7. Debate: The Second Supplementary Budget 2017-18

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:36 pm on 6 March 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Simon Thomas Mr Simon Thomas Plaid Cymru 4:36, 6 March 2018

(Translated)

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the Cabinet Secretary for outlining the priorities of the Government for this supplementary budget. The Finance Committee did meet to scrutinise the budget with the finance Secretary, and the committee was relatively content in considering this supplementary budget, and we haven't made any recommendations this time, but we have come to four conclusions.

First, we have concluded that there is a lack of detail, even though the Cabinet Secretary did mention them. There is a lack of detail in the supplementary budget about prioritisation and how decisions are made by the Government in line with programmes such as 'Prosperity for All', the programme for government and, of course, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This is a recurring theme in all our budget scrutiny, and we would urge the Government to provide as much evidence as possible of how allocations meet the objectives of these programmes. Additionally, we believe that it would be useful and more transparent if more explicit details were made available to explain how commitments are funded; for example, whether funding is coming from reserves or underspends in other areas.

Our third conclusion relates to financial transactions capital. During the scrutiny process, the Cabinet Secretary outlined the problems associated with this funding stream—and he's just mentioned one answer to those problems, of course—and he updated the committee on his discussions with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Finance Committee considered financial transactions capital in our scrutiny of the original 2018-19 draft budget, and we recognised the limitations of this funding stream at that time, concluding that we were—and I quote:

'concerned by the issues associated with the repayable financial transactions capital, and how restrictions around the use of this funding may limit the Welsh Government to get best value for money in allocating these funds.'

During this scrutiny process, we again acknowledged the constraints of the funding streams, but we would urge the Cabinet Secretary to continue to explore all possible avenues of using the available funding.

Our last conclusion relates to supplementary budgets submitted by the directly funded bodies—the Assembly Commission, the Wales Audit Office, and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales. For Members who haven't realised, you don't just have the Welsh Government's supplementary budget before you, but the supplementary budgets for these three bodies as well. As a committee, we took an in-principle view on the supplementary budgets of each of these bodies prior to the publication of the supplementary budget motion, and this approach of having a preview of the supplementary budget was helpful, in our view, and we would commend that approach for future use. Thank you very much.