| The Drakeford report on 12:07 - Dec 13 with 1932 views | felixstowe_jack |
Great news for Wales Drakeford has resigned. Pity he is hanging on until Easter so 3 more months of misery. |  |
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| The Drakeford report on 15:42 - Dec 13 with 1859 views | SullutaCreturned |
| The Drakeford report on 12:07 - Dec 13 by felixstowe_jack |
Great news for Wales Drakeford has resigned. Pity he is hanging on until Easter so 3 more months of misery. |
It's only great new if his replacement is an improvement and its quite likely it'll be Gething! | | | |
| The Drakeford report on 08:20 - Dec 17 with 1753 views | Kilkennyjack |
| The Drakeford report on 09:19 - Dec 12 by Boundy |
Make them accountable for a start , there's enough evidence of mis management and collusion with 3rd parties who have a vested interest in having certain policy's adopted .
If you research just how the Senedd became into being and the lack of opposition within Wales then you will understand how we've reached the position we find ourselves in today. |
Was Liz Truss accountable for tanking the economy ?
Prison for shop lifting, nothing for losing £30 billion.
Yes we always need accountability but its nowhere near as bad in the Senedd.
If you lie about your business, its jail.
If you lie about Brexi and Partygate, zero accountability. |  |
| Beware of the Risen People
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| The Drakeford report on 09:49 - Dec 19 with 1652 views | felixstowe_jack |
| The Drakeford report on 08:20 - Dec 17 by Kilkennyjack |
Was Liz Truss accountable for tanking the economy ?
Prison for shop lifting, nothing for losing £30 billion.
Yes we always need accountability but its nowhere near as bad in the Senedd.
If you lie about your business, its jail.
If you lie about Brexi and Partygate, zero accountability. |
Still repeating the SNP lie about it cost £30 billion. Please read up on the matter. The tax cuts would have cost about £30 billion a year if they were ever implemented but they never were so no £30 billion cost.
Why are you still supporting the failed Drakeford he is after all a unionist. | |
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| The Drakeford report on 09:57 - Dec 19 with 1649 views | felixstowe_jack |
Good to see Labour's Manchester mayor has ditched his own ultra low emissions zone scheme. Faced with the evidence that it charges would hit Manchester's economy and have little effect on Manchester's air quality he cancelled it.
Wonder if Drakeford and Sadiq Khan will now reverse their war on motorists.
Andy Burham has done a great job in Manchester and it is a pity he is now longer a MP as he the leader Labour need. | |
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| The Drakeford report on 11:20 - Dec 19 with 1611 views | controversial_jack |
| The Drakeford report on 09:57 - Dec 19 by felixstowe_jack |
Good to see Labour's Manchester mayor has ditched his own ultra low emissions zone scheme. Faced with the evidence that it charges would hit Manchester's economy and have little effect on Manchester's air quality he cancelled it.
Wonder if Drakeford and Sadiq Khan will now reverse their war on motorists.
Andy Burham has done a great job in Manchester and it is a pity he is now longer a MP as he the leader Labour need. |
I don't think we have any ULEZ zones in Wales | | | |
| The Drakeford report on 12:32 - Dec 19 with 1592 views | felixstowe_jack |
| The Drakeford report on 11:20 - Dec 19 by controversial_jack |
I don't think we have any ULEZ zones in Wales |
Not yet but I don't think anyone actually said we did.
Just that at least one labour politician has reversed an anti motorist policy. | |
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| The Drakeford report on 13:02 - Dec 19 with 1572 views | controversial_jack |
| The Drakeford report on 12:32 - Dec 19 by felixstowe_jack |
Not yet but I don't think anyone actually said we did.
Just that at least one labour politician has reversed an anti motorist policy. |
You alluded to it in your recent post | | | |
| The Drakeford report on 14:11 - Dec 19 with 1558 views | Ohyeah |
| The Drakeford report on 11:20 - Dec 19 by controversial_jack |
I don't think we have any ULEZ zones in Wales |
Read a report in the DP last week saying they are introducing one in Cardiff...
"Cardiff Council has recently announced plans to implement a road user charging scheme, and there is an opportunity to learn from this in the Welsh context. | | | |
| The Drakeford report on 14:22 - Dec 19 with 1552 views | Boundy |
| The Drakeford report on 08:20 - Dec 17 by Kilkennyjack |
Was Liz Truss accountable for tanking the economy ?
Prison for shop lifting, nothing for losing £30 billion.
Yes we always need accountability but its nowhere near as bad in the Senedd.
If you lie about your business, its jail.
If you lie about Brexi and Partygate, zero accountability. |
Nothing to do with Truss so please stop deflecting its extremely boring now.May I remind youv e Senedd members are extremely well paid and with it rcomes a responsibility for their actions. | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
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| The Drakeford report on 15:59 - Dec 19 with 1525 views | felixstowe_jack |
| The Drakeford report on 13:02 - Dec 19 by controversial_jack |
You alluded to it in your recent post |
Yes not like you agree with anyone. | |
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| The Drakeford report on 16:19 - Dec 19 with 1509 views | Whiterockin |
| The Drakeford report on 14:11 - Dec 19 by Ohyeah |
Read a report in the DP last week saying they are introducing one in Cardiff...
"Cardiff Council has recently announced plans to implement a road user charging scheme, and there is an opportunity to learn from this in the Welsh context. |
A massive problem with ULEZ zones is number plate cloning, this also has a knock on with speeding and no insurance.
https://www.carreg.co.uk/carre |  | | |
| The Drakeford report on 16:53 - Dec 19 with 1493 views | Wingstandwood |
| The Drakeford report on 14:22 - Dec 19 by Boundy |
Nothing to do with Truss so please stop deflecting its extremely boring now.May I remind youv e Senedd members are extremely well paid and with it rcomes a responsibility for their actions. |
It's the standard/stereotypical disgusting time worn blame deflection game used by backward YesCymru type yokels, and if its not that, it's ignoring things completely, like just as one example (of many!) the closure of a vital WELSH hospital unit.
That was despite the fact this unit played a vital part regarding WELSH patients organ transplantation journey's, along with other vital facets/intervention involving other patient(s) outside of NHSBT care.
YesCymru silence? Now I do wonder if these deluded YesCymru yokels are self-aware enough to even know where this unit once was? Or when it was closed? Or how many vital beds it had and of what speciality, let alone realise the fact that it was CLOSED under devolution and tenure of Cardiff Bay yokels and NOT Westminster.
And yep this vital unit survived Thatcher, Major and repeated Conservative governments. And it was closed before Brexit, Truss and Boris also!
"We do things differently in Wales". YesCymru yokels are a complete and utter joke and an absolute parody!!!! How the YesCymru charlatans care (NOT!) about other Welsh people hey! It's all about victimhood and hating England!!!! |  |
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| The Drakeford report on 17:23 - Dec 19 with 1465 views | Wingstandwood |
In all fairness to Jac, he belongs to the miniscule minority of Welsh-Nats who are well and truly switched on, not in denial and are all too aware by knowing who exactly is at fault!
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| The Drakeford report on 23:50 - Dec 19 with 1361 views | Boundy |
Interesting read in Business live regarding the recent claw back of 155 million back to the treasury
"The Welsh Government clearly signalled in advance of its draft budget that it simply didn’t have the financial resources to feed so many legitimate and competing hungry mouths.
For its 2024-25 financial year, it is facing a significant real terms cut to its budget, when factoring the corroding impact of inflation and trying to protect its biggest budgetary commitment in health.
Even with a Labour administration in Westminster next year, or possibly at the start of 2025, there will be further financial pain again in 2025-26 with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves taking a prudent fiscal position with her party’s rapprochement with the City of London and business.
If the Welsh Government, as should be the case, was given the freedom to move capital into revenue without Treasury approval - it can without limitation in reverse - it would hardly mark an arrival at destination ‘sunlit uplands’, but merely a ‘robbing Peter to feed Paul’ scenario.
Capital investment is urgently required to help upgrade and enhance Wales’ infrastructure, from rail to broadband, and creating an environment to help firm investment, create jobs and become more productive.
The mistake of George Osborne’s austerity era, which impacted the Welsh Government’s block grant, was the short-sightedness of turning off the capital spending tap at a time when inflation was more benign and government borrowing cheaper. The implications of under investment in infrastructure across the UK are being acutely felt today.
However, it’s not that long ago when the Welsh Government saw its block grant swelling as a result of the pandemic with a flow of billions in Barnett Formula consequentials created by the UK Government’s pandemic response spending, particularly on personal protective equipment (PPE). The Welsh Government’s total budget in the 2020-21 financial year reached £25bn. The challenges for ministers, and ultimately the ‘doers’ in civil servants, was getting the money out the door.
To its credit the Cardiff Bay administration was cost-effective in its PPE procurement activities: unlike the profligate Westminster government with its VIP fast line for private sector firms, leading to legitimate concerns over value for money, cronyism and potential fraud.
But the Welsh Government PR machine did a very effective job labelling the UK Government as the ‘bad cop’ earlier this year when it emerged that at the end of the 2020-21 financial year it had exceeded its carry (the reserve) into the next financial year, which resulted in the Treasury clawing back £155m of its allocated funding.
Pre-pandemic the Welsh Government’s reserve was £350m but what the Welsh Government didn’t readily explain was that the UK Treasury increased its reserve to take account of the significant rise in its budget.
Along with its existing end of year carry of £350m, this saw the Cardiff Bay administration being given £660m in additional reserve leg room - taking the total reserve capacity to just over £1bn. However, even with the ability to carry that amount of uncommitted spending into 2021-22, it still found itself liable for the clawback of £155m
.Now, these were unprecedented times with consequential payments from the UK Government coming thick and fast. It would not be an exaggeration to say that ministers and civil servants would open up the funding account to see that millions had been deposited overnight.
There was also the fact that payments were still coming in right up to the end of the financial year to March end, making it harder for money to be assigned, whether for revenue or capital.
Late into the financial year the Welsh Government made a request to the Treasury to be able to move capital into revenue, but its ask was given short shrift.
It might just explain why in the following year, and perhaps the internal riot act was read, and if it wasn’t it should have been, the Welsh Government was going to spend on anything that moved. This might explain why, for example, it paid £4.25m to acquire Gileston Farm in Powys.
In that financial year the Welsh Government was allowed to carry forward £180m of unspent funding into 2022-23 on top of its £350m reserve. There was no clawback. The Welsh Government did not request any additional carry forward from 2022-23 into 2023-24 on top of the £350m reserve.
The Welsh Government decides how it spends its block grant. The Barnett floor - a rare concession from the Treasury which was secured by the effective lobbying of former Secretary of State for Wales Stephen Crabb - ensures Wales gets a comparable funding settlement of 115% to that in England to reflect greater need.
However, the split between revenue - which covers every day-to-day spending - and capital is set by the UK Government.
The Welsh Government usually uses additional budget allocations during a financial year, as a result normally of Budget and Autumn Statement fiscal events, to mirror new spending commitments in England. There are no rules on how the reserve is constituted. In other words it could be solely made up of unspent capital, revenue, or a combination of the two.
The £155m that the UK Treasury took back from the Welsh Government for 2020-21 didn’t then get spent in England - which would have been a rub salt into the wound step to far. What it effectively meant was that the Westminster government did have to add it to its eye-watering national debt through borrowing.
The development bank is viewed as being within the accounting envelope of the Welsh Government. But some departments did better than others. In transport, under the behemoth that is the department for Climate Change, it was able to finance improvements to the Newport to Ebbw Vale rail line - even though it is not a devolved rail asset - by way of a creative £70m loan to Blaenau Gwent Council.
So, why didn’t it give more local authorities money for shovel ready projects? Well, that needs a be a two-way approved process. Creative accounting and providing funding for projects not green lit could have potentially seen civil servants having to explain themselves in front of a public accounts committee.
But for all that risk, the Welsh Government should have been more fleet of foot in ensuring there wasn’t a clawback. And until very recently, it has also exhibited an over cautious approach to the use of its capital borrowing powers - up to £1bn in a parliamentary term. One would imagine that a Labour administration in Cardiff Bay would have ensured that it maximised borrowing powers for capital investment, but alas no.
Under the Wales Act 2014 and 2017 the Welsh Government has the ability to borrow up to £150m a year for capital, via the UK Government issuing of gilts through the National Loans Fund. It also has also borrow £200m a year for resource expenditure, which it has never used.
So while each year since the legislation, the Scottish Government has ‘maxed out’ on its borrowing facility, there has been a timidness in the Welsh Government to do the same - although for 2022-23 it did for the first time use the entire borrowing facility, in part to finance the South Wales Metro electrification project.
For the next First Minister, whether Jeremy Miles or Vaughan Gething, the Welsh Government needs to have a stronger treasury function at its heart. The £155m clawback might have an been an exceptional event due to the pandemic, but Wales could learn from Scotland in how to maximum its spending and borrowing powers, regardless of having to deal with an inflexible Treasury.
And it not just ensuring money is spent effectively, but as we enter a challenging funding period, it would benefit form have a treasury with expertise to be able to assess and support ministers as to where best not to spend. | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
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| The Drakeford report on 08:24 - Dec 20 with 1333 views | felixstowe_jack |
| The Drakeford report on 17:23 - Dec 19 by Wingstandwood |
In all fairness to Jac, he belongs to the miniscule minority of Welsh-Nats who are well and truly switched on, not in denial and are all too aware by knowing who exactly is at fault!
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Correct Welsh Labour. | |
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| The Drakeford report on 09:36 - Dec 20 with 1321 views | Gwyn737 |
| The Drakeford report on 23:50 - Dec 19 by Boundy |
Interesting read in Business live regarding the recent claw back of 155 million back to the treasury
"The Welsh Government clearly signalled in advance of its draft budget that it simply didn’t have the financial resources to feed so many legitimate and competing hungry mouths.
For its 2024-25 financial year, it is facing a significant real terms cut to its budget, when factoring the corroding impact of inflation and trying to protect its biggest budgetary commitment in health.
Even with a Labour administration in Westminster next year, or possibly at the start of 2025, there will be further financial pain again in 2025-26 with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves taking a prudent fiscal position with her party’s rapprochement with the City of London and business.
If the Welsh Government, as should be the case, was given the freedom to move capital into revenue without Treasury approval - it can without limitation in reverse - it would hardly mark an arrival at destination ‘sunlit uplands’, but merely a ‘robbing Peter to feed Paul’ scenario.
Capital investment is urgently required to help upgrade and enhance Wales’ infrastructure, from rail to broadband, and creating an environment to help firm investment, create jobs and become more productive.
The mistake of George Osborne’s austerity era, which impacted the Welsh Government’s block grant, was the short-sightedness of turning off the capital spending tap at a time when inflation was more benign and government borrowing cheaper. The implications of under investment in infrastructure across the UK are being acutely felt today.
However, it’s not that long ago when the Welsh Government saw its block grant swelling as a result of the pandemic with a flow of billions in Barnett Formula consequentials created by the UK Government’s pandemic response spending, particularly on personal protective equipment (PPE). The Welsh Government’s total budget in the 2020-21 financial year reached £25bn. The challenges for ministers, and ultimately the ‘doers’ in civil servants, was getting the money out the door.
To its credit the Cardiff Bay administration was cost-effective in its PPE procurement activities: unlike the profligate Westminster government with its VIP fast line for private sector firms, leading to legitimate concerns over value for money, cronyism and potential fraud.
But the Welsh Government PR machine did a very effective job labelling the UK Government as the ‘bad cop’ earlier this year when it emerged that at the end of the 2020-21 financial year it had exceeded its carry (the reserve) into the next financial year, which resulted in the Treasury clawing back £155m of its allocated funding.
Pre-pandemic the Welsh Government’s reserve was £350m but what the Welsh Government didn’t readily explain was that the UK Treasury increased its reserve to take account of the significant rise in its budget.
Along with its existing end of year carry of £350m, this saw the Cardiff Bay administration being given £660m in additional reserve leg room - taking the total reserve capacity to just over £1bn. However, even with the ability to carry that amount of uncommitted spending into 2021-22, it still found itself liable for the clawback of £155m
.Now, these were unprecedented times with consequential payments from the UK Government coming thick and fast. It would not be an exaggeration to say that ministers and civil servants would open up the funding account to see that millions had been deposited overnight.
There was also the fact that payments were still coming in right up to the end of the financial year to March end, making it harder for money to be assigned, whether for revenue or capital.
Late into the financial year the Welsh Government made a request to the Treasury to be able to move capital into revenue, but its ask was given short shrift.
It might just explain why in the following year, and perhaps the internal riot act was read, and if it wasn’t it should have been, the Welsh Government was going to spend on anything that moved. This might explain why, for example, it paid £4.25m to acquire Gileston Farm in Powys.
In that financial year the Welsh Government was allowed to carry forward £180m of unspent funding into 2022-23 on top of its £350m reserve. There was no clawback. The Welsh Government did not request any additional carry forward from 2022-23 into 2023-24 on top of the £350m reserve.
The Welsh Government decides how it spends its block grant. The Barnett floor - a rare concession from the Treasury which was secured by the effective lobbying of former Secretary of State for Wales Stephen Crabb - ensures Wales gets a comparable funding settlement of 115% to that in England to reflect greater need.
However, the split between revenue - which covers every day-to-day spending - and capital is set by the UK Government.
The Welsh Government usually uses additional budget allocations during a financial year, as a result normally of Budget and Autumn Statement fiscal events, to mirror new spending commitments in England. There are no rules on how the reserve is constituted. In other words it could be solely made up of unspent capital, revenue, or a combination of the two.
The £155m that the UK Treasury took back from the Welsh Government for 2020-21 didn’t then get spent in England - which would have been a rub salt into the wound step to far. What it effectively meant was that the Westminster government did have to add it to its eye-watering national debt through borrowing.
The development bank is viewed as being within the accounting envelope of the Welsh Government. But some departments did better than others. In transport, under the behemoth that is the department for Climate Change, it was able to finance improvements to the Newport to Ebbw Vale rail line - even though it is not a devolved rail asset - by way of a creative £70m loan to Blaenau Gwent Council.
So, why didn’t it give more local authorities money for shovel ready projects? Well, that needs a be a two-way approved process. Creative accounting and providing funding for projects not green lit could have potentially seen civil servants having to explain themselves in front of a public accounts committee.
But for all that risk, the Welsh Government should have been more fleet of foot in ensuring there wasn’t a clawback. And until very recently, it has also exhibited an over cautious approach to the use of its capital borrowing powers - up to £1bn in a parliamentary term. One would imagine that a Labour administration in Cardiff Bay would have ensured that it maximised borrowing powers for capital investment, but alas no.
Under the Wales Act 2014 and 2017 the Welsh Government has the ability to borrow up to £150m a year for capital, via the UK Government issuing of gilts through the National Loans Fund. It also has also borrow £200m a year for resource expenditure, which it has never used.
So while each year since the legislation, the Scottish Government has ‘maxed out’ on its borrowing facility, there has been a timidness in the Welsh Government to do the same - although for 2022-23 it did for the first time use the entire borrowing facility, in part to finance the South Wales Metro electrification project.
For the next First Minister, whether Jeremy Miles or Vaughan Gething, the Welsh Government needs to have a stronger treasury function at its heart. The £155m clawback might have an been an exceptional event due to the pandemic, but Wales could learn from Scotland in how to maximum its spending and borrowing powers, regardless of having to deal with an inflexible Treasury.
And it not just ensuring money is spent effectively, but as we enter a challenging funding period, it would benefit form have a treasury with expertise to be able to assess and support ministers as to where best not to spend. |
Penultimate paragraph is interesting.
Yesterday, Scotland introduced another income tax bracket- 45% for those earning £75k - £125k
Looks like their trying to raise revenue as opposed the the WAG who are cutting all over the shop. | | | |
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