Agenda item

Dewi A Morgan, CJC Chief Finance Officer, Dafydd L Edwards, CJC Project Lead Officer and Sian Pugh, CJC Group Accountant to provide the projected expenditure of the Corporate Joint Committee for 2022/23.

To note and accept the Corporate Joint Committee's projected expenditure for 2022/23 as submitted in Appendix 1.

To agree that the underspend at the end of the financial year will be earmarked to a reserve fund to finance future one-off costs.

The report was presented by Sian Pugh (CJC Group Accountant).   

DECISION 

To note and accept the Corporate Joint Committee's projected expenditure for 2022/23 as submitted in Appendix 1. To agree that the underspend at the end of the financial year will be earmarked to a reserve fund to finance future one-off costs. 

DISCUSSION 

The report was submitted noting that it was a financial review from September 2022. The main points were highlighted, whilst showing the budget and the estimated position until the end of the year. It was explained that they were estimating an underspend of £50k under the Employees heading. It was explained that the budget had been based on employing / seconding two employees in the field of Transportation from July 2022 and three employees in the Strategic Planning field from December 2022, no appointments had been made to date. Cyngor Gwynedd's Finance Service had also provided projections for the costs of the Portfolio Director from October onwards, and the Finance Service would work with the Ambition Board over the coming months on this.  

A likely underspend of £2.5k was highlighted on the Travelling heading as well as a £45k underspend on the supplies and services heading. It was explained that there was a £1k underspend on the miscellaneous supplies heading, £4k on the engagement and meetings heading, and £40k on the external consultations heading.  

It was expressed that the net underspend of £3.5k was anticipated on the Support Services heading. It was noted that there was an overspend of £10k on finance costs since the role of the Project Lead Officer had continued for longer than originally anticipated. An £11k of underspend was highlighted on the Corporate Support heading due to a reduction in the number of formal meetings.  

It was explained that there had been a further delay with legislating to give section 33 status to Corporate Joint Committees and that this was now unlikely to be in place until 1 March 2023. It was expressed as a result of this that it would not be possible to reclaim VAT on any financial transactions attributed to the previous period and based on the projected overspend during that period, it was estimated that around £41k of VAT could not be reclaimed.  

It was expressed that this would leave a projected position for 2022/23 as an underspend of approximately £60k that would be transferred to a reserve fund.  

Observations arising from the discussion 

·                Enquiries were made about the budget and levy of the CJC for 2023/24, noting that serious consideration should be given to all 2023/24 levies, including the Corporate Joint Committee, because the financial projections for next year looked so poor. It was noted that a discussion would be held on the budget when the budget would be created. It was noted that this report referred to this year's money and that it was difficult to find savings this year since the budget was the least possible but the need to discuss the next budget was acknowledged.  

·                It was asked why the money was being earmarked to a reserve fund and it was explained that the Joint Committee only had one reserve fund and therefore the money would be earmarked for one-off costs in the future.