, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Great. Diolch.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I will do.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
It does, but then I think that takes us into a whole different space of what do we require local authorities to do. None of those authorities would suggest that we shouldn't be requiring the provision of education, which is a massive area of spend, or the…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
We've been doing some work with CLES, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, which is looking at innovative models of providing local services. We do see, particularly in the leisure space, ways in which local authorities in some places have sought to…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I know that's a point that Councillor Morgan has made to the climate change Minister in the past, and given some examples of how the terrain sometimes can make it difficult for some of these particular vehicles, but I will ask the Minister for Climate Change…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
We'll make sure that we send them a copy of the relevant part of the transcript.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Yes, I know that there are a number of concerns relating to the availability of bus drivers and the costs of delivering those services as a result of inflation. The Deputy Minister for Climate Change and the Minister for education are actually meeting this…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Well, I'll make a start and then I'll ask Reg to come in on this one as well. Just to recognise from the outset, really, meeting net zero within the public sector by 2030 will be very challenging, but there is a huge amount of excellent work that is already…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think we would always want to pay people more. I know there are lots of difficult discussions going on across a whole range of public sector services at the moment in that space but, at the end of the day, we can only pay what's available within the…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
So, as I say, I think funding is only part of the picture in the social care sector. There are many complex things happening within social care and many, many reasons why people decide to go into social care as a career, but then also a whole range of reasons…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Yes. Obviously, it was a manifesto commitment to introduce the real living wage, over the course of this Senedd term, in fact. But, bearing in mind the significant pressures within the social care sector, we were able to introduce that in this financial year…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think it's the best settlement that we could have provided in the circumstances. Obviously we would have wanted to provide additional funding, and increased funding across a whole range of services, but, given the settlement that we had, it wasn't possible…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Chair, if I may, I'll ask the Minister for Climate Change to write to the committee to provide a more detailed response to that issue. I know that she would have had discussions with the housing sector about the housing support grant and so on, unless, Reg…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I'll do my best, but, again, this is something that I think that the Minister for housing will probably do more justice to when she gives evidence to you in due course. But, yes, it was my understanding that—. Just bear with me, I will find my notes on this…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Great. Diolch.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Oh, one moment, please.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Our collection rates in Wales have generally been very high—around 97 per cent, which is a high figure. But it is the case, as you say, that, during the pandemic, it was an exceptional year, and collection rates were affected by that, falling to 95.7 per cent…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think that £244 million is obviously a significant investment in supporting some of our worst-off households in terms of paying or being supported—in terms of either having a full reduction to their council tax, or partial. That's absolutely a significant…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think, again, we would always want to be able to provide a greater general capital settlement to give local authorities the flexibility they want, but we'd also want to be investing more in the housing agenda and so on. But, in the absence of those…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I have really frequent reports from our commercial procurement team, and that talks through the increased costs on a whole range of things that are important to the public sector. I think that what we've heard this morning is definitely borne out in those…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
There we are—we've got a response already.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Great, thank you. So, capital funding is a particular area of concern for me. I know that leaders are also concerned about the level of capital funding that we have. The capital funding over the three-year spending review period falls by 11 per cent, and that…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
We do have the invest-to-save fund, which, in recent years, has been repurposed with a particular focus on care leavers and those at the edge of care. That's a really important fund and there are some great projects that are being supported through that. And…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I think you heard some of that again this morning from leaders in terms of that tension about the firefighting, the constant series of crises that we've had over the recent years, and responding to those whilst also trying to lay that preventative foundation…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
The preventative agenda has been in our thinking right across Government as part of our budget-setting process now for a number of years. It's certainly one of the lenses through which we consider our budget allocations. Local government is involved in a huge…
