1. What additional budget allocations will the Minister provide to the health and social care portfolio to support people diagnosed with severe mental impairment as part of the Welsh Government's budget for 2020-21? OAQ54552

Through schemes such as the council tax reduction scheme, we are committed to supporting people with severe mental impairment. I'll be publishing our budget proposals for 2020-21, including for health and social services, on 19 November.

Thank you, Minister. I'm really pleased that Welsh Government is leading the way to ensure that those living with a severe mental impairment diagnosis can access this vital council tax discount. It's very welcome that this is in partnership with the money-saving expert, Martin Lewis, and I think this is something that will really resonate with people. Prior to this approach, one of the major downfalls of this discount scheme was that nobody knew about it, and I hope that anyone applying for this discount will have it backdated to the point of their diagnosis. Can you outline what is being done at a Welsh Government level to ensure that people are aware of the support available, and, furthermore, what is the Welsh Government doing to work with and support local authorities in Wales to ensure this process is easy to use and consistent?

I thank Jayne Bryant for raising this particularly important issue in the Chamber this afternoon. The Welsh Government's been working really hard to ensure that everybody who is eligible for a council tax reduction as a result of being classified as seriously mentally impaired—. And I have to say I absolutely hate that phrase; I think it sounds like an awful way to refer to people, but it is a medical phrase that doctors will use. Once somebody has that diagnosis, then they will be eligible for between 25 per cent and 100 per cent of their council tax discount. And we've been working really hard with local authorities to ensure that everybody who is eligible is able to access that, and we've been working hard with the money-saving expert as well. There's been quite a big social media campaign involved, and, since that social media campaign began in April, and Martin Lewis's visit here to Senedd, the provisional figures suggest that exemptions have already increased by 416, from 4,615 in March, to 5,031 in September. By comparison, the whole year before that only saw an increase of 385. So, I think the social campaign is making a difference. 

And just to put it in context, an SMI exemption is worth, on average, £1,590 to a household in an average band D property, so it's certainly something, if people think that they or a family member might be entitled to it, they should certainly ask the local authority about. 

Minister, of the 45,000 people suffering from dementia, 17,000 people live in a rural area. People with dementia living in rural areas face additional challenges, such as poor transport links making it harder to access help, carers feeling more isolated and unsupported, and, finally, support services being less likely to be available. That's a sad scenario for those people. Minister, what consideration has been given to the needs of people suffering from dementia who live in rural areas in Wales when allocating the budget to the health and social care portfolio?

A key commitment of our programme for government, 'Taking Wales Forward', was to develop a specific dementia action plan, and that was published in February of 2018, and that covers up to the period 2022. And a key aim of that plan was to support people living with dementia wherever they live in Wales, and to do so as independently as possible, in their communities, which we aim to be dementia-friendly communities, and also to avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital and ensure that people who do find themselves in hospital are able to be discharged from care as soon as possible. And to support the implementation of that plan, we have committed £10 million a year from Welsh Government from 2018-19, and £9 million of that was targeted through the regional partnership boards. And, of course, the regional partnership boards will be best placed to understand the local challenges of service delivery within their areas—so, for example, the specific rural challenges to which you've referred. And I think that having the extra funding diverted or allocated through those regional partnership boards is certainly the most positive way to address those specific local needs. 

We hear that front-line staff in social care are concerned that cuts to social care funding are undermining the independence and well-being of disabled people physically and mentally. Now, austerity means that care packages are reduced to the most fundamental and basic tasks, and social workers have to battle for funding to support social and community needs. Do you accept, therefore, that the shortage of funding provided by the Welsh Government to local authorities over the last few years has contributed to this situation, which impacts on our most vulnerable people? And what discussions are you having with your fellow Ministers to put this situation right?

Well, there's no argument from me that the settlements for local government over recent years have been extremely challenging. And even with the additional funding that we have this year, clearly things will continue to be particularly difficult in terms of meeting all of the social care needs that have been identified. And, of course, the demographic changes mean that that need is growing, and the complexity of people's needs are becoming more pronounced as well. So, if you look at the recently published data from local authorities, they show an increase of 6 per cent in spend on social services just in the last year. So, it does demonstrate the kind of challenge that they're facing, and it's one of the reasons why, alongside prioritising health within our budget discussions, we have said that we will aim to give local government the best possible settlement.