Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 5 July 2017.
Well, Llywydd, I understand the point completely that the Member makes about the need for good advice services and the way that good advice can allow problems to be solved before they escalate. The way the budget-making process works, however, is that it is for portfolio Ministers to identify priorities within the range of responsibilities that they exercise. We then negotiate together over a budget to deliver on those priorities and it would have been for the Cabinet Secretary responsible to make the decisions in relation to the deployment of resources across the wide range of responsibilities, as Mark Isherwood said, that lies within that particular portfolio. We have embarked upon the start of the budget-making round for next year. I will be meeting the Cabinet Secretary concerned in relation to his portfolio and I’ll make sure that a specific question is raised in that discussion on the point of advice services that the Member has raised.