´óÏó´«Ã½

So first, the good news.

As the Chancellor sits down having delivered his Budget, the Treasury reveals the Barnett consequentials for Wales. We're up £60million (though the timescale isn't clear yet).

But now: by how much are we down?

Update 1410:

The Wales Office put the impact on the UK Government "efficiency savings" on the Welsh budget at around £150m over two years. In other words they say the Assembly Government will have £150m less to spend than they'd hoped because of the savings Whitehall departments will face.

The Finance Minister, Andrew Davies, if you remember, had talked about losing out to the tune of £292m next year as the worst case scenario.

That's "efficiency savings" (and as some cynics in Cardiff Bay had predicted, not a lot said about the extra £10b of savings to come. That's for future Spending Reviews ... and other goverments?)

But what about overall funding?

Budget 2008 predicted £14.2bn in revenue funding for Wales and £1.8bn in capital funding.

Budget 2009 predicts £14.0bn in revenue and £1.7bn in capital funding. That looks as though the shortfall in what the Assembly Government will have to spend next year could be as much as £300m.

But a health warning: given the figures are rounded up/down to just one decimal point, that makes it nigh on impossible to come up with accurate figures.

Let's see if everyone is agreed on what those final figures are.

One bit of news the further education sector won't have missed: the Chancellor has announced just over £14.5m extra money this year and £23.3m next year intended for sixth forms and further education colleges in Wales (as a knock-on effect of extra money given to the sector in England). It's up to the Assembly Government, of course, where it decides to allocate the money. Will it be ring-fenced, or not?

Update 14.40

Welsh Assembly Government figures are these:

Revenue funding is down by £216m next year
Add on a futher reduction of £200m in capital next year.

That's because of the reprofiling of NHS capital spending and capital that's been brought forward to be spent this year.

Most of the extra £60m - a welcome £46m - will be in this year's figures.

Andrew Davies' worst case scenario?

£416m is better. Andrew Davies won't be surprised by that I'm sure. But better, in this case, is still pretty bad.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?