Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2017-18

Published 14/07/2017   |   Last Updated 27/05/2021   |   Reading Time minutes

The Assembly will be debating the Welsh Government’s First Supplementary Budget 2017-18 in Plenary on 18 July. This blog article sets out background information on the supplementary budget, and the work of the Assembly’s Finance Committee to scrutinise the allocations made in it.

The Finance Committee took oral evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government on the changes in the supplementary budget, and has produced a report that was laid before the Assembly on 14 July.

The First Supplementary Budget 2017-18

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government (Mark Drakeford AM) laid the supplementary budget on 27 June 2017. This was accompanied by an explanatory note and tables showing departmental allocations.

The supplementary budget is mainly an administrative one, which includes a small number of allocations from reserves, switches between revenue and capital, and transfers between portfolios. It includes adjustments to the Welsh block to reflect transfers and consequentials received in the UK Government’s Budget 2017, and also includes changes in Annually Managed Expenditure (AME) forecasts in line with updates provided to HM Treasury. The main revenue allocations in this budget are:

  • £20 million for social care funding to cover workforce costs; support work to prevent children from entering care and improve outcomes for those in care; and to provide respite for carers;
  • £20 million for the Cardiff Capital Region City Deal following the agreement of the governance arrangements for the city deal and the decision-making process for funding projects; and
  • £750,000 for provision of wi-fi on trains and stations.

There is one capital allocation in this budget of £1.6 million for provision of wi-fi on trains and stations.

There have also been two switches within the Economy and Infrastructure MEG that have impacted on reserves, a switch of £12.4 million from financial transactions capital to general capital, and a switch of £0.6 million from fiscal revenue to capital.

The infographic and pie chart below set out the headline figures from the supplementary budget.

Infographic showing headlines from the Welsh Government’s First Supplementary Budget 2017-18

Pie chart showing the percentage of the DEL allocated to each Main Expenditure Group


Article by Gareth Thomas and David Millett, National Assembly for Wales Research Service.

This post is also available as a print-friendly PDF: Welsh Government First Supplementary Budget 2017-18 (PDF, 198KB)