7. What measures are in place to improve the transparency of the Welsh Government's budget process? OQ56082

I have taken additional steps this year to provide full transparency about the fiscal implications of the pandemic to support robust scrutiny of spending decisions. Measures include publishing two supplementary budgets, writing to the Finance Committee with details of consequentials, and providing regular updates to the Senedd in the Chamber.   

I thank the Minister for that answer, but the public interest is definitely served by more transparency, and this has been a long journey, and there's still a long way to go. We are, quite properly, demanding of local government in their financial statements and the information, indeed, they send to their council tax payers, and I think a similar process of public engagement is required so that we can truly have a transparent budget process here in the Senedd. It would both encourage many good ideas to come forward—and, dare I say, perhaps from people who are not necessarily the usual culprits—and also, it would identify some areas of waste. So, will you commit to greater public engagement models being used in the future?

I think, over the course of this last year, and certainly since I published the first budget improvement plan, we really have taken great strides, both in terms of transparency but also engagement. I think the fact that we've been able to still progress the work in terms of the gender budgeting, the carbon assessments, and the distributional impact assessments has been a real testimony to the priority that we do put on this agenda, especially during the pandemic.

There is much more happening. So, we've got an easy-read version of the budget this year, which, I think, is quite useful. I know that we've had lots of people downloading that online. And also, again for the first time this year, we have a budget calculator available so that people can go on to the website, they can put in their salary, they can work out then the proportion of their salary that is being spent across the Welsh Government departments in different ways. So, an individual can see how much of their tax is being spent on health, on education, on rural community and so on. So, I think that that again is a new innovation, but I'm always keen and happy to look at what more we can do to be engaging and to engage and also to be transparent.

Just bearing in mind, of course, that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has complemented the Welsh Government on its transparency through the crisis, and the fact that we have provided these supplementary budgets, whereas the UK Government has yet to provide a single supplementary budget. So, we're as in the dark as many people are about the spending that is being undertaken across the border. I really, really anxiously look forward to the publication of the supplementary estimates, where we will finally get a proper understanding of spend across the border and what that means in terms of consequentials for us in Wales. So, I think that the UK Government can learn a lot from the transparency that we've been very keen to work to this year, and I think it's one of the things we can be very proud of through our response to the pandemic.

And lastly, question 8—Jack Sargeant.