The Welsh Conservatives, of course, were delighted recently to welcome the announcement that Welsh local government revenue funding will receive an extra £31.5 million in 2018-19, and £61.7 million in 2019-20 as part of the Conservative UK Government's announcement of an additional £1.2 billion to Wales over the next four years. Wales is also benefiting, of course, from changes to the fiscal framework, meaning that for every £1 spent in England, at least £1.20 will now be spent in Wales, something that 13 years of Labour rule in Westminster never achieved. 

However, we have seen no let-up for our hard-pressed council tax payers or squeezed local government budgets, which now face real concerns over the lack of clarity over a number of funding streams. The Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report on the draft budget called for greater transparency in funding presentation. Welsh Government claims of an increase to social care budgets to £42 million in 2018-19, rising to £73 million in 2019-20, and, allegedly, an extra £62 million, increasing to £108 million, in funding support for school services have been challenged by the Welsh Local Government Association, claiming it is already existing within the settlement, whilst the standard spending assessments has only gone up by just £35 million—pure rhetoric and spin by this Welsh Labour Government. 

Further, the Children, Young People and Education Committee revealed that the so-called additional £62 million in reality amounts to just £1.5 million when taking into account the initial calculation for 2018-19, and the final allocated figure. 

Our committee, the ELGC, further calls for the Welsh Government to outline how it intends to monitor spend and outcomes in areas previously in receipt of grant funding, now incorporated into the revenue support grant. Reductions of around £70 million in the cost of administering hypothetic grants are welcome and, to be fair, on these benches we've called for a less complicated and less bureaucratic way of funding local government. However, Cymorth Cymru have voiced concerns that without a distinct budget line, the Welsh Government simply cannot be held to account over how much actually is going to be spent on the Supporting People programme. Likewise, Bangor and District Women's Aid have stated that without ring fencing, they will not know how much is being spent on violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence. Clearly, there is a balance to be struck here between reducing hypothecation and retaining a transparent audit trail. So, therefore, I will be interested in the Cabinet Secretary's ideas for how this can be achieved. The Welsh Government have stated that information will be collected through a suite of expenditure returns in the interests of transparency, scrutiny and accountability. So, therefore, Cabinet Secretary, if you could advise as to when and where this data will be published and how you will report to the Assembly on this—.

Since 2013-14, local authorities have seen cuts of nearly £0.5 billion in real terms. Cabinet Secretary, you've said before that you've never seen an alternative to the funding formula, yet we've been calling for years for a fundamental review and improved consideration of a number of particular areas. Demographics: particularly the needs of older people, given concerns raised by the Health Foundation in terms of future social services pressures, and the need for adult social care funding to rise by 4 per cent in real terms each year to cover this. Rurality: again, our rural authorities have been badly let down. Why is the Labour Government not prepared to help our rural authorities? They have borne, yet again, the biggest brunt of your cuts, with real term losses of 14.5 per cent to Powys even before today's proposed settlement. Rural isolation and access to services are only partially addressed by the current sparsity factor. Therefore, again, we call for increased attention to be given to this element of the formula also.

Finally, we do need to look at how local authorities are actually managing their finances. We can't dictate how they budget, but we can enable better public and democratic scrutiny of local authority spending and use of reserves. The Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee has called for a review of the implementation of the guidance on local government reserves, a call disappointingly rejected by this Welsh Government. Whilst our residents continue to face hefty year-on-year council tax rises, potentially 12.5 per cent in Pembrokeshire, and high increases across Wales, whilst usable reserves have risen 7 per cent since 2012 and represent 86 per cent of total reserves totalling over 1.4 billion, there is a clear mismatch, Cabinet Secretary, and I actually think that you have some sympathy with my thoughts on that.

Clearly, Cabinet Secretary, we do look to you now to bring some sense to this ludicrous situation. Rhondda Cynon Taf alone has usable reserves of almost £150 million. A council tax increase for our residents of 187 per cent since Labour came into power in Wales shows that Welsh Labour are more than happy to burden our householders, many on fixed incomes, rather than balance their own books here in Cardiff Bay.