Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 15 February 2023.
In prioritising public services, including local government, in our budget settlement, we've always been clear at every step that it still will mean a difficult set of decisions for local government to take. I know that local government leaders have been consulting on a whole range of things that they wouldn't normally want to be consulting their local areas on in terms of service provision for the future. But, at the end of the day, we have provided the best possible settlement to local government. It doesn't match inflation; it doesn't meet all of the needs that local government is going to have to meet in terms of their local communities. So, we continue to press the UK Government to provide greater funding for public services and we maintain that call to them to use the spring statement on 15 March to provide the much-needed additional uplift for public services.