The fiscal council’s budget for 2025 is over 12 per cent larger than its budget for the previous year, according to information revealed on Friday.

News website Stockwatch reported that the council has requested a budget of €571,235 for the new year, with that budget set to increase to €610,498 next year, before dropping back to €595,031 in 2027.

The majority of this budget increase has come about due to a large increase in staff salaries, with the council’s salaries budget having increased by 47 per cent from €111,243 last year to €164,858 this year.

This increase, the council said, is “mainly due to the filling of three vacant positions and an increase in the cost-of-living allowance, with a consequent increase in employers’ contribution to those funds”.

At the same time, regular employees have been given a 1.5 per cent pay rise for the new year, which the council said is “based on agreements with workers’ unions”.

The fiscal council is one of a number of state-funded organisations which will have their budgets deliberated by the House finance committee in the coming weeks, with discussions set to begin on Monday and continue into March.

The state scholarship foundation is another of those organisations and is set to request a budget of €8.8 million.

A total of 44 such organisations are to have their budgets deliberated, with only 15 so far having submitted their budgets. Three, the Turkish Cypriot property management fund, the Pancyprian refugee union, and the Cyprus assay office, had their budgets approved before the end of last year.

All three budgets were approved by a plenary session of the House on December 12.