Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services — Postponed from 8 November – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 15 November 2017.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 2:34, 15 November 2017

Thank you, again, for that supplementary question. And, as we discussed in committee earlier this morning, there is a great deal we can do within existing resources by acting more cleverly. And that includes the use of regional partnership working to jointly commission services, it includes the use of pooled budgets, so that we can share what the priorities are across a region rather than trying to do it on a piecemeal basis, and there are many other things, including the ICT fund, that can be used to do these things. But, ultimately—as I was in the committee this morning, and the Cabinet Secretary was—we have to be quite frank as well: there is no new pot of money. We work within the constraints that we have, and I know that, by the end of 2019-20, the Welsh resource budget will be 7 per cent smaller. It will be a £1 billion smaller than it was in 2010, and, of course, the capital spending is 7 per cent smaller. That's the reality in which local authorities, other providers on the ground and ourselves have to work, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give up on working cleverer with regional partnerships, pooled funds, in order to make a difference to people's lives.