Six years ago, the Conservative-led UK Government inherited an economy on the brink of collapse, with the highest budget deficit in peacetime UK history. To rebuild shattered fiscal credibility, it had to take tough decisions. Austerity, defined as not having enough money, is therefore not a choice. As any debtor knows, you cannot start reducing debt until expenditure falls below income. If the Treasury had pursued faster deficit reduction, cuts would have been higher. In the real financial world, borrowers borrow but lenders set the terms. If the Treasury had pursued lower deficit reduction, higher cuts could have been imposed. Those who state otherwise are at best deluding themselves, at worst deluding the people.

The Welsh Government has rightly prioritised prevention and early intervention, but as this draft budget illustrates, it says one thing and does another. Although its budgets for prevention and early intervention and for voluntary sector support are key to the delivery of its policies, and although they represent just 1.5 per cent of the combined health and local government budgets, this Welsh Government has cut them again to over £7 million below their 2015-16 level. Rather than working smarter, this false economy will add additional costs to health and local government services many times higher than the short-sighted cuts imposed. So much for the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 promoting the involvement of people in the design and delivery of care and support services. So much for the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, making public bodies work better with people, with communities and each other, taking a joined-up approach. And so much for the Auditor General for Wales’s report, ‘A Picture of Public Services 2015’, which said,

‘there is now a much clearer recognition that previous approaches have not worked as intended and that radical change is required’,

‘public services must increasingly be delivered not to people, but with people…involving people in the design and delivery of services, recognising people’s own strengths and tailoring services accordingly.’

As the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, said,

‘While it is entirely appropriate to rescue the man or woman who has fallen into the sea, it is much better to tackle the roots of the individual’s problem at the top of the cliff from which they fell.’

Yet charities Carers Wales, Contact a Family Cymru and Learning Disability Wales are having to call for the Welsh Government to rethink its decision to cut the family fund by £5.5 million, stating it

‘Seems to have made their decision without considering the impact it would have on the most vulnerable families with disabled children.’

Adding, the reduction also seems to run counter to wider Welsh Government policy. In contrast, funding in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland has been maintained.

Of course, Labour’s Welsh Government has got form for this. When, in September 2014, it announced funding to support front-line advice services, Citizens Advice Cymru and Shelter Cymru, it shut out AdviceUK—the UK’s largest support network for free, independent advice centres, with 24 member organisations in Wales—denying people in crisis quick, emergency intervention and trapping them on waiting lists. Over the last year it has been the turn of organisations including Disability Wales and child contact centres in Wales, leading to poorer and more costly outcomes for people and families.

Despite calls by the Wales disability reference group for the devolved independent living fund to be administered in the voluntary sector with Scotland and Northern Ireland, Labour has given this to local government. When I raised concerns about the shortage of qualified nurses providing palliative care in the voluntary sector, identified by the charity Together for Short Lives, this was dismissed, as it was when I highlighted concerns raised by the north Wales safer communities board that too much was being spent on firefighting substance misuse problems and not enough on intervention and prevention, and when I criticised the 10 per cent cut to the third sector supporting communities and people budget, emphasising the crucial role the third sector plays in delivering quality services for less. Such cuts to ground-level support compromise the more user-led, preventative and cost-effective services that the third sector delivers when we should instead be transforming Wales’s public services by embedding co-production.

All too often, money washes over people and neighbourhoods rather than watering their roots. To provide better services more efficiently means taking powers out of the hands of government at local and national level, and sharing it with the people living and working on the front line. If you trust them, it will improve their lives and save money in the process.