Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 23 May 2018.
Councillors have contacted me, and they're concerned that the councils are only given a month to prepare bids for the capital grant this year, which comes out of the underspend of the previous year, and that those bids have to be on the basis that there is an assurance that they will spend the funding in the current financial year. Now, we've been discussing a shortage of public funding, so it's crucial that we make the best of every penny available. So—I'm sure you share my frustration that this is the situation—what will you do to ensure that councils don't have to scrabble together some plans in order to shift the funds?