Finance Committee

Y Pwyllgor Cyllid

Cardiff Bay

Cardiff

CF99 1NA

July 2014

A call for information – Welsh Government draft budget proposals for 2015-16

The Committees of the National Assembly are seeking information to inform their scrutiny of the Welsh Government’s 2015-16 Draft Budget Proposals. We are interested in exploring expectations of the 2015-16 budget, including financial readiness for the 2015-16 year and the impact of the 2014-15 budget.

We do not know as yet, what the draft budget proposals will look like, as they will not be published until September/October 2014. However, indicative allocations for the 2015-16 financial year were published in the Final Budget 2014-15.

The Finance Committee looks at the Welsh Government’s budget from a strategic, overarching perspective. We also work with the other Assembly Committees to ensure that proposals for specific Ministerial portfolios are considered in detail. Committees will each undertake their own focussed evidence sessions with the relevant Ministers in order to examine the areas of the budget that fall within their respective remits, and then report to Finance Committee, detailing any concerns they have.

In this paper we have detailed four specific questions. You can answer any/all of these, or just let us know in general terms about your views in relation to the draft budget.

Consultation questions

1. What, in your opinion, has been the impact of the Welsh Government’s 2014-15 budget?

2. Looking at the indicative budget allocations for 2015-16, do you have any concerns from a strategic, overarching perspective, or about any specific areas?

3. What expectations do you have of the 2015-16 draft budget proposals? How financially prepared is your organisation for the 2015-16 financial year, and how robust is your ability to plan for future years?

4. The Committee are would like to focus on a number of specific areas in the scrutiny of the budget, do you have any specific comments on the areas identified below?

- Preparation for the Wales Bill

- Local health board financial arrangements

- Approach to preventative spending and how is this represented in resource allocation (Preventative spending = spending which focuses on preventing problems and eases future demand on services by intervening early)

- Impact of the Welsh Government’s legislative programme and whether its implementation is sufficiently resourced

- Scrutiny of Welsh language, equalities and sustainability

Disclosure of Information

The Assembly’s policy on disclosure of information can be accessed here, please ensure that you have considered these details carefully before submitting information to the Committee. Alternatively a hard copy of this policy can be requested by contacting the Clerk (02920 898120).

Further information about the Finance Committee can be found at here.

Providing information to the Committee

Interested parties are invited to submit written evidence to the Clerk of the Finance Committee to arrive by Wednesday 10 September 2014. If you wish to contribute but are concerned that you won’t be able to meet this deadline, please speak with the Clerk of the Committee on 029 2089 8120.

Yours sincerely

Jocelyn Davies

Chair, Finance Committee

Annex 1- Background information

Who are we?

The Finance Committee is a cross party committee of the National Assembly for Wales, made up of Members from all four political parties represented at the Assembly.

The Committee is not part of the Welsh Government. Rather, the Committee is responsible for reporting on proposals laid before the Assembly 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:

What is the Welsh Government’s draft budget?

The draft budget proposals must contain details of the amount of resources the Welsh Government proposes to use in the following financial year and indicative figures for the subsequent two financial years. More specifically it should set out:

· The use of resources by the Welsh Government, Assembly Commission, Auditor General and Public Services Ombudsman.

· Income to be retained by those organisations (rather than being surrendered to the Welsh Consolidated Fund).

· Cash to be withdrawn from the Welsh Consolidated Fund by those organisations.

In recent years, the Welsh Government has also provided a narrative document which further explains detailed allocations to government departments, as well as reserves and other overall allocations.

Why aren’t we doing 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, concerns and suggested areas for scrutiny to National Assembly for Wales Committees after the publication of the Welsh Government’s draft budget proposals (30 September 2014).

However, Committees will usually begin scrutinising Government Ministers on the content on the draft budget 1-2 weeks after it has been published, with a view to passing on their findings to the Finance Committee in late October. The Finance Committee is itself required to report on the draft budget by 11 November 2014.

This means that there is usually very limited time (1-2 weeks) for stakeholders to suggest areas of concern to Committees. By doing this consultation now, we hope stakeholders will have more time to consider the potential impact of the budget.

What are the indicative allocations for 2015-16?

The Welsh Government’s Final Budget 2014-15 – including indicative allocations for 2015-16 – and explanatory documents can be downloaded here:

http://wales.gov.uk/funding/budget/final-budget-2014-2015/?lang=en

The Welsh Government’s most recent progress report on the Programme for Government can be seen here: http://wales.gov.uk/about/programmeforgov/;jsessionid=4CC7D392402B1B3C211BDB2EF6C9F19A?status=closed&lang=en