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17 July 2025
Dear Colleague,
A call for information – Welsh Government Draft Budget proposals for 2026-27
The Committees of the Welsh Parliament are seeking information to inform their scrutiny of the Welsh Government’s 2026-27 Draft Budget proposals. We are interested in exploring expectations of the 2026-27 Budget, including financial readiness for the financial year and the impact of the 2025-26 Budget.
The Welsh Government has announced that it is planning to publish its outline draft budget on 14 October and its detailed draft budget on 3 November, and the final Budget on 20 January 2026.
The Finance Committee looks at the Welsh Government’s Draft Budget from a strategic, overarching perspective. We also work with the other Committees to ensure that proposals for specific departments, or ministerial portfolios are considered in detail. Committees will each undertake their own focussed evidence sessions in order to examine the areas of the Budget that fall within their respective remits. Further details on Senedd Committees and the budget process can be found in Annex 1.
In this letter we have detailed specific questions in Annex 2. You can answer any/all of these, or just let us know in general terms about your views in relation to the Draft Budget.
The Finance Committee has undertaken a number of engagement activities, seeking the views of individuals and organisations on areas that should be prioritised in the Welsh Government’s Draft Budget. These views were reflected in the Committee’s Summary Engagement report which helped inform a Committee-led Plenary debate on Welsh Government spending priorities, held on 16 July 2025.
Disclosure of Information
Before submitting information to the Committee, please ensure that you have considered the Senedd’s policy on disclosure of information. Alternatively, a hard copy of this policy can be requested by contacting the Clerk, Owain Roberts (0300 200 6388 seneddfinance@senedd.wales).
Overview of the analytical methodology
All responses received through this consultation will be analysed using a mixed methods approach.
We will analyse text with the support of Natural Language Processing (NLP) software. The purpose of this approach is to enable us to efficiently analyse the growing number of responses to this consultation over time. This approach gives the Senedd opportunities to be more flexible in analysing the consultation responses, drawing out themes, sentiment and key messages for individual subject committees based on their areas of interest.
While the NLP tool will assist in identifying themes, research analysts will still provide the most significant input in terms of analysing and reviewing all consultation responses and quality assuring the themes coming from the NLP. The NLP will not make any decisions about individuals or individual responses and is only accessible to limited members of the research team.
Providing information to the Committee
Interested parties are invited to submit written evidence by completing a Consultation Form or by writing to the Clerk of the Finance Committee by Friday 26 September 2025. If you wish to contribute but are concerned that you won’t be able to meet this deadline or have any other concerns about the consultation process, please speak with the Committee Clerk on 0300 200 6388.
The Senedd has two official languages, Welsh and English. In line with the Senedd’s Official Languages Scheme, the Committee requests that documents or written responses to consultations intended for publication or use in Senedd proceedings are submitted bilingually. When documents or written responses are not submitted bilingually, we will publish in the language submitted, stating that it has been received in that language only.
We expect other organisations to implement their own standards or schemes and to comply with their statutory obligations.
Guidance on submitting written evidence to Committee consultations is available on the Senedd’s website.
Yours sincerely,
Peredur Owen
Griffiths MS
Chair, Finance Committee
Croesewir gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg neu Saesneg.
We welcome correspondence in Welsh or
English.
Annex 1 - Background information
Who are we?
The Finance Committee is a cross party committee of the Welsh Parliament, made up of Members from three political parties represented at the Welsh Parliament.
The Committee is not part of the Welsh Government. Rather, the Committee is responsible for reporting on proposals laid before the Welsh Parliament by Welsh Ministers relating to the use of resources.
Who are the other Committees involved in scrutinising the Budget?
The other Committees involved in scrutinising the Budget are:
- Children, Young People and Education Committee
- Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
- Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
- Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
- Equality and Social Justice Committee
- Health and Social Care Committee
- Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
- Local Government and Housing Committee
What is the Welsh Government’s Draft Budget?
The Draft Budget proposals contains details of the amount of resources the Welsh Government proposes to use in the following financial year. More specifically it should set out:
· the use of resources and cash to be withdrawn from the Welsh Consolidated Fund by the Welsh Government, Senedd Commission, Audit Wales and Public Services Ombudsman for Wales;
· how expenditure proposals will be financed, including taxation and borrowing plans;
· income to be retained by those organisations (rather than being surrendered to the Welsh Consolidated Fund).
The Welsh Government will provide a narrative document which sets out allocations within departments, how proposals align with priorities and desired outcomes. The Welsh Government will also provide forecasts of taxation, borrowing and debt.
Why are we not issuing this consultation after the Welsh Government’s Draft Budget proposals have been published?
Responding to this consultation will not preclude stakeholders from also providing information, evidence, raising concerns and suggesting areas for scrutiny to Senedd Committees after the publication of the Welsh Government’s outline and detailed Draft Budget proposals.
However, there is a very limited time for stakeholders to suggest areas of concern to Committees after the detail of the Draft Budget has been published. By undertaking this consultation now, we hope stakeholders will have more time to consider the potential impact of the Budget.
Consultation questions
1. What, in your opinion, has been the impact of the Welsh Government’s 2025-2026 Budget?
2. How financially prepared is your organisation for the 2026-27 financial year, how confident are you that you can deliver planned objectives, and how robust is your ability to plan for future years?
3. What action should the Welsh Government take to:
- help households cope with cost of living issues;
- address the needs of people living in urban, post-industrial and rural communities, including building affordable housing and in supporting economies within those communities?
4. Have Welsh Government business support policies been effective, given the economic outlook for 2026-27?
5. Are Welsh Government plans to build a greener economy clear and sufficiently ambitious? Do you think there is enough investment being targeted at tackling the climate change and nature emergency? Are there any potential skill gaps that need to be addressed to achieve these plans?
6. Is the Welsh Government using the financial mechanisms available to it around borrowing and taxation effectively?
7. The Committee would like to focus on a number of other specific areas in the scrutiny of the Budget. Do you have any specific comments on any of the areas identified below?
- Is enough being done to tackle the rising costs of living and support those people living in relative income poverty?
- How could the budget further address gender inequality in areas such as healthcare, skills and employment?
- Is the Welsh Government’s approach to preventative spending represented in resource allocations (Preventative spending = spending which focuses on preventing problems and eases future demand on services by intervening early).
- How should the Welsh Government explain its funding decisions, including how its spending contributes to addressing policy issues?
- How can the documentation provided by the Welsh Government alongside its Draft Budget be improved?
- How should the Welsh Government prioritise its resources to tackle NHS waiting lists for planned and non-urgent NHS treatments. Do you think the Welsh Government has a robust plan to address this issue?
- Is the Welsh Government providing adequate support to the public sector to enable it to be innovative and forward looking through things like workforce planning?
- Has there been adequate investment from the Welsh Government in basic public sector infrastructure?
- How should the Budget support young people?
- How is evidence and data driving Welsh Government priority-setting and budget allocations, and is this approach clear?
- Is the support provided by the Welsh Government for third sector organisations, which face increased demand for services as a consequence of the cost of living crisis and additional costs following increases to National Insurance Contributions, sufficient?
- What are the key opportunities for the Welsh Government to invest in supporting an economy and public services that better deliver against the well-being goals in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015?