Council funding and services

Gary Pritchard

8 January 2025, Local Government and Housing Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 1—Welsh Local Government Association

Thank you, Chair. I would agree with what Councillor Brocklesby said, that the situation is much better than we had anticipated when we started to look at our budgets in the summer of last year. And in a similar fashion to Monmouthshire, we were also looking at 0 to 0.5 per cent of an increase in…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Translated from WelshOfficial Record

Mary Ann Brocklesby

8 January 2025, Local Government and Housing Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 1—Welsh Local Government Association

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, John. I think it's a mixed picture across Wales and it's a dynamic and changing situation overall. The challenges we face are the same challenges as we faced last year, and the previous year, and the year before that. They are an accumulation of 14 years of austerity and…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

John GriffithsLabour

8 January 2025, Local Government and Housing Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 1—Welsh Local Government Association

…budget and the committee's first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome representatives of the Welsh Local Government Association who are joining committee remotely today. We have Councillor Gary Pritchard, leader of Ynys Môn county council; Councillor Mark Pritchard, leader of Wrexham County…

Tagged for: “Welsh Local Government Association”Official Record

Peter McDonald

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…put in place over the last 18 months. The first is that myself and Andrew Morgan, as leader of the WLGA, are now formal observers of the TfW board. And when you combine that, actually, with some new non-executives that TfW have appointed, I think the board dynamic is much stronger now. We're getting…

Tagged for: “WLGA”Official Record

Delyth JewellPlaid

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…board approach to managing TfW's performance and that that would involve the Welsh Government and the WLGA participating in TfW board meetings. Could you tell us, please, how that approach is developing and whether there are any examples you'd like to highlight about how improved value for money is…

Tagged for: “WLGA”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

Absolutely, yes. So, we've got—. There’s money that’s made available through the revenue support grant, but there’s also the local borrowing initiative, which will amount to £60 million. My understanding is that local authorities would like that to be replicated in future years. That’s something…

Tagged for: “revenue support grant”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…but, again, I can offer some assurance today, I think. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 requires corporate joint committees to have regard to the integrated network maps for active travel when formulating their regional transport plans. Our guidance for corporate joint committees for developing…

Tagged for: “corporate joint committees”Official Record

Chris Warner

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…enable local authorities to plan. But, because there was some uncertainty this year over the level of local authority funding, we felt that, rather than lead local authorities to be pigeonholed into the particular silos, if you like, of our individual grant schemes, we would instead not give them…

Tagged for: “local authority funding”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…think rightly so—on the assessment of local authority applications. And as I've already outlined, corporate joint committees are going to be able to provide feedback and comment on the applications so that they do align fully with the emerging regional transport plans. Now, the funding is going to…

Tagged for: “corporate joint committees”Official Record

Peter McDonald

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…will be putting TfW analytical support in from day one, so if we can find the right way of working with CJCs, there's no reason why this can't begin in the next financial year. This is in general a very big question and issue, and any reflections from the committee over the next few months would be…

Tagged for: “CJCs”Official Record

Llyr GruffyddPlaid

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…authority voters who are most being impacted? Because there was, of course, concern with the whole corporate joint committees shift that decisions are moving further away from those communities?

Tagged for: “corporate joint committees”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

…the move to devolve transport funding, but I can assure Members that, with the devolution of funding to corporate joint committees happening from 2026-27, that funding will be subject to delivering the regional transport plans, and those regional transport plans being agreed with Government, and…

Tagged for: “corporate joint committees”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

8 January 2025, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales

This is a really interesting question. It is our ambition that corporate joint committees will be able to lever in funding from the private sector to complement the funding that they themselves allocate to projects, as well as the funding that we allocate, and, indeed, potentially that UK Government…

Tagged for: “corporate joint committees”Official Record