, Minister for Finance and
Local Government: I am today announcing an additional £25m for
local authorities in 2024-25 to support the social care
workforce, schools and to help councils respond to other
pressures in their local communities. The extra funding will form
part of the Welsh Government’s Final Budget proposals, which will
be published on 27 February, reflecting our commitment to target
investment towards the public services we value the most.
On 24 January, the UK Government announced it would be increasing
its local government settlement by £600m in England, largely to
respond to pressures in social care. I have been advised this
should result in a consequential allocation of around £25m for
Wales in 2024-25. This, together with any other changes to our
settlement, will only be confirmed at the UK Government’s Spring
Budget on 6 March alongside any other positive and/or negative
movements to our budget.
Local authorities and Senedd members have raised the difficult
decisions local authorities are facing next year in this
extraordinary harsh financial climate, even with the 3.1% uplift
to the revenue support grant we have provided for 2024-25 in the
Draft Budget. To provide local authorities with as much
financial stability as possible in these hard times – as early as
possible – I am today confirming an additional £25m will be
allocated to local government in the 2024-25 Final Budget.
Part of this funding will be used to restore the social care
workforce grant to £45m in 2024-25. The remaining £14.4m will be
allocated to the revenue support grant as part of the settlement
to support pressures in both social care and education, including
teachers’ pay.
This supports one of the key principles we had in setting the
draft budget – to protect core public services as far as
possible.
The funding floor, which I put in place for 2024-25, remains.
This increased funding now means that no individual authority has
an increase lower than 2.3%.
