, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, I'll ask Andrew to come in if I miss any of the detail, but, on farming, particularly, we've confirmed a budget of £238 million for the basic payment scheme in 2023, and an indicative budget of £238 million for the BPS in 2024. And over three years, we'll…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, I'm not directing councils in respect of council tax, but, obviously, they will be considering the settlement, which they'll find out details of today, and then also other sources of income, which they receive from some of their commercial activities, for…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, authorities are already saying that they're having to use reserves in this financial year because of the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, and I've no doubt that they'll be looking to be using reserves next year, as well, as part of their overall…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
It is up to councils to make those decisions, because the setting of council tax is an important local responsibility, a part of local accountability. We do have powers to impose a cap but it's not something that we've done. I would say that, when local…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
Yes, we've increased the unhypothecated revenue funding for local government by £227 million next year, and that is an increase of 7.9 per cent as compared to this year. So, we'll be publishing the full details of the local government settlement later on…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I think it's something that we need to explore fully. I haven't seen the case in depth for and against, but I know that it's something that colleagues elsewhere in Government are looking quite hard at.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I know that there's been a committee report looking at it, which recommended that we look at that. I know it's something that colleagues are interested in exploring further. One of the challenges is that you end up implementing UK Government cuts, but if we…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
This is one of the key things that I, Jane Hutt and Julie James are all trying to impress upon the UK Government—that they have to increase the discretionary housing support grant [correction: discretionary housing payment], just bearing in mind how important…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
On the housing support grant, there hasn't been a reduction in the budget, but, obviously, stakeholders have seen that there isn't an increase, so have interpreted, obviously, that there's a real-terms reduction, which is the impact of inflation that we're…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I might ask Emma to come in on the homelessness issue in the first instance.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, we've provided an additional £18.8 million for the discretionary assistance fund over next year and the following year, and that's based on our understanding of the current uptake of the discretionary assistance fund and where it might move to in the…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I would say that, even if we were to raise Welsh rates of income tax to cover an element of pay—and let's remember that every 1 per cent across the public sector is £100 million—one pence on the basic rate, which would affect everybody, only brings in £238…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I think it would be very difficult to find the levels of funding that are being asked for from within existing budgets. You will have seen that Scotland was able to improve its offer, but it did so by diverting £400 million from delivery, so, inevitably, that…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I think that I would just refer back, really, to the First Minister's comments in First Minister's questions this week where he set out that there just isn't the funding available to meet the existing demand, and that if further funding is available through…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
Can I ask the health Minister to provide a detailed answer on the expectations, because I'm sure she'd be able to do it greater justice in terms of detail?
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I think that the work that we're doing through the regional partnership boards is really important in terms of better joint working between health and social care to try and encourage the pooling of budgets—encourage those choices to be taken jointly between…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
So, we've provided an additional £70 million in respect of the real living wage for social care workers to try and address some of those staffing issues that you've described in terms of recruiting and retaining people in the sector. Some of that will go…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
I think this needs to be considered within the context of the three-year spending review, which set out the overall plans for the NHS. The additional £165 million announced yesterday clearly won't go as far as is needed in terms of addressing all of the…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
Obviously, we'll work through our social partner structures to have discussions, bringing together trade unions, employers and Government to talk about what the best possible outcomes are within the funding that we have available. Obviously, despite the…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
Probably not related to the budget itself, but I would point to the work of the decarbonisation panel, which works to bring public sector organisations together. It's particularly focused at the moment on local government, but I think there are opportunities…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
It is difficult to make a carbon impact assessment of the whole budget, partly because around half of it is exposed to pay. In that sense, what people spend their pay on has an impact on carbon, so that's difficult. But last year we did undertake a carbon…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
The zero-based review of capital that we undertook last year as part of our three-year spending review really puts us in a good place to prioritise our spend in relation to net zero. That was a really fortuitous piece of work that we undertook. Alongside the…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
We set those amounts as part of the three-year review.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
No. No changes to the 13, or the amounts.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 1
The budget doesn't propose any changes to the co-operation agreement areas where there was funding attached. Within the co-operation agreement, there are 13 areas that explicitly have funding attached to them, and we haven't made any changes to those in the…
