I speak as Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, and as we've already heard, it was very pleasing for three committees—my committee; Lynne Neagle's Children, Young People and Education Committee; and Llyr's Finance Committee—to meet jointly and concurrently to look at the Welsh Government's approach to single, integrated impact assessments. It was a valuable exercise, Llywydd, and it enabled us to draw on scrutiny from across the knowledge and experience of the three committees, and hopefully the publication of our joint findings in the new year will help inform the preparation of the Government's next budget in 2019 and beyond. I hope it will be the first of many examples of committees coming together to scrutinise issues that cut across committee portfolios. 

Much of our general budget scrutiny, Llywydd, was focused on the local government main expenditure group. That is the second largest MEG after the health MEG, and has been the focus of a great deal of interest both inside and outside the Chamber. The Welsh Local Government Association were clear in their evidence that after a prolonged period of austerity, further funding cuts would now be biting more visibly into statutory services such as schools and social services, and one of the particular challenges for the budget would be the increased workforce costs as the public sector pay freeze is removed. So, we welcome the additional money from Welsh Government to help fund the increase in teachers' pay, but we remain unclear as to whether the additional £15 million being split across the current financial year and next year will be sufficient to cover the full extent of the increase.

As the Cabinet Secretary stated after we had taken our evidence, the Welsh Government announced additional funding to local authorities. We were pleased to see the Welsh Government respond to calls from local authorities to raise the funding floor and to increase funding to provide a cash-flat settlement. But while this additional money is welcomed, we recognise this still means a reduction in funding in real terms, and both local authorities and the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services acknowledge the importance of service transformation, to put services on a more sustainable footing in this prolonged period of austerity. We believe it is important that local authorities are supported to help deliver these new ways of working that hopefully will protect important and valued services.

Llywydd, we also welcome the new definition of prevention in this year's budget round, but it was unclear from the evidence we heard as to how this definition had informed budget allocations. We hope this will be clearer in future budget rounds.

Moving on to housing, we are pleased that, following the evaluation of the pathfinder projects, the Government decided not to merge the housing-related grants into one single grant alongside other early intervention moneys. We note that this decision takes account of the concerns raised by stakeholders.

We also welcome the additional £10 million being made available in this budget round to tackle youth homelessness, but we are concerned that the draft budget only proposes allocations for 2019-20 financial year, and not subsequent budgets. We believe that, in order to eradicate youth homelessness, there needs to be a clear budgetary commitment for future years that, as a minimum, matches the levels of funding in this budget. Llywydd, diolch yn fawr.