, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, the £53.1 million was allocated to support rail in light of the reduced passenger numbers. During the most difficult point of the pandemic, during lockdown, we were looking at a 95 per cent fall in patronage. It started to get up to about 60 per cent of…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Do you want to add something about the formal evaluation that we've commissioned as well?
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Well, Chair, before joining Welsh Treasury, Emma was working in the Welsh Government, so perhaps I'll ask her to provide an update.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, in 2021-22, we invested an extra £8.3 million as part of our continued investment in implementation of the new curriculum, and that's over and above our existing investment in professional learning. And additional renew and reform funding of £6 million…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
That's a total of £68.9 million that has been distributed to schools in Wales via local authorities in this financial year, and that's supporting all schools in their response to the pandemic and supporting the Recruit, Recover and Raise Standards programme…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
In respect of the more recent flooding events, any requests for assistance for damage would be through the emergency financial assistance fund. We haven't yet, to my knowledge, received any requests from local government for support for that. We understand…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
It is fully at their discretion, although in my letter to local government, I did mention highways, because that was the context in which some of our discussions about capital were raised. Obviously, with the change in approach to highways funding for future…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Yes, so this funding, which I was really pleased to be able to provide for local government is, as you say, £70 million and it does recognise that Welsh Government and subsequently local government have had a very difficult capital settlement, in the sense…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Yes, it was by a formula.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, the general revenue was to support local authorities' social services functions in particular, because local government leaders had talked to me about the pressures that they were facing, both in terms of social services and the winter pressures, which…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
This was funding found within the health and social services main expenditure group for this financial year, so, obviously, I guess, it would be a decision for—. I'm going to put this firmly back in Eluned's court for any future payments.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, the Minister made the announcement for the final budget for next year in respect of the overall uplift, which takes the payment for social care workers up to the real living wage. So, that was the overall uplift, but then I know the Minister also wanted…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Through our single advice fund, I know that we're making progress in terms of providing funding to organisations on the ground that are there to seek to help people maximise their income, supporting them to fill in those unnecessarily often complicated forms…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
I think the discretionary assistance fund is quite a good example of a relatively light-touch approach. So, I, in a previous portfolio, went up to spend some time with Northgate and just listen in on the calls to hear people who were approaching the DAF for…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Carers' organisations worked with us in respect of this fund, and I know they've been promoting it really heavily to carers within communities who they are aware of and so on. But, obviously, yes, we would want to do more. And that's part of the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
The supplementary budget includes £0.27 million for the third sector carers hardship fund, so that is a pot of money that carers can go to to access funding specifically put there for carers, and anything we can do, really, to promote that to carers is really…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, referring first to the £42.7 million in the supplementary budget for this year, that was to create a package of support based on what we were told by the care action committee was required for this year; £20 million of that was to support social services…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
That went out via the formula so as not to perversely, if you like, respond to local changes that were made on the ground.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, we've seen, through some of the modelling that we've done and looking at the estimates of waiting lists, that what we're doing already is having an impact, so our waiting lists aren't as long as we would have expected them to be, thanks to the investment…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Yes. So, some of the capital money is going towards orthopaedic theatre at Neath Port Talbot and also additional ophthalmology provision in a new, I believe, ophthalmology day centre in Singleton. So, some of that capital is going to that physical capacity…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, this particular funding was for NHS stabilisation. It also included funding for contact tracing, for vaccination programmes and for personal protective equipment and other COVID response. So, it was very much about continuing the response to the pandemic…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
I just want to say, as well, that I completely agree with Mike on the point about treating Welsh Government as a department. We get that feeling very, very strongly.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Chair, shall I write to you on the issue of the health overspend that was written off in England? Because I do recall that and it was our understanding that it was written off within the health budget itself, so, just departmentally written off, which meant…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
So, could you give me an example of—?
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Second Supplementary Budget 2021-22: Evidence session
Yes, there are a number of things that you can do very late on in the financial year, but I don't think we'll be in that position. But as I say, it is—. I sometimes think of it as a high-wire act when you start getting towards the end of the financial year…
