Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:22 pm on 9 October 2019.
The distribution sub-group of the partnership council works very hard on the indicators across the piece. We have a constant review group working very hard on making sure that the indicators are as they are. The local government family is itself responsible for this, and Anglesey, as many other councils, have seats on both the financial and the distribution sub-group. The leader of Anglesey, who I was just mentioning now, comes to the partnership council meetings; I meet with her very frequently. Anglesey, last year, suffered from a range of less-favourable movements in indicators, such as population projections, secondary school pupil numbers, primary free school meals and children in out-of-work families, and those indicators fluctuate. So, obviously, the distribution works differently according to a range of indicators. I've had this conversation with Members many times; we offer all the time that a local authority who thinks that the measures are not right should come forward and put its suggested adjustments into the distribution sub-group formula, and we work through what that would mean for the local authority family overall. That offer is always on the table, as it is now.