As one of the few Committees in the Assembly the Welsh Government takes notice of, it’s good to see the cross party Finance committee carrying on where it left off last term and highlighting the true nature of the Budget process and adding pressure to Labour Ministers to up their game over transparency, NHS funding, lack of targets, the need for a equality impact assessment and more.
The 10 recommendations they made are below and the full report is here
Recommendation 1. We recommend that the Welsh Government continues to work towards ensuring that the intended outcomes of public expenditure- and mechanisms for monitoring such- are consistently identified and published in a timely way that enables effective scrutiny of the sufficiency and value for money of the Welsh Government‘s budgetary proposals.
Recommendation 2. We recommend that in presenting future draft budgets, the Welsh Government provides detail of year-on-year proposed budgetary changes (using the figures from the previous financial year‘s most recent budget as a baseline).
Recommendation 3. We recommend that in presenting future draft budgets, the Welsh Government seeks to make all relevant and requested information on proposed budgetary allocations (including detail of proposed budgetary allocations within departments, such as BELs) available to National Assembly for Wales Committees, providing a sufficient level of detail for scrutiny in a consistent and co-ordinated manner, at the time of the draft budget‘s publication, or as close to it as reasonably possible.
Recommendation 4. We recommend that the Minister for Finance responds to the concerns of the Committees of the National Assembly for Wales, and takes on board the views of stakeholders, in order to improve the timeliness and level of detail published in the draft budget proposals, to enable more effective scrutiny of the budget proposals in relation to specific areas.
Recommendation 5. We recommend that the Welsh Government works expeditiously towards developing a strategic approach towards the utilisation of its capital resources, providing quarterly reports to the Finance Committee on its progress. We recommend that this should provide clarity on which elements of the Welsh Government‘s planned capital expenditure, and how it will be administered and monitored, are included within the National Infrastructure Plan, to enable scrutiny of such.
Recommendation 6. We recommend that the Welsh Government continues to explore all avenues for increasing and maximising capital funding opportunities and maximising the benefits for Wales. We anticipate this would include a robust analysis of both the short and long-term consequences for Wales of such mechanisms for increasing capital funding. We anticipate the Welsh Government would also provide us with quarterly reports on the matters raised in these recommendations.
Recommendation 7. We recommend that a full equality impact assessment is carried out for all proposed allocations within the Welsh Government‘s final budget. We anticipate this would be accompanied by an assessment of the budget‘s impact on the development of the Welsh Language.
Recommendation 8. We recommend that a full Sustainability Impact Assessment is carried out for all proposed allocations within the Welsh Government‘s final budget.
Recommendation 9. We recommend that the Welsh Government engages in dialogue with Local Health Boards to ensure that their service plans are finalised and made publically available as soon as possible, and that the Minister then reports on whether the funding available to Local Health Boards will be sufficient to deliver such plans
Recommendation 10. We recommend that the Welsh Government clarifies the role of its delivery unit in ensuring the delivery of the outcomes intended to be enabled by the draft budget. We anticipate this would include clarity of the role of the delivery unit in both monitoring the delivery of outcomes, and enabling appropriate action to be taken where outcomes are in danger of not being realised.Any source
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