“Diolch Llwydd.
The Welsh Conservatives were delighted recently to welcome the announcement that Welsh Local Government Revenue Funding will receive an extra £31.5m in 2018-19, and £61.7m in 2019-20 as part of the Conservative UK Government’s announcement of an additional £1.2bn to Wales over the next 4 years.
Wales is benefiting from changes to the fiscal framework – meaning that for every £1 spent in England, at least £1.20 will be spent in Wales – something that 13 years of Labour rule in Westminster never achieved.
However, we have seen no let up for our hard-pressed council tax payers, or squeezed local government budgets, which now face real concerns over the lack of clarity over a number of funding streams.
The ELGC Committee report on the Draft Budget called for greater transparency in funding presentation.
Welsh Government claims of an increase to social care budgets to £42m in 2018-19 rising to £73m in 2019-20, and £62m to £108m in funding support for school services, have been challenged as spin by the WLGA claiming it is already existing within the settlement, whilst the SSA for schools has gone up by just £35m.
Further, the Children, Young People’s and Education committee revealed that the so-called additional £62m in reality is just £1.5m when taking into account the initial calculation for 2018-19 and the final allocated figure.
The ELGC Committee further calls for the Welsh Government to outline how it intends to monitor spend and outcomes in areas previously in receipt of grant funding, now incorporated into the RSG.
Reductions of around £70m in the costs of administering hypothecated grants are welcome. However, Cymorth Cymru have voiced concerns that without a distinct budget line, the Welsh Government cannot be held to account over how much actually is spend on the Supporting People Programme.
Likewise, Bangor & District Women’s Aid have stated that without ring-fencing, they will not know how much is being spent on Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence.
Clearly, there is a balance to be struck here, between reducing hypothecation and retaining a transparent audit trail. I will be interested in the Cabinet Secretary’s ideas for how this can be found. The Welsh Government have stated that information will “be collected through the suite of expenditure returns”. In the interest of transparency, scrutiny and accountability, I would be grateful, Cabinet Secretary, if you could advise as to when and where this data will be published, and how you will report to the Assembly on this?
Since 2013-14, Local Authorities have seen cuts of nearly half a billion pounds, in real terms.
Cabinet Secretary, you’ve said before that you’ve “never seen an alternative to [the funding formula]” yet we’ve been calling for years for a fundamental review, and improved consideration of a number of particular areas:
Demographics – particularly the needs of older people given concerns raised by The Health Foundation in terms of future social services pressures and the need for adult social care funding to rise by 4% in real terms each year to cover this.
Rurality. Yet again, our rural authorities have borne the biggest brunt of your cuts – with real term losses of 14.5% to Powys, even before today’s proposed settlement. Rural isolation and access to services is only partially addressed by the current ‘sparsity’ factor. Therefore, we call for increased attention to be given to this element of the formula also.
Finally, we need to look at how local authorities are actually managing their finances.
We can’t dictate how they budget – but we can enable better public and democratic scrutiny of local authority spending and use of reserves.
The Equalities, Local Government and Communities Committee has called for a review of the implementation of the guidance on local government reserves – a call disappointingly rejected by this Welsh Government.
Whilst residents face hefty year on year council tax rises – potentially 12.5% in Pembrokeshire, and high across Wales – whilst useable reserves have risen 7% since 2011-12, and represent 86% of total reserves – totalling over £1.4bn. Clearly, there is a mismatch here, Cabinet Secretary, and we look to you to bring some sense to this ludicrous situation. Rhondda Cynon Taf along has useable reserves of almost £150m.
A council tax increase for our residents of 187% since Labour came into power in Wales, shows that Welsh Labour are more than happy to burden our householders – many on fixed incomes – just to balance their own books here in Cardiff Bay.