Rt. Hon. Carwyn Jones AM First Minister

 

2 November 2015

 

Dear First Minister

Welsh Government Draft Budget 2016-17

I would like to invite you to attend a meeting of the Committee on Wednesday 13 January 2016 to give evidence in connection with the Welsh Government’s draft budget 2016-17.

The evidence session is scheduled for an hour, beginning at 11.00.  The meeting will be held in Committee Room 2 at the National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay.  It would be helpful if you could provide the Committee with a bilingual paper in relation to the draft budget by Tuesday 15 December.  The Committee would be particularly grateful to receive information on the budgetary matters highlighted in the annex to this letter.

Yours sincerely

 

Christine Chapman AC / AM

Cadeirydd / Chair

 

Annex

 

Request for information from the First Minister from the Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee to inform scrutiny of Draft Budget 2016-17

 

Scrutiny of the Draft Budget in relation to the Welsh language

The Committee is aware that specific funding allocations for the Welsh language in the draft budget currently fall within the Education and Skills Main Expenditure Group.

However, as you have overall responsibility for Welsh language policy within the Welsh Government, we would like to invite you to appear before the Committee to discuss the 2016-17 draft budget in this regard.

As well as scrutinising the allocations in the draft budget that are specifically to promote the Welsh language, the Committee intends to look at how the Welsh Government has assessed the impact of draft budget allocations on the language more widely.

As such, the Committee would be grateful to receive the following information by way of written evidence.

Presentation of the budget

The Finance Committee has welcomed the improvements made to the presentation of the budget in recent years, and recommended that work should continue to further improve the transparency of how the budget allocations are aligned to the Programme for Government commitments.

As was the case last year, the Committee would like to be provided with the individual Budget Expenditure Lines for your portfolio which are relevant to this Committee.

We should note that we are aware that the Children, Young People and Education Committee has requested information from the Minister for Education and Skills on budget provision to support the implementation of the Welsh Government’s Welsh-medium Education Strategy and local authorities’ Welsh in Education Strategic Plans (WESPs). However, to aid transparency, we would also welcome this information in order to be provided with some context in terms of how funding to promote the Welsh language has been allocated as a whole.

Programme for Government commitments

With regard to the Welsh Government’s Programme for Government, the Committee would appreciate the following information:


Key policies

The Committee would particularly like to receive information on:

·         how Draft Budget allocations relate to the delivery of the A Living Language: A Language for Living strategy and the updated Bwrw Mlaen document, including information on how the allocations for 2016-17 link with those strategies in terms of targets, outcomes achieved to date and intended outcomes in the future;

·         what assessment you have made of the impact of reprioritising funding under the Bwrw Mlaen document, including on those areas (such as support to Welsh learners and adult learners) where funding was reduced in 2015-16;

·         following last year’s draft budget session, the extent to which you are able to determine how much funding is used to support, promote or protect the Welsh language across all Ministerial portfolios (including in budgets not directly linked to the Welsh language), and whether any progress has been made by the Welsh Government in being able to provide this information;

·         how Draft Budget allocations have been influenced by the continued implementation of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, including funding allocations for the Welsh Language Commissioner and the basis on which these have been decided;

·         how Draft Budget allocations relate to the delivery of the Welsh Medium Education Strategy, including information on how this links with targets, outcomes achieved to date and intended outcomes.

 

The Committee would also like to see:

·      details of the costs and / or any work being undertaken to assess the cost of delivering these policies;

·      information relating to how the delivery of the policy, and its associated outcomes, will be monitored and evaluated to demonstrate value for money.

 

Welsh language impact assessments

As noted in our letter to you on 29 October 2014, following scrutiny of the 2015-16 Draft Budget, the need to better assess the impact of budget decisions on the Welsh language across Ministerial portfolios has been a continuing theme in our budget scrutiny work. Last year, we expressed disappointment about “the lack of detail contained in the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment (SIIA)” in this respect, and reiterated that we expected “future SIIAs to better reflect the work undertaken across departments to assess the impact of budget decisions on the Welsh language”. 

In your response to us on 19 November 2014, you told us that “recently developed Welsh language impact assessments will ensure that the position of the Welsh language is considered in budget decisions, which will in turn help us identify spending on the Welsh language in budgets not directly linked to the language”. You also said that in developing future budget plans, you would “look closely at ways we can further improve this information”.

The Committee would therefore like to receive information on:

·      details of how allocations in the 2016-17 Draft Budget (across Ministerial portfolios) were assessed for their impact on the Welsh language;

·      how you have improved these assessments and this information since last year;

·      specific examples of how any such assessments influenced allocations across Ministerial portfolios;

·      confirmation as to whether these assessments have been undertaken with regard to allocations in every Main Expenditure Group, and if not, why not.

 

 

Preventative Spending

As last year, the Committee is interested in considering preventative spending as part of its scrutiny of the 2016-17 Draft Budget. The definition of preventative spending which is being adopted for this purpose is:

…spending which focuses on preventing problems and eases future demand on services by intervening early, thereby delivering better outcomes and value for money.

With this definition in mind the Committee requests information on:

·         the proportion of Welsh language budget allocated to preventative spending measures;

·         details of specific policies or programmes relevant to the Welsh language that are intended to be preventative; and

·         how the value for money of such programmes is evaluated, with a particular focus on what the specific inputs and intended outcomes are.

 

Provision for Legislation

The Committee would also like to see:

·         information on the extent to which any Welsh legislation that has been passed, is currently being passed, or is planned in the legislative programme, is likely to have any direct or indirect impact on the Welsh language in the 2016-17 financial year.

·         information on the impact on the Welsh language of any UK legislation.