Diolch, acting Presiding Officer. I must declare that I am a Flintshire county councillor. As such, I know that local authorities and their staff across Wales have such an important role, working with Welsh Government to deliver front-line services, aspiring for safe, clean and connected communities.

Welsh local authorities must be adequately funded to enable them to deliver the high-quality public services to which they aspire. Having been a county and community councillor for the last 14 years, I have lived through painful years of austerity, a policy introduced by George Osborne of the Tory Government, cutting important public services, including councils' public and health budgets in real terms, while protecting neoliberalism and growing privatisation.

As councillors, we had to deal with year upon year of painful cuts—restructuring, reorganising and downsizing until councils were cut to the bone. Flintshire went down from six depots to one, and I remember Philip Hammond, at that time taking over from George Osborne, saying that we just had to tighten our belts a little further. I remember shouting at the tv, because there was nowhere else to cut.

We had to look at trying to raise income, with difficult decisions such as charging for garden waste collections, increasing car parking charges and asking departments to shave off another 30 per cent, as vacant positions were taken as cost savings. You can see the results now when looking at the state of the highways right across the UK; councils not being able to react quickly to complaints; taking longer with planning applications; blocked gullies and flooding; street lights taking that little bit longer to repair; and now, not being able to recruit for essential roles.

I could also see, as part of that austerity agenda, how the cuts to social security, under the introduction of universal credit, were impacting on people. Councils were trying to step in again and again to help the vulnerable, just as the Welsh Government are doing. As publicly funded advice services were reduced or cut, even charities have to be core funded.

I wanted to say that because that is the starting point that they are at now. And it's often raised that the funding formula for local authorities needs addressing. I did it here in the Chamber just two weeks ago, and I am aware that for the last few years the debate has gone round in circles, with council leaders writing to Welsh Government, Welsh Government then saying that the WLGA need to agree it as a collective, and then they have all different views. As you say, it depends who has the slice of the cake.

Our public services are one of the biggest employers in Wales, and in Flintshire, despite the reduction in workforce, the council still employs 5,500 people. That's local people—teachers, social care workers, cleaners, teaching assistants, waste operatives. And in many areas, such as Anglesey, the council is the biggest employer. They not only provide important services; they also employ local people that then spend their money in the local economy and send their children to local schools.

This year was a good settlement for councils in Wales from Welsh Government, at an average of 9.4 per cent compared to English councils' settlement of 6.9 per cent, but the variance per capita and per council can be hugely significant, with the gap between the highest and lowest paid council widening year upon year. And we heard this evidence at the Local Government and Housing Committee. The accumulative impact can mean the baseline, for some, remains low. The difference between neighbouring authorities can be £650 per resident and £50 million or more per annum. So, for example, a £20 million highways maintenance grant through the formula can equate to £1.2 million for one authority, and £850,000 for another. And if this is the same, year upon year, one continues to do well while the other struggles. It does make a huge difference.

I think now is the time to review it. As I am aware, some councils have large reserves and are able to set low council tax, and have retained resources and expertise to draw down grant funding, such as active travel funding. You know, you've got technical officers—some authorities don't have them any more. And it's really hard to buy in those services. You can buy them in, but they haven't got the local knowledge either to deal with local issues, so it's a real problem. And this does impact in my area of north Wales, where councils are struggling as a whole. 

Two weeks ago, when I raised addressing the funding formula in the Chamber, I asked the Minister if the distribution committee that sits below the finance committee could investigate the funding formula or look at having a funding floor. I just think that would really help as well, because we've got to that baseline now for some authorities that are struggling so much. And the Minister responded to say that she would take this to be looked at by the finance committee, which I was satisfied with. So, there's the finance committee with a distribution committee that sits underneath it, and—. I'm happy with that, and I believe there are some leaders that sit on that as well. 

I've also asked for a paper to come to the Local Government and Housing Committee. I believe it needs to be looked at and analysed to see if it's still fit for purpose. If it's found to be fair and up to date, according to the formula, that's fine, but I just think it needs to be reviewed. Diolch.