Council’s Ty Pawb & Arts portfolio gets new Lead Member

Ty Pawb and the Arts will go back under the responsibility of Cllr Hugh Jones after an adjustment to lead member responsibilities, two weeks after it was finalised.

At the media brief before the most recent Executive Board our first question was “Who is the cultural Lead Member at Wrexham Council?” as the information before us did not tell us.

Cllr Hugh Jones had previously lead on Ty Pawb and the Arts at Wrexham Council having been a prominent and active supporter of the portfolio, but after the elections had moved to the Environment department, and had appeared to have passed the baton on to Cllr Paul Roberts.

The straightforward question took a decent amount of time to get the answer, which was was then described as ‘split’ between Lead Members – as Cllr Roberts had the Ty Pawb / Arts Lead and Cllr Hugh Jones continued with the City of Culture plans. At the time the Council’s Chief Executive said the split was ‘real logic’ and ‘probably strengthens the cultural portfolio’.

That has all changed now, with insiders telling us that over the last couple of days the roles had been adjusted with Cllr Hugh Jones taking Ty Pawb and the Arts back under his responsibilities.

We asked Wrexham Council if that was correct, and if an adjusted report was available detailing any other changes to compare with what went before the Executive Board on the 14th. Wrexham Council happily supplied the full report.

Both Cllr Jones and Cllr Roberts are in the Welsh Conservative group, which is part of the Administration. Groups can put people forward to the Executive Board, but technically what role they get is in the ‘gift’ of the Leader of the Council – Mark Pritchard.

Looking through the old report and the new report it appears there is just the one change we can spot, as below – with the Ty Pawb / Arts moving from one councillor to another.

Wrexham Council did also tell us a range of ‘champions’ has also now been confirmed:

Armed Forces Champion – Cllr Beverley Parry Jones
Member ICT Champion – Cllr Andy Williams
Scrutiny Champion – Cllr Tina Mannering
Welsh Language champion – Cllr Hugh Jones
Disability Champion – Cllr Mark Pritchard