Welsh Budget 2017-18

(Pic : BBC Wales)

The Welsh Government's spending plans for the next financial year were tabled in the Senedd on Tuesday by Local Government & Finance Secretary, Mark Drakeford (Lab, Cardiff West).

As well as outlining how Labour intends to spend £16billion+ of your money, it's the final budget before the National Assembly gets tax-setting powers over stamp duty and landfill tax from 2018 (and they'll also get some limited income tax powers eventually).

The budget narrative is available here (pdf), the budget statement here (pdf) and the budget tables – which is probably the most important bit – here (pdf).


As I say every year, different outlets use different methods to determine where the money goes and how much it changes. I use Total Managed Expenditure (TME) – which is everything the Welsh Government spends, including fluctuating year-to-year spending (AME) - and I compare it to the previous supplementary budget to give (what I believe is) a more accurate picture of precisely how much is being spent and where.

Labour-Plaid Cymru Budget Agreement

Although the Lib Dems were tied to the budget by virtue of Kirsty Williams being in cabinet, the budget still needs/needed extra support from the opposition to get it though.

After a turbulent couple of days for Plaid Cymru, there's more positive news going into their autumn conference after they reached an agreement with Labour earlier this week. As a result, the final vote on the budget (which usually happens in December) is a formality.

In total the deal's worth £119million and is outlined in more detail here.

Some of the specifics I'll cover shortly, but in terms of "highlights" the extra money Plaid secured includes: £30million for colleges and universities, £20million for mental health, £25million for local authorities, a full feasibility study into reopening the Carmarthen-Aberystwyth railway (worth £300,000), a £3million pilot to end car park charges in town centres, £5million for Visit Wales, £3million for arts bodies and £5million for Welsh for Adults.

The Winners

It's not entirely good news, but for once local government comes out
of this better than expected.
(Pic : Wales Online)

The NHS - by virtue of being the single biggest area of expenditure - comes out of this well on paper yet again. There's an extra £276million resource spending for delivery of NHS services. Public health bodies and programmes get an extra £3.1million.

For once, local government comes out of this better than expected. A change in how the capital budgets for local government are presented has created a one-off illusionary £122million boost, in addition to a ("real") £82million boost in annually managed expenditure. However, despite the cash boost to local government, the resource budget has still been cut by £71.3million. As revealed today, the total local government settlement has increased by £3.8million (more from the Assembly Research Service) - the first increase in several years.

There have been fears the supporting people programme (a homelessness scheme) would see a cut, but its budget has been frozen.

Programmes that support children have been boosted by £9.7million. There's an extra £4.1million in resource spending to improve housing supply and choice, as well as an additional ~£135million in capital spending.

There's a £4.9million boost for business sector support and an £80million boost to improving the trunk road network. There's a £2.7million boost for cycling and walking and an extra £62million in capital funding for road and rail schemes. There's an extra £1.6million in resource and a one-off £11 million boost in capital funding for the Arts Council of Wales, museums, libraries and publishing.

Because, in part, of the Plaid Cymru deal, an initial £29.5million cut to university funding has been reduced to £4.5million. There's an extra £19.2million to improve education standards and an extra £4.5million for the Pupil Deprivation Grant (which now tops £93million a year). Post-16 learner support sees an extra £11.8million and, as mentioned, there's an extra £4.9million for Welsh learning.

An extra £6.9million in resource funding and £2million in capital funding will be provided to government bodies that support the environment (presumably including Natural Resources Wales). There's also an extra £4.7million in capital funding to support agriculture and food policies.

The Losers

If you had to pick a single loser from the budget it's probably the Communities
department - in particular capital budgets for housing and regeneration.
(Pic : Coastal Housing)

Despite the boost in resource funding for the NHS, there's a £23.3million fall in NHS capital spending compared to the supplementary budget.

It seems social services spending has been reorganised somewhat, and there's a relatively minor £40,000 cut – but considering the pressure the service is under this might not be as good as it sounds. There's also no extra capital funding for social services.

There's a £1.2million cut in children's services relating to early intervention. The resource budgets for domestic abuse services and youth participation have been frozen.

There's a nominal £66million fall in capital spending on regeneration projects and a £45.5million fall in capital spending on improving housing standards, though some of this is because it's now being counted as part of the local government capital budget as mentioned earlier. Taking that into consideration still gives a total of around £63million in capital cuts to both areas.

The science, innovation, major events and entrepreneurship budgets have all been frozen. There's a £420,000 cut to the Finance Wales resource budget. It appears as though youth concessionary fares have been scrapped completely. There's a £1.5million fall in capital funding for heritage services.

Funding for the school curriculum has been cut by £16.5million, while teaching and leadership funding has been cut by £2.5million. The education capital budget has fallen by £75million but it's expected to rise again in future budgets.

There's a £3million cut in resource funding and £2.1million cut in capital funding for waste management planning, as well as a £2.6million cut in capital funding for flood protection, water and sewage policies. Climate change policy has also seen a £10.4million cut in capital funding compared to last year.

The Invest to Save fund seems to been scrapped (or it's implied), saving £1.3million. There's also expected to be a £2.3million fall in central staffing costs since the last supplementary budget.

All in all....

Don't get too carried away by the big sums of money I listed in the graphic earlier because of the fact I include AME which exaggerates the changes. The budget has broadly remained flat when compared to last year once things like inflation are taken into account.

It's a bit dull – something Vaughan Roderick also said – and there are no real big stories here other than the Plaid deal and a respite of sorts for local government after taking big hits in successive budgets.

As for the Plaid deal itself, there are some notable things in there so, although it's in my nature not to be as enthusiastic as the party are being, it's not a bad deal considering the position they've been put in recently. Next year promises to be more interesting.