Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:06 pm on 15 February 2017.
Well, Llywydd, there are a number of ways in which data are already available at that very local level. The Welsh infrastructure investment plan, for example, records expenditure at postcode level, the Welsh index of multiple deprivation has long operated at lower super-output area level, and analysis of the 2015-16 procurement expenditure in Wales, which is just drawing to a close, will also allow spend to be analysed at that postcode level. So, I share the Member’s interest in the topic for the reasons that he described. I’m sure he will recognise that there are some limitations to how you can use data in that way. There’s a difference between spend and impact, for example. If you build a secondary school, and run a secondary school, it will have a very big impact at a postcode level, but the impact of that spend, of course, is felt far wider than the postcode itself.
I think the Member made an important point in his question, that we have over time moved on from an interest in inputs and outputs, to become much more interested in outcomes—what is the impact of the spend that we are able to provide on the lives of people who we hope will benefit from it? And collecting data is one thing; making sense of them and making use of them is another.