The Welsh Governments’ final budget was published on 20 December.
The Autumn statement was announced after publication of the draft Budget and this has resulted in changes to the funding available for Wales. The Autumn statement included £442 million in additional capital and £35.8 million in revenue over five years (2016-17 to 2020-21). This includes, £23.4 million revenue (of this, £13.7 million relates to funding as a result of the UK Apprenticeship levy policy) and £70.9 million capital for 2017-18.
The main changes between the Welsh Government’s Draft and Final Budgets are as follows:
£46 million in revenue funding has been allocated from reserves for 2017-18, including:
- An additional £10 million revenue for social services
- An additional £1.7 million to provide financial support for people affected by NHS-supplied contaminated blood
- An additional £10 million revenue for business rate relief
- An additional £6 million to support homelessness prevention
- An additional £15.5 million revenue for apprenticeships (including £0.5 million for police and crime commissioners)
- An additional £3.2 million revenue funding to support the Welsh Government ambition to ensure everyone has an opportunity to achieve their full potential
An additional £52 million capital funding has been allocated from reserves in 2017-18, (£337 capital has been allocated over the 4 year period 2017-18 to 2020-21), including:
- An additional £6.5 million of capital to improve the health estate and accelerate innovation in 2017-18 (£41.5 million over four years to 2020-21)
- An additional £20 million capital in 2017-18 to accelerate delivery of 20,000 affordable homes by the end of the this Assembly (£53.4 million over four years)
- An additional £7 million years to support road and transport schemes (£83 million of capital over four years, including £15 million for the Local Transport Network Fund).
- An additional £10 million capital for energy efficiency measures (£40 million over four years)
- An additional £3 million for flood alleviation measures (£33 million over four years)
- An additional £5 million capital to support rural communities (£20 million over four years)
- An additional £50 million for regeneration over four years (£0 in 2017-18)
- An additional £16 million capital over four years to ‘build growth and prosperity’. (£0 in 2017-18)
It should be noted, that as some of these allocations are made over four years, the increase in Capital DEL for 2017-18 is £121.1 million when compared with the first supplementary budget 2016-17.
Following these allocations, the final budget includes £200 million revenue cash reserves and £127 million capital reserves available for allocation in 2017-18.
There have been a number of minor technical adjustments between the draft and final Budgets, outlined below:
- Movements between departments following agreement of spend and repayments for the Invest to Save scheme 2017-18
- Adjustments to Wales Audit Office budget following the laying of the WAO estimate
- Adjustments to the allocation of the Safer Routes to Schools funding (£0.5 million) to transfer funding from revenue to capital.
The National Assembly’s Finance Committee has published a scrutiny report on the draft budget.
The Welsh Government’s budget motion for the Final Budget 2017-18 will be debated in plenary on 10 January 2017.
Article by Owen Holzinger and David Millett, National Assembly for Wales
