Agenda, decisions and draft minutes

To elect Chair for 2022-2023

To elect Councillor Robin Williams (Isle of Anglesey Council) as Chairman of the Joint Planning Policy Committee for the year 2022/23.

To elect Councillor Robin Williams (Isle of Anglesey Council) as Chairman of the Joint Planning Policy Committee for the year 2022/23.

To elect Vice Chair for 2022-2023

To elect Councillor Dafydd Meurig (Gwynedd Council) as Vice-chair of the Joint Planning Policy Committee for the year 2022/23

To elect Councillor Dafydd Meurig (Gwynedd Council) as Vice-chair of the Joint Planning Policy Committee for the year 2022/23

To receive any apologies for absence

Cuncillor.  June Jones

To receive any declaration of personal interest.

None to note.

To note any items that are a matter of urgency in the view of the Chairman for consideration.

No urgent items were received.  

The Chairman shall propose that the minutes of the meeting of this committee held 4^th February 2022 be signed as a true record.

The minutes of the Committee held on 4 February 2022 were accepted as a true record.

To submit the Senior Finance Manager’s report (Gwynedd Council)

To accept and approve the information:

The Revenue Income and Expenditure Account 2020/21

The Annual return for the year ended 31 March 2021

A report was presented by Ffion Madog Evans (Senior Finance Manager), that responded to a statutory requirement under Section 12 of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004, to report on the annual statement of accounts for the Joint Planning Policy Service. As the Service's turnover was less than 2.5m, it was regarded as a smaller Local Government body, bearing this in mind there was a requirement to complete a statement of accounts form provided by Audit Wales to meet the statutory requirements. It was noted that Gwynedd Council was the Lead Authority with the responsibility of undertaking the responsibility of calculating, reporting and auditing the accounts.

It was highlighted that the arrangements of reporting on accounts follows a tight timetable - with a requirement that this is completed before the end of May.  As it was the election year, this was not possible. Although the accounts had been completed, authorised by the Head of Finance and presented to the Auditors before the end of May, this was the first opportunity to report to the Committee.

Reference was made to Appendix 1 which included the out-turn report and explained the final position of the Service's income and revenue expenditure for 2021/22. It was highlighted that the budget could be seen in the first column with the expenditure in the second, then it was possible to audit the over-expenditure or under-expenditure in the third column. It was noted that the expenditure for 2021/22 was £40,185 less than the budget available, and therefore it was possible to reduce the required contribution for Gwynedd and Anglesey Councils to £223,000 instead of £243,000 as was determined in the budget, which was a reduction of £20,000 on the original budget.

Looking in greater detail at some of the expenditure headings, the main points to be noted were:

-      That there was an over-expenditure of £10,755 on wages due to the increase of 1.75% in inflation which was finalised late in the financial year.

-      Transport - the picture in 2021/22 was consistent with the picture in 2020/21, with the impact of Covid obvious in terms of less travelling and more virtual meetings.

-      A small expenditure also on costs of running the Service compared to the budget.

-      Significant under-expenditure associated with the process of preparing the plan.

-      Savings target of £10,000 which remains unrealised for some years now. Need to consider trying to cancel it from the savings, e.g. on transport costs, to get rid of the savings target.

It was noted that the accounts had previously been sent to the attention of External Auditors, Wales Audit Office.  Only if there were changes following that audit would the accounts be re-submitted to the attention of the Committee for approval.

The Joint Planning Policy Committee was asked to accept and approve the accounts for 2021/22 and that the Chair signs the electronic form on page 15 of the pack.

Matters Raised

·            Appears that there was a significant amount in reserve. If there was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.