Will the Cabinet Secretary outline the reasons for the decrease in the post-16 education budget in 2019-20?
The Welsh Government continues to set our Budgets against one of the longest periods of sustained austerity in living memory. The UK Government has consistently and persistently cut funding for public services. The Welsh Government’s budget will be 5% lower in real terms in 2019-20 than it was in 2010-11 – equivalent to £900m less to spend on public services, with our revenue budget 7% lower, some £1bn less to spend on front-line services.
If our budget had grown in line with the UK economy since 2010 we would have £4.1 billion more to invest in public services in 2019-20 than was available to us in our last Budget.
Building on work undertaken for previous budgets, we have undertaken a continual line by line review of budgets to establish how further reductions can be managed whilst continuing to reflect our priorities. Whilst difficult decisions have had to be made, our priorities for education in Wales remain unchanged and our published spending plans for 2018-19 and 2019-20 reflect this.
In recent years we have been encouraging more efficient delivery of post-16 provision via the work of Regional Skills Partnerships and local consortia. We have supported this with significant capital funding to create learning centres such as Deeside Sixth, Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone and Campus6 Pembrokeshire where appropriate.
At the same time, whilst the proportion of employers in Wales who provide training has remained relatively unchanged between 2011 and 2015 (fluctuating between 62 and 63 per cent), the proportion of staff trained in Wales rose from 56 per cent in 2011 to 64 per cent in 2015. In addition, employer investment in skills has grown faster in Wales than in the other UK nations, increasing from £1.6bn in 2011 to £2.1bn in 2015.
We will of course continue to work closely with all providers in the post-16 sector, and their respective regional skills partnerships and consortia, to try and find efficiencies that have the least possible impact on the learners in Wales, whilst looking at improving the skills of our staff, and work with Welsh Government colleagues to identify integration and collaboration across the organisation. This is in keeping with the Well Being and Future Generations Act.