, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
I think that would further complicate an already complicated system. But, again, perhaps Andrew will have some thoughts on that. But I did want to mention the longitudinal data study, which I've mentioned to committee before, which is something that we're…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
I'll be the first to say the tax conference is always a personal highlight of my year as well, and one of the reasons why I do enjoy it is because it gives us that opportunity to share what we're doing here in Wales with others. So, we had people there from…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
Yes. I think that WRA would always be keen to have more funding, not least because, as well as the important role that they've got in the collection and enforcement work, actually, we ask them to do lots of thinking and exploring about the future of tax in…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
Yes. We do consider those risks when setting the budgets for the WRA and NRW as well. Those will be amongst the considerations that we have.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
Yes. So, the OBR revenue forecast for LDT implicitly assumes that current levels of non-compliance remain constant throughout the forecast, but I do have regular meetings with the Welsh Revenue Authority, and we, inevitably, talk about LDT and collection, and…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
I might ask Andrew to reflect a bit more on that, but I think it would be the Office for National Statistics in terms of the role of amassing that data. But in terms of the OBR, the work that they do, as we talked about when Peter Fox raised it in the Senedd…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to the committee again this afternoon. That's an important question. I think we started to explore it in our last session in terms of the role of the OBR and the information we receive. Peter Fox's question just…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25: Evidence session 8
I'm Rebecca Evans, Minister for Finance and Local Government, and I'll ask officials to introduce themselves.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Great. Diolch.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think that could potentially have significant implications for local authorities in terms of their ability to meet needs, because the funding formula itself is partly about the individual, partly about deprivation and also sparsity, and I suppose when you…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I’ll just ask Judith to come in on that particular question first.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Yes. Again, I think the impact of inflation and the fact that we haven’t been able to match that through the budget means that there’ll be less work able to be carried on in that space, so that emphasises really why it’s so important that local authorities…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Unfortunately, I think that it's inevitable it will have some impact on the work that Ystadau Cymru does in that space. We had a statement in the Senedd this week on Ystadau Cymru, where I was able to reflect on both this budget issue and then also the wider…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
One minute, please.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Yes. This allocation was made well over a year ago, now. So, at last year's budget, which was set for this year, we allocated £40 million for this year and £20 million for next year. At that point, we had to base it on what was probably a worst-case scenario…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I do. I think my role would be more on the side of monitoring the spend and exploring alternative uses for the funding if it's not deployed, and it would be for the Minister for Social Justice, really, to be working with local government to encourage those…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
For this financial year, I think that we expect it to be zero, because, to my knowledge, there were no suitable applications coming through for that fund, and that fund was then returned to the centre as part of that exercise. If I'm wrong on that, I'll…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
This particular grant is part of the Minister for Social Justice's portfolio, so she'll be able to provide you with a more detailed response to that, but the discussions that I would have with her come through the budget bilaterals that I have with each…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
The £20 million is additional to the unhypothecated funding that we've talked about. So, it does have that particular focus on decarbonisation, and the work of the decarbonisation panel, which advises local authorities in this space, is really important in…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Well, we don't have an increase in our capital budget, so we haven't been able to provide increases to local government. In fact, our capital budget is 6 per cent lower in real terms next year than it is this year. So, there hasn't been anything to allocate…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
On the pensions issue, it's something that we're aware of and local government has raised with us. We're still waiting for clarity from the UK Government on this, but I have said that in relation to any consequential funding that comes for the pensions issue…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Education, of course, forms the largest area of spend for local government. Council spend on education services makes up 37 per cent of their budget, so it's already a really key part of the budget. What we have tried to do, bearing in mind that there's no…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Firstly, in terms of the VOA, the costs for next year are forecast to be £17 million, so that's the same as this financial year. So, it doesn't see an increase in the budget, but what you see in the budget documentation is that it has been consolidated into a…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
So, the finance and local government MEG wasn't immune from the exercise that I've asked other colleagues across Government to do in terms of identifying savings within the MEG. And actually, when you look at the protection we've given to the RSG, there's…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think they're two different parts of the public service, but they're both funded in two different ways. So, it probably is appropriate to the extent that they do have different systems around it. Local government is able to raise money locally in a way that…
