Written question WQ90108
- Asked by
- Sam RowlandsConservative
- To be answered by
- Minister for Finance and Local Government
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 10 days
Question
What discussions has the Minister had with individual Welsh local authority leaders since September on the issue of the local government funding formula, and what was the nature of those discussions?
Answer
Answered by Minister for Finance and Local Government
I discuss the local government settlement formula with leaders through the Finance Sub Group (FSG) of the Partnership Council on a regular basis. The last meeting was on the 25 October. Minutes for the meetings up to 6 July can be found at Finance Sub-group | GOV.WALES. At the meeting on the 25 October, the work of the technical group advising the FSG, the Distribution Sub Group, was discussed. Areas highlighted included the data to be used in the 24-25 settlement following the expected publication of revised mid year estimates by ONS and the unfreezing of data sets previously frozen due to the impact of the pandemic period.
In addition to these standing arrangements, some Leaders have taken the opportunity to raise local perspectives on the formula in my visits and meetings with them over the past few months. This has included interest in sparsity and deprivation weightings as well as general trends in population movements.