Welsh Budget 2015-16

Yesterday, Finance Minister, Jane Hutt (Lab, Vale of Glamorgan), introduced the draft budget for 2015-16 to the National Assembly.

The details are available here, and – as usual – I'm comparing the overall changes to the supplementary budget passed in June 2014 (pdf), which I believe is a more accurate reflection of what's actually being spent and where. Other commentators and mainstream media outlets have other methods. The really important document is the budget spending tables (pdf) – which detail the line-by-line spending plans.

Department	Draft Budget 2015-16	Change from 2014-15 Supplementary Budget plans (total spending)
Health & Social Services	£6,818million	+£241million
Local Government	£4,428million	-£194million
Education & Skills	£2,054.3million	+£18.9million
Economy, Science & Transport	£1,157.3million	+£30.5million*
Communities & Tackling Poverty	£737.5million	+£69.7million**
Natural Resources	£407.3million	-£32.8million
Central Administration	£328.4million	-£19.7million

* Sport, Culture and Heritage budgets now fall under Economy, Science & Transport.
**Housing and Regeneration budgets have been attached to the Communities & Tackling Poverty portfolio.

All in all, everything's similar to last year.

The Winners

Are Welsh Labour chucking money at NHS problems again
when policy might be the bigger issue?
(Pic : Yahoo Money)

In short, the NHS....again. They were one of the big winners last year too and it hasn't really made much of a difference. That's telling me problems in the NHS are coming down to government and local health board policy as much as the money.

Health services will be getting a boost totalling £425million over the next two years, with the vast bulk of that this year – some £235million – coming in to deliver core NHS services. The Food Standards Agency also gets a moderate £490,000 boost.

The budgets for the major public inspectorates in Wales – Estyn, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, Care & Social Service Inspectorate – have been frozen, while there's a £100,000 boost to domestic violence programmes – which will receive at least £4.1million in total this year.

There's been a capital boost to housing programmes, with an extra £30million available to improve the supply and quality of affordable housing, £10million of that going towards bringing empty properties back into use.

In one of the few economic development areas to remain unscathed, science programmes have received an extra £2.4million. Also, a new discount travel scheme for 16-18 year olds is being launched with an initial budget of £5million, perhaps to offset cuts to school transport for sixth formers  and HE students by local authorities (as proposed in Bridgend and elsewhere). There's also an extra £30.4million in capital funding for new road and rail schemes.

Historic monuments get an extra £2.6million in day-to-day funding, offset by a £725,000 cut in capital funding.

There's been a significant boost to funding for education standards - £110million (though I'm not sure if it's a churning of current spending or not). Welsh language education has seen a £4.1million boost (though funding for the Welsh language itself has been cut by £400,000). The capital funding for schools has been frozen.

There's a £6.2million boost to the planning system, probably a result of the forthcoming Planning Bill (more on that from me next week, hopefully). There's also a £7million boost to climate change capital budgets.

The Losers

Local Government has been hit by sharp cuts yet again, though
perhaps not as badly as last year.
(Pic : Wales Online)

Local Government gets battered....again. There's an £82.8million cut to the core funding to local authorities, but it's less than the £128million cuts last year. There's also a £1.8million cut to collaboration budgets, which is a real surprise considering the Welsh Government are pushing for voluntary mergers.

The WLGA have issued another gloomy prediction that cuts could lead to "comprehensive service failures". The threat posed to services like libraries, the arts and community facilites is stark.

Fire and rescue services see a £1.75million cut to revenue and capital budgets, possibly due to the reorganisation of services that's currently taking place.

Despite the headlines, there are significant cuts to the health and social service budget too – most notably a £6.4million cut to targeted NHS services, a £5million cut to hospice support, a £2.9million cut to immunisation programmes (which seems incredibly stupid) and a £5.5million cut to children and adult social services.

Programmes aimed at tackling poverty have also been hit to the tune of £3.3million, offset by a £2million boost to capital programmes. Supported housing sees a £6.4million cut (these cuts were partially suspended in the Plaid-Lib Dem deal last year). Housing regeneration schemes have also been cut by £1.5million.

There are a raft of cuts across economic development and transport, mostly offset with capital funding boosts – a £4.7million cut to entrepreneurship, £5.3million cut to innovation, £1.7million cuts to IT infrastructure (but £10million extra capital funding), a £2.5million cut to trunk roads (and a £30million capital funding cut).

One of the biggest losers here was sustainable travel – getting it to the tune of £23.3million in its revenue budget (but receiving an extra £29.6million in capital funds for new projects). Libraries and museums get a modest £525,000 cut to budgets (offset by an extra £500,000 in new capital funding).

Funding for the school curriculum has been hit to the tune of £88million, and there's another cut to post-16 education (£24.1million). Funding for skilled workforce programmes has been cut by £11.2million. There've also been sizable cuts to education participation programmes amounting to £13.3million (offset by a boost to post-16 learner support).

Natural resources has been hit fairly hard too. There's a £7.4million cut to Bovine TB programmes, a £4.6million cut to the climate change budget and a £4.5million cut to the environment budget generally (mostly falling on Natural Resources Wales presumably).

As you might expect, the Welsh Government is trimming its own hair too, with cuts to the central administration budget, which include a £2million to its own running costs, and a £1.8million cut to central programmes like invest to save.

Kirsty Williams 233,000,000 Plaid Cymru 0

Plaid Cymru's budget pull-out could also turn out to be as significant as the announcement itself - but only if Leanne Wood can convince the Lib Dems to follow suit. Although the Lib Dems aren't happy either, it looks like they're going to continue negotiations. So it's nothing more than a statement of principle for now.
- See more at: http://oggybloggyogwr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/newport-m4-smell-glove.html#sthash.06akrz7m.dpuf

Has Plaid Cymru's "principled stand" on the Newport bypass been a
strategic mistake the Welsh Lib Dems have taken advantage of?
(Pic : BBC Wales)

Labour don't have a majority in the National Assembly – something they always seem to forget – so to pass the budget they need to agree a deal with at least one member of the opposition.

A Labour agreement with the Tories was always a non-starter, but – for giggles – I'd imagine their price for supporting the budget would've been a Keogh-style investigation into the Welsh NHS. The extra cash for the NHS was welcomed, but Shadow Health Minister, Darren Millar (Con, Clwyd West) said, "it's all too little, too late".

July 17th : "Plaid Cymru's budget pullout could also turn out to be as significant as the announcement itself, but only if Leanne Wood can convince the Lib Dems to follow suit."

As you might remember, Plaid Cymru withdrew from budget negotiations after the Welsh Government approved the M4 Newport bypass. Petulant or principled? A little of both. Last time around they managed to get extra funding for intermediate care and supported housing. This time they got bugger all because they're trying to....what exactly?

The funding for the Newport bypass won't come for a while yet, so I'm not sure what point they're trying to prove now other than that they really, really don't like the idea (they debated it again today - you can watch it here). We get it. At least they can't be accused of hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, this hasn't been handled well from the start - by both sides - but it's as though Plaid are turning into the Green Party on steroids.

Unless something dramatic happens on the M4 front - or they get into government themselves - Plaid are (effectively) locked in to opposing every budget for the next decade because the bypass will probably show up in every budget for that long a period of time.

So the Welsh Government were left with only one option, and before the draft budget was published, they'd reached an agreement reportedly worth £233million with the Welsh Lib Dems to commit extra funding to the Pupil Deprivation Grant (which will rise from £918 to £1,050 per pupil), and complete the £60million Eastern Bay Link Road (which will link Cardiff Bay to eastern Cardiff and the M4).

The Lib Dems (supposedly) oppose the M4 bypass too, managing to get a caveat not to commence construction before the 2016 Assembly elections. Construction was very unlikely (if not impossible) to start before then anyway, so the Welsh Lib Dems can support the budget and get some goodies without supporting the bypass. That's how you do this the smart way.

In addition, they've also secured £10million towards an unspecified transport project in north Wales (which seemed a bit odd to me) and £5.3million for Llandrindod Wells Hospital.

Although the party's prospects might not be looking good overall, they've chalked up quite a bit over the last few years in terms of funding commitments, while the Eastern Bay Link road is arguably as important as sorting out the Newport problems. Well played, Kirsty.