PEMBROKESHIRE County Council will have to publish a 'best guess' outline budget without knowing how much money will be coming from the Welsh Government.

The Welsh Government's provisional settlement for the coming year has been delayed to December 16 because of the General Election.

The outline draft budget will go out for public consultation in December but the draft budget should be ready for Cabinet and scrutiny in January, said Cllr Kilmister.

“We will be setting the outline draft budget without knowing what our settlement will be,” he said.

“This is extremely challenging as we know what our likely expenditure will be fairly accurately but without knowing the amount of Welsh Government funding we can expect.”

Cabinet will have to make a recommendation on the outline draft budget to Full Council on Monday, December 2.

The agenda, including full reports, will be published online on the Council’s website a week ahead of the meeting as usual.

Full Council will consider the outline draft budget on Thursday, December 19.

Again, the agenda and relevant reports will be published online a week in advance so the report will also have to be published ahead of the announcement from Welsh Government.

Members will have to receive an oral update on the day regarding the Welsh Government provisional settlement and its implications for the draft budget, which is far from satisfactory, said Cllr Kilmister.

“The outline draft budget will be our best guess and I can say with certainty that the final budget due to be agreed on February 27 2020 will be substantially different from the draft model,” he said.

“Setting such a complicated budget is a major challenge every year but this year it has been made even more difficult.

"We have cancelled a members’ seminar on the budget next week due to the lack of concrete information.”