Fast facts
Vale of Glamorgan is a local authority located in south-west Wales and serving around 135,000 residents
Established in 1996 following reorganisation of Welsh local authorities
Home to Barry Island and Cardiff Airport
£2,707.88 – total service expenditure per head in 2023/24
With budgets under pressure, a council used our accelerated and curated data insights during its annual budget-setting to seek out opportunities for savings and transformation.
The challenge
Like many councils, Vale of Glamorgan is experiencing increasing pressure on its budgets with traditional methods of budget-setting or gradually trim of previous years' spending being no longer sufficient to deliver financial sustainability.
The Head of Finance/s151 Officer needed an evidence base to identify lines of enquiry for savings and transformation. They also wanted to understand which authorities across Wales were delivering differently to prompt ideas for change initiatives and understand best practice.
How we helped
We supported the Head of Finance (s151 Officer) across the last two council budget cycles, through providing comprehensive benchmarking analysis of expenditure, activity and outcomes.
We worked closely with the council to ensure the insight aligned to both the socio-economic context and key organisational challenges, such as social care and income generation potential.
To support engagement, we led a facilitated discussion with the senior leadership team to draw out the main lines of enquiry, provide objective challenge, and collectively agree next steps and actions.
The results
The council has used the benchmarking analysis to shape its transformation programme, and to identify opportunities for both change and savings generation over the short and long term.
