



(Title Image: BBC Wales)

While the outline proposals of the draft 2018-19 budget are already known, today the Welsh Government published the line-by-line budget proposals which will give us all a better idea of precisely where extra cash and cuts will fall (pdf).

The budget is guaranteed to be passed due to a two-year deal between Labour and Plaid Cymru.

The Winners

Core NHS services receive an additional £230million in revenue spending and £34.5million in capital spending. There’s also an additional £9million towards NHS education and training and £1million for mental health. The budget for sports programmes has effectively been frozen.

There’s an additional £2.6million for the police.

An additional £16.3million will be provided for services that support children, in particular, childcare. Financial inclusion programmes receive an additional £1million, with an extra £4million to address homelessness and £3.7million towards housing grants. An additional £6million in capital funding will be available for community facilities, while an extra £137.8million will be provided for new social housing.

Tourism and business development support programmes receive a combined additional £5.5million, while the major events budget will be frozen. There’s an extra £1million for motorway and trunk road operations, while bus services receive a very most £200,000 increase. The Arts Council for Wales, National Museums and libraries will receive just over £2million extra combined, while rail infrastructure gets an additional £84.9million in capital funding.

Universities (via HEFCW) will get an extra £20.3million, while further education colleges are set for an additional £4.6million. The pupil deprivation grant is being maintained as is, while Welsh in education receives an additional £6.2million.

There’s £2million in extra support for new farmers and £1.5million towards the new landfill disposals tax community scheme. Flood protection schemes get a £7.5million boost.

The Welsh Revenue Authority will be kick-started with £4.9million, while there’s a £2million boost to international relations programmes (perhaps with an eye on Brexit/trade missions).

The Losers

Public health programmes see a £707,000 cut, spread mainly between food standards and substance misuse. NHS emergency preparedness programmes see a £650,000 cut, while there’s a £860,000 cut to health research and development.

Local councils have had their revenue funding cut by £9.7million (total cuts this year amount to around £19million overall, but next year looks brutal). The major independent inspectorates – CSSIW, HIW and Estyn will receive a combined £663,000 cut.

Early intervention and prevention services for children will be cut by £13.9million, while housing regeneration programmes will see a £2.9million cut.

Innovation programmes will receive £3.8million in cuts, while science programmes will be slashed by just over £4million. Work-based learning schemes will be cut by £7.6million.

Education standards programmes see a bit £10.4million cut – most of which falls on school improvement grants.

Most of the cuts to the environment department budget relate to waste management – a combined £38.4million. Natural Resources Wales will have its day-to-day budget cut by just over £3.1million, offset by an extra £1.6million in capital funding.

The running costs of the Welsh Government and Assembly will take a hit with £7.2million cuts to staffing and running costs – a large chunk of which will transfer to the Welsh Revenue Authority.