The next item, therefore, is the debate on the joint report of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Equality, the Local Government and Communities Committee and the Finance Committee. That report is on assessing the impact of budget decisions. The Chair of the Finance Committee will move the motion—Llyr Gruffydd.

Motion NDM7119 Llyr Gruffydd, Lynne Neagle, John Griffiths

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Notes the joint report of the Finance Committee, Children, Young People and Education Committee and the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, 'Assessing the impact of budget decisions', which was laid in the Table Office on 25 March 2019.

Motion moved.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I move the motion, jointly tabled by me, Lynne Neagle and John Griffiths. I’m very pleased to be opening today’s debate on a new cross-cutting approach to facing a challenge that we have faced many times as Assembly Members, namely assessing the impact of the Welsh Government’s budget decisions on the people of Wales.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

In addition to our respective committees' scrutiny of the draft budget for 2019-20, this year the Finance Committee, the Children, Young People and Education Committee and the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee felt the time had come to combine our efforts to examine the impact of the Welsh Government’s budget decisions, focusing on equalities, children and young people. We therefore jointly gathered evidence from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Mark Drakeford AM, who was at the time the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, and Julie James AM, who was the then leader of the house with responsibility for equality. We have also sought the views of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales throughout this process.

As this is a joint debate, I will focus my contribution on our principal findings, allowing Chairs Lynne Neagle and John Griffiths to share the perspectives of their own committee portfolios. Our report makes five recommendations, all of which the Welsh Government has either accepted or accepted in principle. We have reached one overarching conclusion, namely that we need to go back to fundamental principles. That’s the overarching conclusion that we've reached, but there are a number of specific recommendations emanating from that.

Our first recommendation asks the Welsh Government to clearly set out in greater detail the strategic integrated impact assessment process, its purpose and the expected outcomes, following, of course, engagement with and agreement from the relevant statutory commissioners. We do feel that the Welsh Government needs to be clear about why it conducts an assessment, who uses that assessment, what they hope to understand from it, the best method for presenting it, and what the process is. This needs to be done, of course, with the assistance of the various statutory commissioners, and we are concerned at the lack of involvement they reported having in the development of the Welsh Government’s integrated impact assessment tool.

We feel that these tools should be used to inform, steer and influence change. Collectively, the commissioners were concerned that they appear to be used to reflect or justify decisions that have already been made. We therefore welcome the Minister’s commitment to work with the relevant statutory commissioners to provide greater clarity on the purpose and expected outcomes of the SIIA process. Of course, we acknowledge that amalgamating many different impact assessments is no easy task, and we recognise the Welsh Government’s efforts to draw a multitude of information into one SIIA. However, to provide a credible foundation for scrutiny, impact assessments need to clearly demonstrate the evidence base on which they draw, and we must ensure that this is not diluted as a result of this integration.

Impact assessments are critical tools for Government transparency and, if they are to have any value, they must meaningfully inform financial allocations. More detail is required as to how decisions have been reached, and we have repeatedly called for the Welsh Government to detail where spending decisions may have negative as well, of course, as positive impacts, which are the ones that we usually hear about. As things stand, it is not clear what factors have steered decision making without seeing the work behind the SIIA. Consequently, we have recommended that the Welsh Government publish all of its individual impact assessments to a central location, which can then be referenced by the SIIA. In her response, the Minister says that,

'Individual impact assessments on significant decisions are generally published as part of policy documentation on the Welsh Government website.'

However, there does not appear to be any systematic publication of those impact assessments. The Minister has agreed in principle to this recommendation, indicating that she needs to consider further whether publication in a central area would aid accessibility, understanding and transparency. We fully acknowledge the value in publishing impact assessments alongside the related policy documents. Of course, the same is also true of publishing individual impact assessments alongside the SIIA. During our joint scrutiny, it became apparent that expert stakeholders are unclear about the basic principles and processes behind the Welsh Government’s approach to the budget impact assessment and the distinction between the SIIA and the new integrated impact assessment tool.

Our third recommendation calls on the Welsh Government to undertake a focused piece of work to consider the progress made in relation to SIIAs at the end of this Assembly, including the integrated impact assessment tool that it has developed. The Minister has accepted this recommendation, acknowledging the need to review and improve the process and the tool. Her response refers to testing alternate approaches alongside preparations for the forthcoming budget and looking at whether this work could be supported by the future generations commissioner’s journey checker. It would be helpful if the Minister could provide more information on the alternate approaches being tested and the timescales involved, as well as, perhaps, indicating when she anticipates completing the 2019 review of the integrated impact assessment tool.

Our remaining recommendations relate to the integration of legislation and fears that specific duties are minimised or displaced by others in decision making. Our fourth recommendation seeks a commitment from the Welsh Government to using the well-being of future generations Act as a framework for the SIIA. Given the focus of our joint scrutiny, we believe that priority should be given to working with the children’s commissioner and Equality and Human Rights Commission to ensure that the legislative requirements in relation to equality and children’s rights are fully and effectively reflected in the assessment process.

The Minister has committed to continue to use the Act to frame and inform budget proposals and the integrated impact assessment tool, but she acknowledges that further work is needed. Indeed, the future generations commissioner does not consider that this has happened sufficiently to date in the budget process. We welcome the Welsh Government’s commitment to continue the dialogue with key stakeholders and with statutory commissioners, which will be crucial to ensuring that satisfying its various legal obligations is not weakened in an integrated approach and that transparency in its decision making is improved.

During our evidence session, the then leader of the house indicated that she had commissioned a piece of research exploring the best way of incorporating various international treaties and the equality Act’s socioeconomic duty into Welsh law alongside existing duties. She also explained that a meeting of the future generations commissioner’s advisory committee in November of last year would allow all of the commissioners to collectively discuss the opportunities and challenges of the integrated impact assessments. So, our final recommendation sought an update on the outcomes of the November 2018 meeting of the commissioners, and when the research commissioned on the integration of duties is anticipated to be published.

We are concerned, but not surprised, to note that during the meeting last November some members voiced concerns about the potential dilution of the integrated approach. As a result, Welsh Government officials were subsequently due to attend the future generations commissioner’s advisory panel meeting in July, and we are keen to know how that meeting progressed. We understand that the Minister will commence further substantial research by September on the integration of new duties and we look forward to receiving further updates on how this work is developing. I, as Chair, also look forward to hearing the contributions of Members to this debate, as a constructive contribution to this continuing work and this continuing important debate on assessing the impact of budgetary decisions made by the Welsh Government. Thank you. 

I call on the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Lynne Neagle.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to contribute to today’s debate as Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. In our committee’s recent budget reports, we have highlighted our concerns about the level of attention paid to the rights of children and young people in important financial decisions. We have called repeatedly on the Welsh Government to undertake a children’s rights impact assessment, or CRIA, as it's called, on its draft budget as a matter of course. To date, these calls have been rejected on the grounds that a wider integrated impact assessment of the draft budget is undertaken.

In recent years, each of our respective committees has commented on the need to improve how the Welsh Government considers the impact of its budgetary decisions on different population groups. As such, and as Llyr has already explained, we wanted to work together as three committees to shine a spotlight on this recurring theme.

We recognise that assessing the impact of budget decisions on our population is no mean feat, but we also believe that it is essential to do all we can to consider how the decisions we make about money translate into the real life experiences of the people we all represent, and the youngest members of our society are no exception.

Children and young people were my focus during the joint scrutiny, and they will be my focus today. I recognise that the needs of children sit alongside a number of other considerations when budget decisions are made. But in my view, two things make them unique in their need for attention. First of all, the youngest members of our society cannot vote. In the absence of the franchise, it rests with us to ensure that their voices are heard and their interests considered. Secondly, the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 took the groundbreaking step of enshrining in statute a duty on Welsh Ministers to consider children’s rights in everything they do. But a law is only groundbreaking if its aspirations are delivered. In the case of draft budgets, we believe there is still some considerable distance to travel before we can be confident that the decisions that are taken are fully in keeping with the spirit of that law.

I welcome the Welsh Government’s acceptance of four of our five recommendations, and the acceptance of one in principle. I further welcome the Government’s commitment under recommendation 1 to work with the relevant statutory commissioners to provide greater clarity on the purpose and expected outcomes of the strategic integrated impact assessment process. I would like to place on record my thanks to the commissioners for their contribution to our joint scrutiny, and the views they have shared to inform this debate. There are, nevertheless, a number of concerns I would like to raise in relation to children and young people specifically. Many of these I share with the children’s commissioner.

In response to recommendation 2, the Government has suggested that publishing individual impact assessments in a central location would cause confusion. I am unconvinced about this. As joint committees, we agreed that transparency is key. To date, there has been no systematic publication of individual impact assessments. Last year’s decision about the school uniform grant is a case in point, and one we highlight in our budget report. I would be grateful if the Minister could reflect further on this.

With respect to recommendations 3 and 4, as a committee, we are concerned that the quality of CRIAs remains variable. We stand by our assertion that impact assessments sometimes appear to be used to reflect or justify decisions that have already been taken. I would be particularly keen to hear the Minister’s view on the children’s commissioner’s comment—and I quote—

'We have seen examples of CRIAs which do not actually attempt to answer the broad question over whether and or how the policy will have an impact on children and young people, let alone attempting a fuller process.'

Finally, in relation to recommendation 5, while I welcome the commitment to commissioning research on the integration of duties, I note with concern that this work has not yet started. I urge the Government to progress this as soon as possible.

In closing, I would like to thank my fellow Chairs and committee members for their willingness to work jointly on this. This is the first time we have worked together on the draft budget, and I believe it provides a useful and innovative model for future scrutiny of shared areas of interest across committees.

Finally, I would like to thank the Welsh Government for its engagement in this work. Our overarching aim as committees is to provide a constructive and helpful contribution to an area that we acknowledge is both complex and challenging. I look forward to working with them, and with the relevant statutory commissioners, to continue our cross-cutting work in this area in future financial years. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Thank you. I call on the Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, John Griffiths.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to start by echoing the comments made by the Chair of the Finance Committee and the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee about this new approach to budget scrutiny, and it being a model, perhaps, for future work, and I'm sensing that I'm sure other committees will want to take a careful look at it. It was very, I think, constructive for three committees with different expertise and different interests to come together and consider this very important aspect of the way Welsh Government formulates its budget, and seeks to ensure that vulnerable people in our community are protected in the budget-setting process, and all those equality issues are factored in in a meaningful way that actually helps produce the eventual budget. 

I'd also very much like to thank the stakeholders and the Welsh Government for engaging in this work, because I think that's been very constructive and progressive too. And it is clear, I think, that everybody wants to see the budget process made more transparent and more effective, and that's a very good starting point for this discussion and this debate as we go forward. In fact, our committee and, indeed, the predecessor committee have long had reservations about the effectiveness of the budget process and, particularly, the impact assessment process. Those impact assessments must inform the decision-making process. As I think Lynne has just said, it shouldn't be a matter of justifying decisions that have been made, but informing decisions yet to be made, and being used in the earlier stages of the process, if it is to be meaningful and all the stakeholders that are interested are to believe it to be meaningful. But I do welcome the Welsh Government’s commitment to reflect on the evidence we considered in relation to those single integrated impact assessments, and I hope this will lead to improvements in the process and, ultimately, improvements to the decisions that follow.

If I might move to some specific issues, Dirprwy Lywydd. Welsh Government officials recently received a briefing organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on the cumulative impact assessment model. And I think many us are concerned with this, because when we look at austerity, for example, the cumulative impact over a period of years gets ever greater, and you do reach the stage where it's extremely alarming indeed. And the EHRC said that the Welsh Government showed a willingness to explore this model further. So, I'd be interested in hearing from the Minister as to whether you are likely to take forward that model.

An ongoing issue across a range of our committee’s work is integration of legislation, and the differing requirements placed on public bodies by different pieces of legislation. This was a key theme in our work. We heard of the layering effect of different requirements, which can lead to matters falling through the gap. This is before further new duties, such as the Equality Act 2010’s socioeconomic duty, are incorporated into Welsh law.

In our work on parenting, maternity and work, we called for a refinement of the public sector equality duties. In responding to this recommendation, the Welsh Government told us that the Minister would be receiving advice on the regulations and reporting arrangements, particularly the relationship between the duties and the future generations Act.

The EHRC have called for the equality duties to be amended and strengthened so that they are more focused on outcomes for individuals. They note that they held a symposium earlier this month to help inform the Welsh Government’s thinking for this review. So, if the Minister could provide an update on the outcomes from this symposium and indicate the timetable for reviewing these duties, we would be grateful as a committee.

As we say in our report, now is a good time for changes to be made to the impact assessment process. The well-being of future generations Act gives a clear policy framework, and in recommendation 4 of our report, we called for the Welsh Government to commit to using this as a basis for its approach to impact assessments. This recommendation was accepted by Welsh Government. In responding to this, the future generations commissioner said this had not happened sufficiently to date in the budget process. So, I'd be interested in how the Minister responds to that particular analysis.

Finally, we see in the Welsh Government’s response that the review of the integrated impact assessment tool will be comprehensive. It also states that it will include engagement with a number of external stakeholders, including the commissioners and the budget advisory group for equality. The EHRC in commenting on this said external engagement with people from protected groups would be key, suggesting that such engagement should go beyond the advisory group. Would you be able, Minister, to outline how you will be engaging with stakeholders outside of the advisory group on the toolkit review?

Are you finishing?

I am now. The last couple of sentences, Dirprwy Lywydd. Diolch yn fawr. 

I would like to close by stating that this is not the end of this work. Obviously, we will continue to pursue these issues in our budget scrutiny and indeed our more general policy scrutiny. Meaningful impact assessment is vital for the development of effective budget decisions and policy. Diolch yn fawr. 

Thank you, all, for bringing this report to the floor of the Chamber. I took part in the joint scrutiny session that informed part of the creation of this report. I don't mind saying that, in the nine years that I've been an Assembly Member, I've found the process of budget scrutiny to be one of the least satisfying elements of my work as an Assembly Member. Trying to connect spending decisions with targetless ambitions and then with outcomes—following the money, basically—I find it all but impossible. I just hugely hope that my colleagues in the Finance Committee and the Public Accounts Committee find it a little bit easier. That's why I wanted to be part of this scrutiny panel on that occasion. 

I think we should worry that the Welsh Government's commissioned report by the Wales Centre for Public Policy said that integrated assessments are only 'potentially' applied to significant investments. That came as something of a surprise to me. I would expect them to be applied to all significant investments. Obviously, we heard what Lynne Neagle had to say on the reluctance, shall we say, to introduce CRIAs in all budget decisions, particularly the most serious of them. But essentially I wanted to get some sense of how impact assessments actually influence spending decisions. Because when I had the culture and heritage portfolio, the impact assessments done at that time routinely came back with the information that failure to invest would impact negatively on young people and people from deprived backgrounds, but the investments weren't made anyway, so I concluded that probably the same impact assessment results were found for other policy areas. I was just interested to see how Welsh Government weighed those two competing assessments, if you like, to decide who was going to be the loser. But, actually, after our scrutiny session, I'm afraid I was none the wiser on how that actually worked, and I draw Members' attention to recommendation 3 of the report. 

I also hoped to discover how investment from, say, the education budget might affect other policy areas and impacts there. I'm not quite sure I got clarity on that really from this session. For me, it's a live issue, because with my portfolio I'm seeing the tension between the education and the local government main expenditure groups, for example, when it comes to how successfully schools are funded. I also wanted to attend because of the poor experience I've had as an Assembly Member of impact assessments produced by local authorities in my region, particularly in relation to school closures and potential sales of land. I'm sure others here have had very good advice from commissioners about how to challenge those impact assessments, but they seem to me to be routinely ignored, so I think this might be something that this Assembly may want to consider for debate in the next term. 

The clash between the Welsh Government and commissioners about the depth of assessment demonstrated in integrated impact assessments is something I think that we as Members need to take very, very seriously. This is a scrutiny issue and it is up to us, not Welsh Government, what we see. I know clerks will be cringing when I say this, but I really think, Welsh Government, you publish all, please, and we will decide what it is that we scrutinise. Because at the moment, as we heard, the perception is that the integrated assessments don't provide effective analysis, and a first step in improving them, if Welsh Government is determined to proceed with this particular methodology, is that these assessments must be co-produced. The process must satisfy commissioners and Assembly Members in terms of their purpose and their balance, because we do accept we can't have absolutely everything. 

Finally, Members, we passed the Legislation (Wales) Bill yesterday, and I imagine we can expect, in some time, some consolidation of legislation under the general banner of the well-being of future generations. However, despite unhappiness about policy being tested more than once—and I understand that—I think we need to be just alert to what we might lose during the process of consolidation. Being married to a farmer, believe me, I completely get the frustration of the same activity being assessed time and time again from a slightly different viewpoint, but if we attempt to thin out the bureaucracy in the process, which is what I think is part of what the Welsh Government is trying to do with the integrated assessments, and it's a welcome principle, really, we need to be mindful of the loss of significant detail, and I would be very guarded against integrated impact assessments automatically taking priority over individual assessments, which can capture, perhaps, more specifically detail that might be deeply significant. It's quite possible, for example, that a CRIA might pick up such a significant impact that it should have greater weight than an impact assessment that's been holistically put together. We're talking about something very significant there. And it seems to me that that was the essential worry of all the commissioners that gave evidence to our panels. 

Finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, we really must be cautious about thinking this is a process under which things might be hidden, because it's already pretty opaque, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister on the future generations commissioner's comments that progress to date has not been sufficient. Thank you. Diolch. 

We heard last year that the children’s commissioner was extremely critical that no child impact assessments were made on current budgetary proposals, and that is contrary, of course, to article 4 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which makes it a requirement for all levels of government to act in a way that is consistent with the convention. The convention states that you need to continuously assess how budgets will impact upon different groups of children, ensuring that the financial decisions lead to the best possible outcomes for the greatest number of children, but also taking into account children in vulnerable situations. You will remember—or some of you will remember—that the commissioner said this:

'children’s rights appear to be an "add-on" within this budget',

rather than children’s rights being part of the analysis from the very outset, and that then leading to budgetary decisions. Now that the Government has committed to collaborating with the children’s commissioner, which is excellent as a starting point, that work of setting the budget for 2020-21 has to happen swiftly, and the commissioner has mentioned that she expects to see a children’s rights impact assessment being published along with the budget itself. Doing that, I think, would prove that better alignment between policy and funding was starting to take root.

Last year, I asked in this Chamber for the Welsh Parliament to show the way and to be the first Parliament in the world to embed children’s rights considerations deeply in out budgetary processes. And a start has been made, yes, but it does happen elsewhere, and, earlier this year, the New Zealand Government published the first well-being budget ever anywhere in the world, providing significant funding for mental health services, child poverty and investments in tackling domestic violence. New Zealand appears to be the first country to design its budget based on well-being considerations and then directing Ministers to plan their policies in order to improve well-being.

So, if we truly want to see funding following priorities—some of the points that Suzy Davies has just raised—then we can use children’s rights as an example. And that purpose has to be there from the very beginning of the budgetary process. It shouldn’t be a bolt-on as it has been in the past, because it is not a box-ticking exercise and seeing children’s rights as an add-on. That's not the way forward, and that's not what would represent the change of mindset that would emerge from this report. Thank you. 

Thank you. Can I call on the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd, Rebecca Evans? 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I very much welcome today's debate, and I thank the Children, Young People and Education Committee, the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee and the Finance Committee for their joint report assessing the impact of budget decisions. I also thank all Members for I think what has been a really constructive debate, and certainly plenty of challenge and lots for me to think about as we start through the process of setting our budget for next year. We've long been committed to improving how we assess and maximise the impact of our budget decisions and, as Members know, I've accepted in full or in principle all of the recommendations. I welcome this opportunity to discuss them in the Chamber. 

So, Welsh Government was the first Government in the UK to publish an equality impact assessment of our spending plans back in 2011, and it was a step beyond our statutory requirements and was a demonstration of our determination to continue to strengthen and improve our approach, one that means we've taken an increasingly sophisticated approach to considering impacts. Building on feedback from both the Finance Committee and the budget advisory group for equality, we developed a strategic integrated impact assessment, or SIIA, which we first published with the draft budget in 2015-16. 

The SIIA was developed to consider spending decisions through a number of lenses, to understand their impacts on different groups of people, and these include: children's rights; Welsh language; socioeconomic disadvantage; and sustainable development. The introduction of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 has also shaped our approach since its introduction in 2015. Through taking an integrated approach, our aim has been to develop a wider understanding of the cost-cutting pressures and opportunities that exist across key service areas, in line with our priorities and target funding then when it's most needed.

I recognise the reference to the work that has gone on in New Zealand. We've taken a close interest in that, and our officials have spoken to officials in New Zealand. I do have to say there is already a great deal of similarity in terms of our approach through our well-being of future generations Act, and what we do through our strategic integrated impact assessments—very similar in terms of the decision making and the duties that are on us in terms of things that we must look at.

Our approach has evolved too as we've embedded the new fiscal landscape. We've set out our approach to tax and its principles for Welsh taxes in the tax policy framework, and these include the key principle that Welsh taxes should raise revenue to support public services as fairly as possible. They should be developed through collaboration and involvement, and contribute directly to the well-being of future generations Act goals.

It's also important to acknowledge how the SIIA fits within the wider impact assessment landscape, and there is of course an impact at the level at which we set the outline budget, but it is at the level of detailed decisions that are taken by Ministers that link more closely to the impacts that people and communities will feel. That's why for the first time last year we published an SIIA to accompany both our outline and our detailed budgets. 

Effectively assessing the impact of policies from an early stage and throughout their development is a central part of policy making, and in this context the Welsh Government has worked to develop and streamline existing impact assessments into a single integrated framework to guide policy and legislative development. Framed by the well-being of future generations Act, this work led to the launch of the integrated impact assessment tool in 2018, and that tool helped decision makers understand the potential impact, both positive and negative, of policies from an early stage and throughout their development. And I have to say, there's been very good feedback in terms of how the tool is being used and the way in which it has challenged thinking as policies have been developed, and it's being used at an early stage in order to make sure that the decisions that Ministers are asked to make are well informed and well developed in terms of the impact they might have on different groups. This, though, is very distinct from the role of the strategic integrated impact assessment of the budget, which sets out how impact considerations have informed the strategic budget allocations that have been taken as part of the annual budget process. But we do remain committed to evolving our approach, and as we further integrate our tax and borrowing powers, we're exploring how different approaches can better inform our consideration of impact, including assessments of the impact on households and individuals in Wales, and these are some of the ideas that we're taking forward as we consider what we can do to continue to improve the way in which we address this work.

Aligned with our gender equality review, for example, as part of the budget preparations for this year, we're looking at gender budgeting. Learning from the Nordic nations, we're exploring how a gender budget approach could help us better understand the impacts of our decisions. Additionally, we're exploring how we can use a working definition of 'prevention', which was agreed with the future generations commissioner in the 2019-20 budget to help us shift activity upstream in terms of our budget decisions.

The Welsh Revenue Authority has also been developing a preventative approach through working with representatives, partner organisations, taxpayers and the public to make it easier for people to pay the right amount of tax first time. And as we've heard, this year we're also reviewing the process of our integrated impact assessment tool on policy decisions, and as part of this review, we will continue to engage with those external bodies and commissioners who have been involved in the development. I'm intending to meet with commissioners as we go about setting our budget for the next year, so I'll make sure that I take those opportunities to discuss with them what more we can do to improve our impact assessments.

I've had a good meeting already with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and we had some good discussion as to what improvements could be made. I know that they continue discussions with officials. The symposium that John Griffiths referred to was attended by my colleague the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip, and I know that she'd be very happy to provide you and all Chairs with an update on the discussions that were had there.

We had the opportunity yesterday to discuss the outlook for public finances and the unprecedented challenges that we face as we develop our spending plans for the future. And with the very real prospect of continuing spending constraints and a 'no deal' Brexit potential outcome as well, it's more important than ever that we appraise the impacts, both positive and negative, of changes on our spending plans, to help us target our increasingly scarce resources on those actions that we know will have a maximum impact on people and their well-being in Wales. So, I really welcome what has been a really constructive conversation, and I know that the engagement will continue as the budget process evolves this year.

Thank you. Can I call Llyr Gruffydd to reply to the debate?

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I thank all those who've taken part in this discussion? Lynne Neagle, in her contribution, reminded us that what we wanted to do was to work together as three committees to shine the spotlight on this theme, and I think that the concurrent scrutiny session that we had, the report that we published, and now this debate are certainly helping to do that. I share your sentiment that we have a distance to travel before we can be confident that CRIAs are being fully utilised. And, of course, that's the point, isn't it? How can we be confident that they are being utilised? How is Government effectively demonstrating that they are being done in a meaningful and valuable way, and how, consequently, are things being done differently?

Thank you, John, for your contribution as well. I'm glad that you see this as a potential model for future work across committees. It isn't easy to do on a practical level, clearly, because of practical issues like certain slots that different committees meet in, but, of course, we had to hold a concurrent meeting. We couldn't hold a joint meeting, because we weren't able to do that under Standing Orders. We had to have three committees meeting at the same time in the same room with the same people giving evidence. So, I think there's something we need to look at there in terms of allowing us greater flexibility.

My understanding is that the Government is sort of moving to a culture where more than one Minister—or responsibilities overlap somewhat and they share some responsibilities. Well, I think we should be reflecting that in the way that we as an Assembly and as committees can show that kind of agility so that we are as effective as we can be in scrutinising Government.

Impact assessments need to be used at the earliest stage to be meaningful—yes, absolutely. And whilst we can do it annually, we'd like to remind us, of course, that there is a cumulative impact that we mustn't lose the view of and we have to be absolutely aware of that. And this certainly isn't the end of our work, as you said. This is going to be an ongoing process and it'll be a scrutiny process that will continue over months and, I'm sure, years to come. I'm sorry that Suzy Davies finds budget scrutiny one of the least enjoyable or least productive aspects of her work as an AM. I'm afraid that as Chair of finance I'm hoping that she'll be doing more of it as subject committees in years to come and that it's even more embedded into the work that all our committees do. And I too can relate to the frustration that farmers, for example, feel when they find the same activity being assessed from many different angles, but, of course, the key thing there is, if they understand why it's being done and what effect it has and that they can see that it has a positive effect, then I'm sure they'd be more forgiving of that, and hence, of course, our overarching conclusion in the report is to go back to those basic principles so that we're all clear and that we all have that clarity around why we're doing this, to what purpose, and what effect it's having.

It was one of the more striking interventions that Siân Gwenllian mentioned from the children's commissioner, which was, effectively, saying that this process isn't really having the effect that it should, it's very much an add-on, and it's therefore not surprising that we find ourselves needing to deliberate this here in the Chamber. The reference to New Zealand is interesting because, in New Zealand, they're using their budget process to drive these changes, whereas in Wales, of course, we've legislated through the future generations Act to try and drive this process. So, it would be interesting to compare and contrast at some point the different approaches here and there, and, of course, subsequently the different outcomes that are stemming from that.

There's not much—. Well, I don't think there's anything I disagreed with in terms of what the Minister said in principle, but, of course, the challenge, as we all know, is in relation to the practical application of those principles that we all want to see pursued. I'm glad that you're committed to an evolving approach as powers evolve in terms of taxation and borrowing. It's only right that the processes that we have to ensure that the impacts of our utilisation of those new responsibilities and powers are used to best effect.

Now, fundamentally, I think, we need to establish, therefore, shared expectation and understanding of how we assess budget impact and how that exists alongside other legislative requirements. We recognise, of course, that difficult decisions have to be made and we believe that the current financial climate makes the assessment of the impact of spending even more important than ever. But, you know, being honest about difficult trade-offs that you have to make is okay, isn't it? In fact, it's essential if we are to build the public's confidence in our decision-making processes.

Today's motion notes the joint report of our three committees, which we hope will build a constructive, positive and progressive dialogue with the Welsh Government about its approach to draft budget impact assessments going forward and we'll continue, as I say, to pursue these issues in our individual budget scrutiny later this year.

So, in closing, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'd like to thank the commissioners and the Welsh Government for the constructive way in which they've engaged with us as three committees in our experimental approach and we certainly look forward to building on this innovation in the next draft budget round. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 12.36, the motion is agreed. 

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.