Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 15 February 2023.
Well, I share your hope that the members of the unions will now accept the enhanced offer that has been made, which, just to be clear, is over and above the offer that was previously made when we accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies. Our offer is, of course, an additional 3 per cent in this year and 1.5 per cent of that will be consolidated into next year. So, in terms of where we've been able to find the money, I refer colleagues to the second supplementary budget, which we published yesterday. And that sets out that we've allocated £130 million to the health main expenditure group and £35 million to the education MEG in order to cover that payment, should it be accepted within this financial year.
You'll also see from the supplementary budget that we've now drawn down everything that we can within this financial year from the Wales reserve, which is £125 million of revenue. That is not a comfortable position to be in at all—it's certainly not something that I'd intended to do at the start of the year. You'll remember that, when we set our budget for this financial year, it was less than £40 million that we intended to draw down and that was in recognition of the difficult two years that we face, which follow us in terms of the three-year spending review period. So, it's a very difficult situation, I think, now, budgetary wise, but absolutely, it was the right thing to do. So, just to assure you that, when colleagues vote on the supplementary budget, they'll be given cover then for the Welsh Government to spend the money that has been allocated. And also, there might be the underspends, which, obviously, we'll be driving now across different departments between now and the financial year so that we can make sure that we cover the whole of that award.