, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
I'm not sure where the £77 million figure is from, but we're expecting, overall—
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
Sorry, I don't—
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, I've already written to the incoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I sent a letter yesterday setting out our expectations of the UK Government at the spending review—sorry, at the autumn statement on the twenty-second of this month. So, I enclosed a…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
I don't think that that particular point would be necessary at this point, because the assumptions are made based on discussions that the Treasury will have with health in England, so, as I say—
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, in terms of consequentials, the only firm figure that we can have confidence in at the moment is the £11.5 million that was there in relation to winter pressures as a consequential from UK Government decisions in that respect. I have had, as you've seen…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
Do you want to jump in on that? [Inaudible.] So, I'll ask Andrew to say a bit more about how we're working with the NHS organisations through Eluned's team to drive down the deficit within health.
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, the health Minister, as I say, has been really clear in terms of her expectations of the health boards; I have no more additional funding to provide to the health Minister.
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, the amount of money available in the Wales reserve coming into this financial year was £350 million. So, that's the maximum that we're able to carry over from one year to another. Since then, our budget plans include a draw-down of £66 million, which…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, we haven't published the detail yet, other than the additional funding that is going to the NHS and to rail, but we will publish further information, particularly an updated strategic integrated impact assessment in due course as well. So, there'll be…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
And lots of the changes that we tried to make within the MEGs were to look, in the first instance, at those demand-led budgets to see what we could change in that respect, based on the latest up-to-date figures of take-up for various schemes. So, you wouldn't…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
I think two supplementary budgets a year is probably plenty. I think that that does afford a level of scrutiny that would be appropriate as well.
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, it is the intention to lay the supplementary budget in February as normal, and by then we will have a much better picture of where we are. I mentioned earlier that there are several assumptions that we've made in terms of these plans. Some of those may…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
It's worth just adding as well for context that we didn't anticipate, or we couldn't have really, I think, anticipated, the level of NHS pay deals and other pay deals that we would have had to have agreed when we were setting our budget for the year. Those…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, I'll ask Gawain to say a bit more, but what I will say as well is that we're using this in-year exercise now to inform the budget preparations for next year. So, this hasn't been undertaken in isolation and some of this will have to necessarily feed…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
Well, we originally set the plans for this financial year in late 2021 when we were developing the draft budget as part of our three-year spending review. So, in that sense, a lot of the work had been done long before we could have anticipated exactly where…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
Yes. So, I think that—. So, we knew it was an issue, but also people employed by public services also knew it was an issue, so, I think that, on balance, it was important that we could communicate to those people, 'Yes, we recognise the issue. We see it. We…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
Yes, and it was finely balanced, because we could easily have just got on with the work and not communicated the level of the problem to people, but I think—
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
We did debate this at quite some length in terms of what, if anything, should we say when we were kicking off the work in the summer—you know, should we communicate that to people? In the end, we thought we'd err on the side of transparency and do that…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
I think that we've been really at pains to be transparent with the public. So, I know that there have been some questions in the Chamber as to why we would make that statement in the summer about the fact that we did see this large gap within our budget…
, Finance Committee
Update on Welsh Government 2023-24 in-year financial position: Evidence session
So, it's Rebecca Evans, Minister for Finance and Local Government, and I'll ask officials to introduce themselves.
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Delivering a Fairer Council Tax
I'm really grateful for those comments. And in terms of improving the council tax reduction scheme, well that is part of our wider approach. There will be a specific, more technical consultation on ways in which we can improve the council tax reduction…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Delivering a Fairer Council Tax
I've very grateful for those questions and particularly for the recognition at the start that using data that is 20 years out of date is fundamentally not the right place to be in when you're administering or developing taxes. So, I completely agree with that…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Delivering a Fairer Council Tax
Thank you very much for those questions. I think that you picked up on an absolutely crucial point that we really need to work hard to communicate to people in Wales, and that is that, just because your house or your property has increased in value since the…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Delivering a Fairer Council Tax
I'm very grateful to the Member for those questions. I would probably start just by bringing us back to the reason why we're looking at council tax reform, and that is because it's a regressive tax, the burden of which falls more strongly on those people who…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Delivering a Fairer Council Tax
I've been clear about the need to engage regularly with the public as we move through this journey, and today I'm setting out examples of ways in which we could look to more fairly spread the burden. We could aim for minimal improvement, focusing on ensuring…
