee probed the budget being given to Social Services for next year.
One of the recommendations from the committee was for them to receive a detailed breakdown of the expected financial pressures next year, to the tune of £8.563 million.
This is due to a number of factors, including contract provider uplifts, real living wage increases, as well as the risk of Welsh Government grant funding not materialising.
This recommendation had been rejected as it could reveal “commercially sensitive information.”
Committee chairwoman Cllr Amanda Jenner (Conservative – Trelystan and Trewern) said: “I appreciate there are some commercial sensitivities regarding the breakdown of this.
“But given the overall size of the Social Services budget and the proportion of increase, I do think we need to find some middle ground on this and provide more information to the public on this breakdown.
“This is so they can see why we’re justifying such a huge budget on what is a statutory service.”
Adult Social Services portfolio holder, Cllr Pete Roberts (Liberal Democrat – Llandrindod South), explained that long-term contracts set up a couple of council administrations ago had caused financial issues when inflation ballooned.
Cllr Roberts said: “We had a number of contract uplifts based around what inflation was.
“Suddenly we were going from zero or one and two per cent up to eight, nine or 10 per cent, and you’re looking at significant costs.”
He believed that the council would be in a worse situation if officers had not worked on renewed contracts, with providers having to justify cost increases rather than just being given the money.
“I will work with the directors to see if some of those can be shared in a confidential session of your committee,” said Cllr Roberts.
Director of Social Services and Wellbeing Nina Davies said: “I understand the rationale behind the request, but the difficulty is that breaking it down into individual areas, some of them are very small or individual providers.
“Providing that level of detail, along with other information that’s already in the public domain in terms of numbers of potential people using those services, means that there is potential that commercially sensitive information on pricing strategies could be worked out from the information that is then publicly available.
“We’re more than happy to share information in a confidential session.”
In 2026/2027, Social Services in Powys will receive £146 million out of a total council budget of £390.5 million, which is an 11.2 per cent increase on this year.
