This budget is littered with false economies that will push many more people into crisis, adding multi millions to the cost of crisis service providers in the health and social care public sectors. Funding for social justice has been cut by £96 million in absolute terms, and £119 million in real terms. Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence is facing a real-terms cut of 6.4 per cent, despite the Minister stating that the Welsh Government were mindful of the fact that the cost-of-living crisis is having an impact on the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence specialist sector. 

The Welsh Government claims it is increasing its focus on the housing support grant, yet funding is flatlining and represents a real-terms cut of 8 per cent. This is more than concerning. Of course, Labour Welsh Governments have form for this, where their statist approach rejects the reality that non-state providers can reach the parts of society that the public sector never can. Speaking here in 2016 in support of Community Housing Cymru and Cymorth Cymru’s Let’s Keep On Supporting People campaign for 2017-18, I called for the housing support grant’s predecessor Supporting People programme to be protected from cuts, and emphasised the need to also safeguard the homelessness prevention budget and the housing transition fund, which, like the Supporting People programme, saved money. As I then stated,

'The Supporting People programme is conservatively estimated to save £2.30 for every £1 spent, whilst also levering in other funding, preventing homelessness, preventing spending on health and social care, and increasing community safety, minimising the need for high-cost interventions and reducing avoidable pressure on statutory services.'

Speaking in 2017 as co-sponsor at Cymorth Cymru and Community Housing Cymru’s campaign rally for the Supporting People programme—a programme that prevents homelessness and then supported over 60,000 marginalised and at-risk people in Wales to live independently in their own homes and with dignity in their community—I stated that over 750,000 lives had been transformed since its inception in 2004, providing an essential preventative service that makes a real difference to the lives of those who benefit from it, increasing their resilience and their ability to maintain a secure home, as well as reducing their demand on health and social services. I said that Supporting People interventions reduce use of accident and emergency and GP surgeries, meaning fewer resources used and greater availability of services for the general population. Speaking here three weeks ago during the debate on the draft budget I stated that

'cuts or freezes in the housing support grant have been offered almost as a sacrificial offering in almost every Welsh Government draft budget for at least the last decade, despite the consequences of increased pressures on the NHS, accident and emergency departments, and blue light services’ and

'the Welsh Government should not be pursuing these false economies, and instead should be removing the millions of added cost pressure on statutory services that they would cause'.

As the chief officer of Gorwel, which works within four counties in north Wales, stated to me in a letter:

'We and our partner organisations need the Welsh Government to reconsider the decision within the draft budget to freeze the Housing Support Grant, because what we are seeing on the ground is unprecedented'.

He went on to state:

'official statistics show that there are over 8,500 people in temporary accommodation in Wales and this figure is growing by around 500 every month. At the same time, the draft budget will put the funding for services in real terms at £18 million less than it was in 2012.’

As Cymorth Cymru—