The Funding of Local Authorities in South Wales West

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 26 October 2022.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:08, 26 October 2022

Thank you very much for the question, and I do recognise that similarity in terms of the crisis of the pandemic and the crisis of the cost-of-living crisis. What's different, of course, is that the pandemic attracted significant additional funding in terms of helping us to manage that, whereas the cost-of-living crisis has not provided us with significant additional funding to help us manage the crisis. And I just want to be really clear that we have allocated all of the available funding. So, you'll have seen our budget this year: we had a small contingency reserve for in-year this year. Next year, we've allocated everything, so we will be managing any additional spend through the Wales reserve and that alone, and the same for the following year.

So, we've also got an over-programme on capital, which is obviously very stretched in the first place, and at the time we set that, we didn't realise that UK Government would be taking £30 million back in respect of supporting the arms for Ukraine. So, the budget is extremely stretched; there's no additional significant funding to be allocated, so it really is going to be a case now of hoping that the UK Government does the right thing at its spending review—sorry, at its autumn budget when it appears—and does provide the additional funding that authorities are calling out for, and I have to say, the health service is also calling out for in this situation as well. So, we await that with interest. It's a shame that it's been pushed back, because that makes our own budget planning much more difficult, and it makes it more difficult then for us to provide the kind of reassurance, or at least assurance, that the leader of Neath Port Talbot, and other leaders, are seeking from us at this time.