Welsh Government budget not geared to meet challenges of economic downturn
13 November 2009The Welsh Government’s budget fails to respond “adequately” to the economic situation facing Wales.
That’s the view of the National Assembly for Wales’ Finance Committee in a report on the government’s draft budget proposals.
“The Finance Committee’s main comment is the view that the draft budget does not seem to respond adequately to the difficult circumstances that now confront Wales as it is in one of the deepest recessions of recent years,” said Committee Chair, Angela Burns AM.
“The Committee accepts that the Government has a commitment to the objectives in the One Wales agreement but it finds it difficult to understand how these will be deliverable unless a much greater priority is given to driving the economy forward out of the recession. “We would have liked to have seen greater detail on the additional funds available to the Government and which have been deployed in enhancing and strengthening the funds available within the Economy & Transport portfolio.
“The Committee was particularly worried about the lack of clarity with regard to the funds available in relation to Education and the savings being sought and therefore the Committee plans to undertake an urgent inquiry into this matter.”
The Finance Committee had questions about other issues including:
investment in capital and particularly the Strategic Capital Investment Framework into which it proposes undertaking an inquiry
the difficulties in measuring efficiency savings; and
an apparent lack of coherence between individual Ministerial portfolios and the difficulty of tracing the effectiveness of cross cutting policies such as child poverty
Finally, the Finance Committee remains concerned about the amount of time available for the scrutiny of the budget. It regrets that the need for further evidence has meant it just missed the five week deadline set by Standing Orders but considered that for a budget of £16bn it was better to issue a robust Committee report.