, 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 social care would probably be one of the greatest pressures that local government faces, and it's an ever-increasing pressure, so that will be one of the areas where we'll be continuing, I know, to have those regular meetings with local government…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
[Inaudible.]—able to provide the best possible settlement to councils, and I hope that they've recognised that. I do also want to say that it still is the case that they will have to take really difficult decisions in order to manage the budget, because the…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
According to our original assessment of the money required to continue to deliver our Homes for Ukraine supersponsor scheme in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the funding that we allocated was sufficient. However, you'll have seen the written statement from the Minister…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Indeed. I have regular bilateral meetings with all ministerial colleagues to discuss exactly these kinds of issues in terms of is the funding provided sufficient. If there are underspends emerging, then I need to understand the reason for that. This…
, 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 certainly do my best. That does lie within the portfolio of the Minister for Social Justice. I know that, as you said, the committee has done a quite in-depth piece of work on this particular issue. Just to clarify, in terms of my own responsibilities…
, 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 there are two sides to this, first in relation to the RSG itself and then in relation to specific grants. I think that there are different issues in both of those. The first thing to say, really, is that obviously local government plays an important…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I'm always in favour of giving as much certainty as we can to all partners in terms of our budgets and the length at which we set them. This is the first time since I've been in portfolio in terms of being able to set a budget that is beyond one year, because…
, 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 would certainly say that. The kind of meetings that I have with leaders are one type of meeting, but of course colleagues meet all the time with either leaders or with cabinet members for respective portfolios on an ongoing basis. So, you'll often hear…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
I would say that our relationships are extremely strong with local government, and we do meet very frequently. So, during the pandemic, those meetings were taking place on a daily basis at some points, but they were extremely regular, obviously, in order to…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023 - 24 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Yes, certainly. I think the first thing to reflect on really, and just to remind colleagues, is that this settlement builds on that which was provided in previous years. So, it was last year when we undertook our three-year spending review, and this budget…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
Yes, that's a really important and interesting point, actually, about the independents being a very, very large group of individuals in terms of local government. So, it is more difficult, then, to have that kind of strategic approach that we, hopefully, will…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
I'm really grateful for those points. I just want to recognise the amazing work that our youth councils do across Wales and just reflect on some discussions I had recently with One Voice Wales about the potential role for youth town and community councils; we…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
Thank you very much for those questions and the important point about women's representation in local government. We are absolutely far from where we should be in terms of the number of women who are taking on the role of councillors, but also council…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
I'm really grateful for those questions. In terms of cabinets, I think that one of the really important things that we delivered through the local government and elections Act was the removal of the barriers for job sharing arrangements within the executives…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
I will.
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
I’m very grateful for those comments and again, starting off with our appreciation for people who do put themselves forward to these roles, I think one of the interesting things from the councillor survey was that a large proportion of those respondents said…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
I think that we did make good progress through the local government and elections Act in terms of flexibility. That did remove some of those barriers by introducing the ability to have those hybrid meetings, which we know have been really important for people…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
I'm very grateful to Sam Rowlands for those questions and comments. I absolutely associate myself with his initial opening remarks, which were around recognising and applauding the efforts of people who do serve every day in our communities as community…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Diversity in Democracy—Survey Results
Diolch. As elected representatives, we're in a privileged position. We're trusted to do our very best for the people that we serve. And whilst I'm talking about local government today, the issues apply to all parts of our democracy. The decisions that our…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
Well, we've called the budget 'a budget for hard times in hard times', which, I think, is a pretty accurate reflection. So, I think you can see which side of the spectrum it is on. But that said, I think that we can be really proud that we have laid a draft…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
The Christmas question from the Chair.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
Of course.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales has been remitted to consider how it can use its resources to incentivise and encourage greater collaboration across the research community to build bigger and stronger grant bids to increase the level of…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I'll ask Andrew to come in on this one, Chair.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, just to remind ourselves as well that this budget just builds on the three-year spending review, so you would have seen a lot in that three-year spending review in this space. But we are providing additional funding in some of the important areas. So, the…
