Blaenau Gwent Council

Political Control & Leadership

Political control

LabourMajority of seats

Run by

Labour administration

Seats

Labour 19 · Independents and others 12 · Reform UK 1 · Green 1 (33 seats)As at May 2026. "Independents and others" includes local parties. Source: Open Council Data UK (public domain).

Leader

Chris SmithLabour

Chief executive

Stephen Vickers

Last election

2022

Overview

Population

69,713

Website

blaenau-gwent.gov.uk

Finance

Annual revenue budget

£207m

Council tax (Band D)

£2,531This is the council’s own share. The police precept, and any town or community council precept, are added separately for the final bill. Fire services in Wales are funded by a levy on the council itself, not shown as a separate precept here. See Council Spending by Service below for how this council itself spends.

Council Spending by Service

Total

£244m2024-25 · StatsWales (outturn) · May not match "Annual revenue budget" above. That figure is a different accounting measure (budgeted resource requirement) for a different year than this outturn total.

Education

£84m

Social services

£73m

Council fund housing and housing benefit

£22mMay overlap with the Housing Benefit figure shown under Welfare spending in the Work & benefits tab. StatsWales does not document how the two relate.

Other revenue expenditure

£21m

Planning and economic development

£15m

Local environmental services

£14m

Roads and transport

£8m

Libraries, culture, heritage, sport and recreation

£7m

Council tax benefit and administration

£1m

Claimant count

1,615 people claiming unemployment-related benefits, August 2026

3.9% of residents aged 16 to 64 · −20 on August 2025

The Claimant Count is people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance plus people on Universal Credit who are required to look for work. Before 2013 it counted only Unemployment Benefit or Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, so earlier years are not strictly comparable. Universal Credit requires more people to search for work than Jobseeker’s Allowance did, so as it replaced older benefits from 2013, part of the rise in the count reflects that change rather than more unemployment. It is not the official unemployment rate, which comes from a survey. The latest month can be revised.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Claimant Count (via Nomis). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Welfare spending

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Child poverty

Children under 16 living in low-income families, 2024-25

A child is counted if their family’s income is below 60% of the UK median for that year and the family claimed Child Benefit plus at least one other benefit (Universal Credit, tax credits or Housing Benefit). The two measures can differ a lot: housing costs push the after-housing-costs figure far higher in expensive areas such as London. Figures are provisional and years before 2021-22 are not comparable, so the trend starts there.

Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Children in Low Income Families: local area statistics (FYE 2022 to 2025, published 26 March 2026).

House prices

£144,294 average house price, July 2026

+4.5% over 12 months · +0.3% over 1 month · 45 sales in May 2026

Average prices are HM Land Registry’s estimates for the whole area, adjusted for the mix of homes sold, not the price of any one home. Figures for the latest months are provisional: sales can take weeks or months to be registered, so each month is revised for a year after it is first published. Sales counts are published about three months behind prices. In areas with fewer sales, figures can swing noticeably from month to month.

Source: HM Land Registry, UK House Price Index (July 2026 data). Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. This data is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Crime

10,078 crimes recorded in the 12 months to August 2026

144.6 per 1,000 residents · Up 3.0% on the previous 12 months

Source: data.police.uk, the official police crime data for England and Wales, summed to this council’s boundary from the small local area each crime is recorded in. Locations are approximate by design to protect privacy. Includes antisocial behaviour. Excludes fraud, which is recorded nationally, and the small number of crimes (about 1.4% in recent months) that police record with no location.

Crime figures last updated 13 October 2026.

Road casualties

People killed or injured on roads reported to the police, 2025

These are casualties in collisions reported to the police on all roads in the council’s area, including motorways and trunk roads it doesn’t manage. Police forces have moved to an injury-based recording system that classes more injuries as serious, so the Department for Transport publishes an adjusted “killed or seriously injured” estimate to allow fair comparison between years; the trend uses the adjusted figure, and the road-user table uses figures as recorded. Rates are per billion miles driven by motor vehicles in the area.

Source: Department for Transport, Reported road casualties Great Britain (RAS0403, first published 30 July 2026). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Public Health

Smoking (adults)

No data availableNot currently published at local authority level for Wales.

Physically active (adults)

No data availableNot currently published at local authority level for Wales.

Overweight or obese (adults)

No data availableNot currently published at local authority level for Wales.

Life expectancy (male)

76.0 years2021 to 2023 · ONS

Life expectancy (female)

79.0 years2021 to 2023 · ONS

Broadband and mobile

77.6% of 35,720 homes and businesses can get gigabit-capable broadband, January 2026

13 premises can't get decent broadband · 42% of premises use full fibre

These figures show what is available, not what people buy. “Decent” broadband means 10 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload, the standard set by the broadband Universal Service Obligation. Full-fibre use is the share of all premises with a full-fibre connection in use. Mobile figures count the four networks Ofcom reports (EE, O2, Three and Vodafone) and are modelled predictions of signal strength; 5G figures use Ofcom’s high-confidence measure.

Source: Ofcom, Connected Nations (January 2026 data). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.