Janet Finch-Saunders
Cabinet Secretary, the recent Health Foundation report, ‘The path to sustainability: Funding projections for the NHS in Wales to 2019/20 and 2030/31’, highlights the need for an increase of around 60 per cent in funding to £10.4 billion by 2030-31 in order to meet the forthcoming predicted demand. They also identify the need for greater efficiency, and we know that smarter ways of working, particularly in the integration of health and social care, are a must. Based on your forthcoming local government reforms, which, of course, are to include a footprint of seven regional consortia, to include health and social care, what plans are you putting in place now to ensure that greater efficiencies could be made through a fully integrated health and social care model?
Mark Drakeford
Well, I share the Member’s belief that closer integration between health and social care brings benefits both to patients and to users, and can help to drive financial efficiencies. It’s why, in next year’s budget, we maintain the £60 million care fund to drive greater integration between health and social care. It’s why we will have pooled budgets operating on the regional social services footprints, and it is why, in the discussions that I am having with local authorities in Wales, the notion of bringing social services together on a regional basis, facing health boards, helps us to make progress, and rapid progress, in that direction.
Janet Finch-Saunders
Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The future generations commissioner has warned that public services could fall off a cliff without more being done to prevent people from becoming ill. This includes, obviously, quality housing and leisure services. Further, the Welsh Local Government Association has expressed concerns that NHS budgetary pressures could see non-healthcare services that help people stay healthy losing out. How will you ensure a streamlined approach through local government to promote public health, not just through the NHS, but through all public services provided at local government level, and how will you ensure that, throughout any reform process, this will be a key priority?
Mark Drakeford
Any person with the responsibility of making a budget for the Welsh Government has to face the competing priorities that are there for expenditure. In the budget that I have laid before this Assembly, we seek to do that, with £240 million additional investment in our health service direct, but also, as a result of our budget agreement, are able to provide a no-cash-cuts budget for local authorities as well, with £25 million identified specifically for social services within that. The general point that the Member makes is one that I endorse: the future for the health service depends upon each one of us being willing to take more responsibility for creating the conditions in which we take better care of our own health. So, much of what the health service deals with today are problems that need never have happened had people made different decisions in their own lives. It’s the responsibility of Government to create the conditions in which those decisions can be made, and our local government budgets are key to helping to do that.
Janet Finch-Saunders
Thank you. And, finally, turning to community councils, as part of your local government reform, how do you intend to proceed with a fundamental review of the democratic level of governance that sits at town and community level?
Mark Drakeford
I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for that question. I know she’s got a particular interest in town and community councils. I said in my statement on 4 October that there were a series of immediate things I feel we can do to improve the operation of the system as we have it today, but I also wanted a more root-and-branch and independent look at town and community councils to find the ways in which we can harness the things that they do very well. In many parts of Wales, that sector does some very important things very well, but it doesn’t do it uniformly. There is a democratic deficit in the sector, with over half of town and community council seats uncontested at the last election. I’m grateful to her for the discussions we’ve had on this matter and I look forward to being able to continue with them to design that root-and-branch re-assessment.