NHS the clear winner, but what about all our other services?

BUDGETS are always about making compromises between competing priorities, but there’s no doubt that health service managers in Wales will be happier today than their counterparts in local government, writes Martin Shipton.

Once again, there’s a stark contrast between the aboveinflation allocation to the NHS and the real-terms cuts for councils.

Members of the Welsh Government probably still squirm when they recall the severe criticism verging on abuse they were subjected to from beyond Wales when the NHS didn’t get as much as it was hoping for, and local government spending received a boost.

There was no chance of that happening again, and despite almost apocalyptic complaints from council leaders last week, they had to console themselves with a modest boost to the road repairs budget.

Next week councils will learn of their individual allocations, and it’s difficult to believe that many – or any – of them will be happy. Council leaders have already predicted thousands of job losses, with consequent damage to public services.

It is difficult to see how they can be avoided, although there will doubtless be attempts at some authorities to mitigate cuts by above-inflation council tax rises.

The NHS is the people’s favourite public service, so it’s not surprising that it gets top priority.

The rise in life expectancy over recent decades, coupled with the availability of more sophisticated treatments, has led to an increase in pressures.

Whether the slight reduction in life expectancy in Wales that has recently been reported will eventually feed through to some savings is a matter of considerable doubt.

We are now nearly a decade on from the start of the UK government’s austerity programme.

Every year there have been complaints from the Welsh Government and those responsible for delivering public services that serious damage is being done to our social fabric by the relentless nature of the cuts.

They may not have been crying wolf, but sometimes it has seemed that way.

We now may actually have reached a point where further cuts really will start biting into core services like school education and social care. This isn’t a prospect that any of us should consider lightly.