Issue - meetings

Dewi A. Morgan (Head of Finance - CJC’s Statutory Finance Officer) and Sian Pugh (Assistant Head of Finance) to present the report.

1.1  To approve the Budget for 2025/26 for the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee (CJC) as presented in the appendix to the report. To approve the budget as noted below:-

1.2  To approve the levy on the constituent authorities, as noted below:-

The report was submitted by  Dewi A. Morgan (Head of Finance Department- CJC Statutory Finance Officer) and Sian Pugh, (Assistant Head of Finance Department).

DECISION

1.1  To approve the Budget for 2025/26 for the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee (CJC) as presented in the appendix to the report. To approve the budget as noted below:-

1.2  To approve the levy on the constituent authorities, as noted below:-

DISCUSSION

Submitted - the Corporate Joint Committee's budget for 2025/26 with a run-down of the main additions. It was noted that the Governments’ recent recommendation to have a dedicated full-time Growth Deal Portfolio Director had impacted the staffing structure. Previously, the position of Chief Executive of the Joint Committee was shared with the Growth Deal, but following their recommendation, the CJC budget had now been adjusted to include the position of a full-time Chief Executive as well as a full-time Personal Assistant.

It had been reported that four additional positions in Policy, Procurement, Operations and Administration had been added to the staffing structure and those were to be funded from the reserve fund for a period of two years with further discussions to be held in the future to determine whether they needed to be made permanent and added to the levy. 

It was explained that the support services budget had increased, to reflect the resources needed going forward and included Finance support (including Section 151 Officer), Legal support (including the Monitoring Officer), Democracy Support, Corporate Services (Translation, Human Resources, Learning and Development, Health and Safety) and Information Technology services. 

It was noted there was a budget of £180,000 for the Investment Zone programme with the hope that everything would be in place to start in April 2025. It was added there would be a contribution of almost £565,000 from the reserve fund which would then leave a balance of around half a million in the fund.

It was explained that the total net budget used to calculate the levy for 2025/26 was £902,480 and was an increase of £137,660 from 2024/25, and this increase was mainly due to the impact of the Governments recent recommendation to have a dedicated full-time Portfolio Director for the Growth Deal. 

Gratitude was expressed for the report. There were no further observations.