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Gwynedd Council to disuss £200,000 plan to make St David’s Day a national holiday for staff

12 Jan 2022 3 minute read
Children on St. David’s day. Picture: Senedd Cymru. (CC BY 2.0)

Gwynedd Council will next week discuss making St. David’s Day a national holiday for staff.

An item to be discussed on Tuesday includes the proposal which would cost £200,000 due to the need to employ part-time staff to keep the council running on March the 1st. An alternative suggestion of a half-day off, which would cost £100,000, is also mooted.

The proposal also condemns the “hugely disappointing” response of the UK Government to the council’s suggestion of allowing the Welsh Government to designate bank holidays last year.

In December the UK Government rejected calls for a St David’s Day Bank Holiday after claiming too many people commute across the Welsh and English border to make the idea feasible.

The item before Gwynedd Council next week suggests that “St David’s Day 2022 is designated as an additional holiday day for Council staff working on the terms of employment of local government employees, for celebrating our patron saint’s day to be funded in accordance with paragraph 2.10 of the report b”.

It also suggests that the council “authorize officers to investigate possible options to make such an arrangement permanent and to that end further discussions with the recognized trade unions and continue to lobby for Westminster Government support for devolution to the Welsh Government empowered them to establish bank holidays for Wales”.

The report notes that it “would cost around £200,000 every year to the Council (around £100,000 to execute the last option which is half a day of holiday and redesignating the other half day of holidays which are currently allowed)”.

“These costs are mainly because of the need to employ part-time staff to ensure that the service continues in the absence of full-time staff.”

‘Integration’

In October of last year, Gwynedd Council send a letter to ministers calling for an end to the “embarrassing” anomaly of the Scottish and Northern Irish Governments being able to designate their national days while no such powers are currently devolved to Cardiff Bay.

But in a letter Paul Scully MP, the Minster for Small Business, has poured cold water on any additional Bank Holiday for Wales.

Writing in response to the council’s request, Mr Scully noted, “While we appreciate that the people of Wales want to celebrate their patron saint, more people work across the English/Welsh border than across the English/Scottish border.

“This closer degree of integration could cause greater business disruption. If we had separate bank holidays in England and Wales, the impact on both employees and businesses is difficult to predict.”

In the proposal before Gwynedd Council next week, this response is described as “hugely disappointing”.

“It is obvious that the current government at Westminster has no intention of devolving this right and so it will not be possible for the Welsh Government to respond to the council’s demand for now,” they said.

 


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Grayham Jones
2 years ago

St David day must be a to
Celebrate in wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Dafydd
Dafydd
2 years ago
Reply to  Grayham Jones

.. again I ask – why do you always type Wales in lower case?

Dean Thomas
Dean Thomas
2 years ago

Come on now, don’t upset Andrew RT Davies and his Brit-loving acolytes. They’ll say that we’ve got a few days off for Mrs Windsor, so please don’t ask for March 1st as well, as it will ruin the economy.

Brian Clement
Brian Clement
2 years ago

What Paul Scully is really trying to say is “you are English, at the end of the day, so live with it”.

Ed Jones
Ed Jones
2 years ago

Take the day off…

Keith Gogarth
Keith Gogarth
2 years ago

Then our leaders should say ‘ stuff you’ and go ahead anyway.

R W
R W
2 years ago

I hope this happens and that other Welsh councils follow suit.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
2 years ago

Ynys Mon already give their office staff the day off but not the workers, I wonder if this is what Gwynedd have in mind…

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago

While they are at it Wales Gov should also announce a Dydd Glyndwr in Sept.

ArgolFawr!
ArgolFawr!
2 years ago

As much as a Wales national bank holiday for St David’s day should be a right, it is not for any county council to grant their staff a day off at the rate payers (and private businesses) expense. Add to that the catchup now desperately needed due to Covid disruptions, it beggars belief its even being considered.

Quornby
Quornby
2 years ago
Reply to  ArgolFawr!

Quite so… All that costly QE 11 jubilee nonsense can’t be afforded by a post colonial backwater like England.

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago
Reply to  Quornby

We could rebadge QE2 Jubilee in Wales as something like ” Anticipating Independence Holiday”

ArgolFawr!
ArgolFawr!
2 years ago
Reply to  ArgolFawr!

Economics
The condition of a region or group as regards material prosperity.

To make a credible independence case we better realise how economics works and what it involves don’t you think?

BTW, I presume GCC will be at work if the Westminster circus decide on giving ‘everyone’ a holiday to eat jubilee pudding. I will be.

Last edited 2 years ago by ArgolFawr!
Quornby
Quornby
2 years ago

Mmm we shouldn’t be celebrating the queen’s jubilee then….. not with all those people border crossing…
It will make it unworkable surely?

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
2 years ago

From small acorns grow strong Welsh oaks. Da iawn Gwynedd! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 I still don’t understand why we don’t fill the streets with anger & passion over this ongoing Whitehall slight. Only Wales is denied the right to create a Bank Holiday to celebrate Britain’s one & only native patron saint, Dewi Sant ( born in Pembrokeshire, Wales). Whitehall devolved powers to both Scotland to celebrates St’ Andrew’s Day (Jewish, born in Gaillee, Israel) and Northern Ireland St’ Patrick (Welsh, born in Banwen, Wales ) but denied us the right quoting the lamest excuses possible. And before anyone says. What about… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Y Cymro
Tabor
Tabor
2 years ago

All local authorities to take the £10,000 offered to celibate QE2 and donate to Gwynedd Council for Dydd Gwyl Dewi .

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