I'm going to be supporting the budget. I believe that local government does need more money, but I believe the whole of the public sector in Wales needs more money. But I want to discuss the reason for the aggregate external finance, what we used to call the Welsh Government budget settlement, and then to discuss this year's settlement. 

The aggregate external finance is a combination of what the rate support grant used to be and the sharing of the national non-domestic rate collected in Wales. The rate support grant is support for the council tax, which used to be rates collected by a local authority, so that each should be funded to its standard spending assessment, after adding the council tax, but not any fees and charges. The greater the ability to collect council tax locally, the less the Welsh Government support for a council needs to be.

The number of properties in each council tax band varies massively between local authorities. Some such as Blaenau Gwent have over half their properties in band A. Monmouthshire, by comparison, has just over 1 per cent of its properties in band A and has almost 6 per cent in the top two bands. In Monmouthshire, there are more properties in the top band than there are in band A. So, adding £1 to band E council tax in Monmouthshire raises substantially more—getting on for almost 100 per cent more—than you get for doing exactly the same in Blaenau Gwent. 

We would thus expect the councils to get the largest Welsh Government support per capita to be those with the least ability to raise council tax revenue, which are Blaenau Gwent, which is independent-controlled, Merthyr, which is independent-controlled, and Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is Labour-controlled. So, it's certainly not a pro-Labour budget. We would then expect the three lowest to be the Vale of Glamorgan, Labour minority-controlled, Monmouth, which is Conservative-controlled, and Cardiff, which is Labour-controlled—due to the scheme being based on making up for the council tax able to be collected. We see from the Welsh local government revenue settlement that the highest support per capita does go to Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr and Rhondda Cynon Taf, and the least to Monmouth, Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff.

On band I properties, the top band, there are 5,510 in Wales and 3,020 of them are in three authorities: Monmouth, Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. That tells us about where you've got a greater ability to raise money via the council tax. Year on year population changes are the main driver in terms of additional money year on year. It's not the only driver, the population changes, there's a bit on road length that's relative and some other things, but it's mainly population.

It is unfortunate that, while the Welsh Government shows the amount under each part of the rate support grant calculation, so it shows how much each local authority gets for each portion of it, it doesn't actually publish the calculations that would show how they have reached those figures. I think it would be very helpful if people could actually see the numbers going into the calculations rather than just the end result. 

Of course, the formula can be changed. It could simply be an amount per head of population, and people in Cardiff and Swansea would do very well, but it would be catastrophic for Merthyr, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Blaenau Gwent. Changing the formula can cause big swings in funding with minor changes. There was a change in road funding from 52 per cent population and 48 per cent road length to 50 per cent of each, which didn't seem a very major change and seemed fairly reasonable, but it moved hundreds of thousands of pounds from Cardiff, Swansea and Newport to Powys, Ceredigion and other sparsely populated areas. Small changes in the formula can end up producing changes that perhaps you wouldn't want before you changed the formula.

Looking at this year's budget compared to last year's, it's the best settlement for a decade and it sets local government core revenue funding at £4.474 billion. Adjusting for transfers, the core revenue funding for local government in 2020-21 will increase by 4.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis compared to the current year. If only that had happened for the last 10 years, we would not be having a debate and people saying, 'Local government needs more money.' It would still need more money, because local government can never have enough money, like most other services, but it would be in a position where it would be able to deal with most of its problems.

Every authority has an increase of at least 3 per cent. On the figures published in table 4 of the 'Local Government Finance Report (No.1) 2020-21 (Final Settlement—Councils)' it shows the standard spending assessments for each council per head, and shows Denbighshire with £2,155 as the highest in Wales. Anglesey, Gwynedd and Powys are all above the average, and Conwy is exactly average.

Finally, why not give every council the same percentage rise? Because it would disadvantage those whose population was growing relative to others and it would advantage those with greater capacity to raise money via council tax. The settlement does appear fair. I think we really do need to work out what we're trying to do. We're trying to support local government, but we're trying to do it in such a way that every authority gets the ability to do the same thing. That's what the standard spending assessment is about. 

Finally, just another plea, can the Welsh Government show their calculations? Because just showing the final end result makes people think maybe they're wrong—or maybe they don't like them. If you actually show the numbers that do those calculations, it would allow people to check them themselves.