Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 7 February 2023.
I have to say, I am a Minister that does make a lot of notes. I've always done that, and I've always dated them. I think that's really important. But, I think what we need to look at in relation to the auditor general's letter—. I think it did make for interesting reading. There were a lot of positives in there, which I'm sure you won't welcome, but there were a lot of positives around the way that Welsh Government did use that funding. Sometimes we have to be a bit more innovative. Government, by its very nature, is risk averse, and that's absolutely right when you're dealing with public money. You have to be very careful. But I did think, for me, I took a lot of positives from that letter. The pressures on our budget have been very well documented, especially the real-terms decrease we face. Any decisions to make use of funding, regardless of time of year, must ensure the proposals present value for money, and they've got to be clearly aligned with our policy priorities and they need to follow due process. I didn't see anything in that letter that didn't say that we did that.