Next week the Health Minister and Labour leadership candidate, Edwina Hart will be going before committee to answer questions on her section of the budget. There are two immediate issues that stand out, the cut in the capital budget of £115.8 million and the £50 million put aside to pay for the reorganisation of the health service.
On the capital budget there appears to be mixed messages coming from Ministers. At Plenary on Wednesday the Finance Minister denied categorically that there had been a cut in the health services’ capital budget at all:
Andrew Davies: You are factually incorrect to say that the health capital budget has been cut by an alleged £114 million. What you forget is that the Government was allowed to bring forward capital expenditure from 2010-11 to this year and the previous year, which meant that the allocation for this current year was increased as a result of that reprofiling and was reduced in 2010-11. However, that did not represent a cut because the money was spent this year and the previous year. So, saying that that is a cut is illegitimate.
Yet in an answer to a written question to me the Health Minister states that only £29.2 million has been brought forward from 2010-11. So on that basis there is a clear cut of £86.6 million in the capital budget for health. That means less money for equipment, for making health service premises safe and for modernisation. Of course there is money that the Health Minister can bid for from the Strategic Capital Investment Fund, of which she already had £86 million, some of which will be spent this year. But this will go on specific projects rather than new equipment for example.
The other issue the Minister needs to clear up is her own contradictory statements on capital money brought forward. As I said above, a written answer to me indicated that this amounts to £29.2 million though her report to committee states it is £58.4 million. It is little wonder that the budget process is so opaque when the Minister cannot even produce consistent facts within the space of a single week.
The cost of reorganising the health service is another matter. We have been led to believe in the past that this process will actually save money and yet a sum of £50 million has been put aside next year to pay for it. Anybody wanting to find out where that money is going needs to look no further than this morning’s Western Mail.
They report that NHS chief executives and finance directors displaced by the new arrangements have a guarantee that their existing salaries will be protected for 10 years. Many are earning in excess of £100,000 a year. This is due to the policy of no compulsory redundancies, which means that despite the reduction in senior posts, those who wish to stay are being accommodated.
This is similar to the process that happened when quangos such as ELWa were subsumed into the Welsh Government. Many former employees of that body are working in jobs now that could appear to have been invented to keep them on the books.
I expect some robust questioning on Wednesday.
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