| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon): The Secretary of State emphasises that he is giving greater flexibility to local authorities, but does he accept that one area of the settlement in which flexibility has been taken away from local authorities is housing renovation? By taking a proportion of those funds into a central pool, the right hon. Gentleman has left local authorities such as mine in an uncertain position, now that they have lost £3.5 million from housing renovation funds. It appears that authorities are not to know until mid-March what their allocation from the fund will be.
Will the Secretary of State consider giving indicative figures some time this month, so that the authorities can go ahead and draw up their budget for housing in good time for the beginning of the next financial year? Without that, their housing renovation funds will be in chaos.
Mr. Michael:
Setting priorities as we have done in matters such as education means that there are certain other budgets which, although we would love to increase them, we cannot increase to the extent that we would like.
Mr. Alan W. Williams (East Carmarthen and Dinefwr):
Did I correctly understand my right hon. Friend to say that we are now getting rid of rate capping? Given that we hope to get objective 1 funding from next year, does that mean that, however much objective 1 funding is available, if the Welsh Office cannot make adequate matching funds available, local authorities will be able set their own rate so that they can provide the 25 per cent. from within their own resources?
Mr. Michael:
I said that we are abolishing crude and universal capping. It is in that spirit that I have worked with the WLGA, rather than set levels. That is the reason for my response to the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), who appears not to have understood the point. As for objective 1 funding, its financial implications for local authorities, and our working out how best to take advantage of it, I shall be discussing the matter with the WLGA as soon as we are certain of the decision--in respect of which I share my hon. Friend's optimism.
Mr. Swayne:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to refuse to answer perfectly proper questions asked by hon. Members in the House, and instead to say that it his intention to discuss the matter with the Welsh local authorities?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
I understand the hon. Gentleman to be talking about his intervention. The Minister's reply to it was perfectly in order.
Mr. Michael:
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman understood neither his own question nor the answer he received. Other hon. Members here present will understand me when I say that I commend the approach of the WLGA, with local authority leaders arguing their corner robustly, but in a positive atmosphere which contrasts dramatically with relations under the previous Government.
Mr. Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd):
May I join in the exchange, in a positive and robust manner, to fight the corner of my county and my constituency? My right hon. Friend will be aware that, for the past two years, I have taken up the issue of Rhuddlan borough debt, specific to my constituency and my county. I am aware that he will not wind up today's debate, so may I take this opportunity to ask what action he has taken in respect of Rhuddlan borough debt?
Mr. Michael:
I understand my hon. Friend's point. The problem arises not from the current local authority, but from its predecessor, and is a somewhat complex financial issue. My predecessor gave Denbighshire credit approvals of £2.5 million, repayable over five years, to help it to meet the problems that it inherited from the former Rhuddlan borough council. More recently, I offered to delay the repayment of credit approvals to help the
I have heard today that Denbighshire has accepted my offer. I am pleased that the council has also confirmed that the district auditor is content with the proposed arrangements. That enables the council to tackle the immediate problems that it faces, and to identify the scope of any issues which may not previously have been identified. I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend, and others who have an interest in the matter, in order to get the facts completely clear and to continue working with the council to find a solution to the problems that it faces.
It is clear that the formula used to distribute funding to local government is not perfect. Last summer, the Welsh Office and the Welsh Local Government Association agreed to fund an independent review of the SSA formula. The contract was awarded to the economics department of Swansea university, which will provide a final report this month. The Welsh Consultative Council on Local Government Finance will consider the report at the end of March. In the longer term, it will fall to the National Assembly and local government, through the Partnership Council, to agree which changes are to be implemented for the 2000-01 settlement, and for later years. That is a good example of how partnership between central and local government can bring about change. We all hope that the outcome of the review will be a formula that delivers a fairer and more equitable settlement to local authorities in Wales.
The £22.2 million that I am providing for council tax damping, through the council tax reduction scheme, will protect council tax payers from the continuing mismatch between SSAs and grant allocations. The scheme should ensure that increases for about two thirds of council tax payers in Wales are limited to about £1 a week. The parameters of the damping scheme were agreed by the WLGA, and as a consequence, the amount of damping grant for 1999-2000 has fallen by nearly 30 per cent. compared with this year.
The settlement provides an additional £70.2 million for local authority education services. My hon. Friend the Member for Neath and I will be monitoring budgets to ensure that at least that extra amount is spent on education. The increase supports the Government's commitment to improve standards of education not just in schools, where we expect the bulk of the money to be spent, but more widely, through initiatives such as the one for life long learning.
We are committed to improving the lives of children in public care in Wales. I have therefore made available an additional £5 million to support the introduction of a programme to improve the quality of local authority children's services and the life chances of children who are looked after by the local authority, by ensuring that they have the necessary education, health care and other support to make a successful transition to adulthood and independence.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney):
The additional £5 million is very welcome. It will be
Mr. Michael:
I understand the nature of the problem to which my hon. Friend points. As a member of the ministerial group which undertook detailed and serious work in response to the Utting report, I am acutely aware of the need for Wales to address those issues. I have also set aside a further £1 million to provide central support for councils' efforts to improve services for children living away from home. We need to look carefully at services for children, in co-operation with the Welsh Local Government Association and others that have an interest in the welfare of children.
I shall be working with local authorities and others to bring about an holistic approach to the needs of those leaving care. Very often, they have continuing personal difficulties and face problems with housing and employment. We should ensure that we provide joined-up solutions to joined-up problems. Some of the issues of social exclusion and of promoting social inclusion are very relevant to precisely the group of children and young people to which my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) referred.
The report of the north Wales child abuse tribunal of inquiry will have lessons to teach us about the need for constant vigilance to ensure that children living away from home are properly looked after and their welfare safeguarded. That, too, addresses the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. I have undertaken to present the report to the House as soon as possible after I receive it, and the tribunal's findings will inform the development of the programme to which I referred earlier.
During the consultation on the provisional settlement, I received many representations about funding for the police. As I said earlier, the bulk of police funding is allocated by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, using a common formula for Wales and England. The concerns that were raised with me related mainly to the method that had been used to calculate capital charges, which inform the only part of the funding received by the police that I decide.
In response to the concerns about the sudden and unexpected results of the application of the Wales formula to capital charges, I decided to change the way in which capital charges are calculated. I stress that nobody had anticipated that the formula would have those unintended and damaging consequences. The final settlement takes account of that point and represents an improvement of £1.8 million over the provisional figures for the police in Wales.
I am pleased to be able to confirm my plans to delegate the strategic development scheme to local authorities. I have worked closely with the Welsh Local Government Association and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action to agree robust arrangements to ensure that the change will not lead to a cut in funding for the voluntary sector, a concern that was widely expressed. Instead, it will lead
to more creative, co-operative and productive working between the sector and councils across a broad span of services.
Decisions should be made at a local level, but there must be partnerships between councils and the voluntary sector to ensure that best value is achieved. Meetings with county voluntary councils or their equivalents have taken place or are about to take place in all 22 authority areas in Wales. That is clear evidence that the agreement is working in practice. I am also pleased to say that the WLGA and the WCVA have agreed with me to set a September deadline for agreeing compacts in each part of Wales to reflect at local authority level the Welsh compact between Government and the voluntary sector.
My predecessor and I have made significant progress in building a strong partnership with local government in Wales. The National Assembly for Wales will build on the strong foundation that we have laid.
Partnership can help us to achieve the shared aim of providing the best possible service to the public. Through best value and meaningful consultation we shall be able to ensure that the services provided are meeting the needs of people in Wales. Traditional patterns of service provision have created boundaries, and people at the margins have fallen through the cracks between services. The Government's approach to social inclusion--as we describe it within Welsh policy and the Welsh budget--aims to ensure that those cracks between services are closed and that the most vulnerable in our society are not forgotten.
Following the comprehensive spending review, the Government have been able to provide local government with certainty of funding. The indicative figures that I have published for the two years after 1999-2000 will allow local government to plan more effectively into the future. Service priorities can be planned over a three-year horizon, and local government welcomes that.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |