Issue - meetings

After setting the Budget at the Full Council meeting on 6 March 2025, it was agreed that the Cabinet approved the one-off bids of £2,057,260 for 2025/26 to be funded from the:

·        £1,557,260 of additional funding in the final settlement announced by the Welsh Government on 20 February 2025.

·        £500,000 from the Council Tax Premium for the purpose of temporary accommodation for the Homeless.

Following the Welsh Government's recent announcement that there will be additional funding for the field of care, subject to the details and conditions of this grant, it was agreed to use the source to fund the bids in the  care field.

The report was submitted by Cllr Nia Jeffreys.

DECISION

After setting the Budget at the Full Council meeting on 6 March 2025, it had been agreed that the Cabinet approved the one-off bids of £2,057,260 for 2025/26 to be funded from the:

£1,557,260 of additional funding in the final settlement announced by the Welsh Government on 20 February 2025.

£500,000 from the Council Tax Premium for the purpose of temporary accommodation for the Homeless.

Following the Welsh Government's recent announcement that there would be additional funding for the field of care, subject to the details and conditions of this grant, it had been agreed to use the source to fund the bids in the care field.

DISCUSSION

It was noted that the bids were inevitable but unfortunately the Council was currently unable to support developmental or transformational bids. The report was submitted stating that the Council's transformation fund was normally used to fund the one-off bids but there was no money left in this fund to fund any bids this year. It was reported that the Welsh Government had recently allocated additional funding which was available to contribute towards the costs of the one-off bids. It was acknowledged that this funding would be useful but it was expressed that the Welsh Government had not adequately funded Cyngor Gwynedd in the first place.

It was noted that the bids were requests for revenue funding but it was temporary revenue funding, and it was hoped that the temporary demand during the year would either disappear or decrease. 

Reference was made to the table in part 4.2 of the report which listed the bids, totalling just over £2 million. Attention was drawn to the costliest bids, namely Education Transport, explaining that this was mainly due to the increase in fuel and vehicle maintenance costs and the increase in the numbers requiring transport to the schools. It was hoped that the cost would be reduced next year following a review in the field.

It was explained that the bid for homelessness emergency accommodation costs was half a million and that there was also a bid for £115,000 for additional workers as a result of the admission of Asylum Seekers without parents as part of the National Transfer Scheme, which was a sad but very worthy case.

It was reported that options to fund the bids had been considered but there was insufficient revenue funding and that the Council's corporate reserves had been significantly reduced and that they needed to be protected.  Although a Departmental fund had been appropriate for the Housing and Property Department's bid, it was noted that appropriate Departmental funds did not exist for the other bids. As a result of this, it was suggested that ¾ of the bids should be funded through the additional funding from the Government and the other ¼ to be funded from the only appropriate Departmental fund left which was the Council Tax Premium fund.

Observations arising from the discussion:

Regarding the Education Transport bid, an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6