Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 29 June 2022.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:46, 29 June 2022

Thank you for raising these issues. I'll begin with your question in relation to where might local government feel particular pressure. I've already had opportunities to meet collectively with all of the leaders of local government, including our new cohort of leaders, and I think they're very keen to stress the importance of looking at their capital settlement, because of course our capital budget across the three years is particularly poor, being worth less in every single year in cash terms across the three-year period. And of course the implications are there for local government and particularly so in respect of inflation. So, obviously there'll be choices for them in terms of which projects they decide to invest in and how they profile that spend and how slowly they end up delivering projects, really, as a result of that. So, those will be some of the potential areas of difficulty. 

Yes, I had the same level of excitement as you when the census data came out, and that will continue, actually, because data will be provided, probably on a monthly basis, now, right through to November. So, there'll be lots more for us to get our teeth into as the various pieces of information come forward from the census. But, yes, clearly it will have an implication in terms of local government funding. The population projections, which are probably of the most interest, or one of the aspects of most interest, to local government, are used as part of the funding formula, and today's results, or the results of the census, will feed into future updates to local authority population projections.

The Welsh Government's local authority population projections are planned to be updated from 2024, and that's subject to the confirmation of the Office for National Statistics's plans for 2021-based national population projections and revised mid-year estimates of the population for 2012 to 2020. So, that data will be important. But I know the point you're really trying to make is around the funding formula for local government, which is under constant review. I'm seeing the Presiding Officer looking wearily at me at the moment, so I'll draw this to a close. But the funding formula is under constant review, as we've discussed, in terms of new data coming forward, but we will be meeting with the finance sub-group the week after next, where we'll be discussing the funding formula, and particularly the timeliness and the accuracy and the importance of data, and that point that you've made previously about age cohorts is very much still part of that discussion.