Wales has tough spending choices

FINANCE MINISTER Jane Hutt will this afternoon publish the Welsh Government’s Budget for 2016-17, setting out how more than £15bn of taxpayers’ money will be spent.

After last month’s Autumn Statement and Spending Review was announced by Chancellor George Osborne, Ms Hutt said that in real terms the Welsh Budget was facing cuts of 3.6%.

That means the important public services funded by the Welsh Government will continue to be squeezed.

For the fifth year in succession, Ms Hutt and her officials have had the daunting task of deciding how a declining amount of cash can be spread more thinly.

There is only a finite amount of money available. The main dilemma is the balance in funding between health and local government. If the NHS is specially protected, councils will have to take a bigger hit.

From looking at how the Budget was split last year, we can broadly assume what its shape is likely to be in 2016-17.

Much of the cash is already committed to be spent, leaving relatively small room for manoeuvre.

Last year the Health and Social Services budget was £6.62bn. Across Wales there have been concerns about hospital waiting times and the performance of local health boards.

For a number of years the NHS in Wales had its budget cut while local government was in relative terms protected.

But Labour probably lost two Welsh seats in the general election because of concerns about the NHS, and will not want to give further ammunition to his opponents.

The NHS is likely to receive some protection.

The total spent on local government was £4.4bn. When elected as Welsh Labour leader in 2009, Carwyn Jones promised that schools would be funded at a level 1% higher than the cash the Welsh Government gets from the Treasury. That means bigger cuts in other council areas. Schools funding will be under pressure, but the First Minister will not want to be accused of ditching his promise.

Communities and Tackling Poverty cost £737m. Labour has been proud of its anti-poverty initiative Communities First, but it has had mixed results. There are demands for more affordable housing.

Economy, Science and Transport, a big spread of a portfolio which includes roads and rail, business support, the arts and museums, cost £1.1bn. It’s likely to suffer because of protection given to other budgets.

Education and Skills, costing £1.75bn, is another area which has been under the funding cosh. Cheaper student tuition fees than in England are popular with students and their parents, but the Conservatives say they are not affordable.

Policy makers know the cuts will not end soon. No wonder some – like former Blaenau Gwent council leader Hedley McCarthy who recently decided to stand down – The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street.

The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%