Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:54 pm on 27 March 2019.
Yes. I absolutely welcome the prioritisation that Torfaen and, indeed, many other authorities are giving to education and social services in what is indeed a very difficult settlement for most local authorities. We recognise the challenges for authorities and the difficult choices they're making, as I said earlier, on the savings and changing services, and the decisions they're having to make on council tax in order to balance the budget. As I said, in between the indicative settlement and the actual settlement, we managed to increase the funding for local government to reflect some of the specific priorities that they have stressed to us around education and social services. We certainly do welcome that priority. But there is no doubt that austerity is biting deep into local services, and very difficult choices have to be made across all councils.