, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
No. It is a planning assumption, and I was happy to agree that the health budget could plan on the basis that this was coming to them, and, once it did come, it would go to them, and that's what you see here. So, in that sense, it's not money for new things…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Thank you, Peter, for that question, because it does shine a bit of a light on one of the real difficulties that we experienced last year. For the last financial year, a deal was struck with 'Agenda for Change' staff in the health service, and a Barnett…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes, but it's not as simple as that.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
No, I don’t think they are, because headline inflation disguises so much. Inflation in the construction industry has not come down to the extent that you are seeing money being released back for use.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
We are. I’m saying that as confidently as I can. The final confirmation will happen at the end of this month, but all the discussions we’ve had and the indications we’ve had give us confidence that they will be covered in full.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I was going to say, first of all, that we should have a look at it, but the glossary seems to me the place you would go to to try to provide a bit more explanation, because you can take the glossary with you across the whole of the documents then, can't you?
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Chair, I don't want to correct Mr Fox, given that he's dealt with budgets for so many years, but I think what Peter is pointing to is another complexity. What's happening there is that money is moving from one budget, so it looks like it's gone down, but…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes. Whether the person on the Grangetown omnibus understands the differences that we've just been describing between cash, non-cash, cash you can spend, cash you can't spend and things like that, I very much doubt. And I'm not really sure that it is very…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I think this is quite difficult, really, because there's more than one audience, isn't there, for any budget. For people who need to know about these things because they are having to deal with it and manage it out there in local authorities, or wherever the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
No. Actually, it's gone down massively in this supplementary budget, and it also has no effect on day-to-day spending.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I'm pleased to say it's not taking money out of what we can spend. They are the consequences of those new standards. The UK Government has covered the cost of those new standards, so, again, it's money that comes to us outside the block grant and can only be…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
It is covered—. It is not necessarily even consequentials. So, this is the every four years review of the value of the contributions in unfunded public service pension schemes. It's a complicated way of doing it, which I don't completely understand. I know…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I'll try and answer that. I might get it slightly wrong, because I think of it slightly differently, because the question I normally ask is: is this money I can spend or is it money that I can't spend? In the case of the £200 million, which is the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes, I don't think I probably could explain it, but Sharon may—
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I know, but I’ve often asked, ‘Why is that being counted as revenue?’
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes, and I’ve often been baffled myself, Chair, as to why some things are counted as revenue, when they appear to be maintenance, and some things are counted as capital, when they actually appear to be things you need every day, but these are things that…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Well, I don't know, Chair, that I have much more insight to offer you than you'd get by reading The Observer at the weekend or something. I think the incoming Government does recognise that, if they are to achieve their ambitions for growth, growth in the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
It was a point that I was trying to make, in a way, that Peter's made, that, although we would like more flexibility, I don't regard capital-to-revenue switches as something that you do lightly, because the capital has generally been allocated for important…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Well, it was certainly discussed at the FISC. What happened last year was that we did have some capacity to switch capital into revenue, but all we were offered was a Barnett equivalent figure to the capital-to-revenue switches that had been agreed for…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes, Chair, we're confident that we can manage it. We're confident that the programming will be reconciled and the budget balanced by the end of this financial year, but I do think that some things may be changing in the context here. My colleagues will…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
It's not a gatekeeper. It's not by their permission. But, when there are important Welsh interests at stake, they can be an advocate for Wales, and have been in the past as well, and maybe that can be strengthened.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I agree that the office of the Secretary of State for Wales ought to be a voice for Wales in Westminster, rather than the other way around, but there is quite an important distinction that we are keen to preserve, and I know our Scottish and Northern Irish…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
I think that is now the case. It wasn't always the case, but I think, in the last year or so, that has become the case. Scotland renegotiated their fiscal framework, and in doing so they regained some of the real value of the figures that we don't in Wales…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2024-25: Evidence session
Yes. It's not going to get the time it needs to make it happen, even as simple a thing as stage 1.
