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Care Forum Wales' cautious welcome for Draft Budget
Care Forum Wales joined the largest charity working for older people
in Wales yesterday to give a cautious welcome to the Welsh Assembly's
draft budget outlined in the Senedd by Finance Minister Jane Hutt (on
November 17, 2010).
Ms Hutt unveiled a draft Assembly Government Budget which she said
would fall by £860m next year and be £1.8bn lower by 2014-15.
The care sector will be hit by cuts to the health budget - total
health spending will fall by 7.6% - as well as by cuts in environment,
sustainability and housing which will see its budget fall by more than
a fifth (21%).
However the chief executive of Care Forum Wales, Mario Kreft, said:
"Obviously the budget reflects the harsh economic times we're living
in but it is also an opportunity for us all to look at new ways of
working across the whole care sector.
"Wales needs local government and the NHS to develop deeper partnership working
arrangements with this independent care sector. This will promote innovation and provide
high quality services with real efficiency savings," he added.
Victoria Lloyd, director of influencing and programme development at
Age Cymru, also gave an initial welcome to the budget.
She said: “Our initial response is that we believe this overall budget
presents a fair deal for older people in Wales, however it will take
some time to sift through and analyse the details of today’s
announcement.
"At this stage the impacts on individual programmes such as the
Strategy for Older People in Wales – an important and groundbreaking
initiative to tackle pensioner poverty, ill-health and age
discrimination - are unclear.â€
For her comments in full see:
www.ageuk.org.uk/cymru/latest-
For more information see:
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/
Summary of Welsh Assembly Government's Draft Budget changes:
* Health and social services has been protected from any cash reductions in its budget in 2011-12 and 2012-13 and receives a small cash rise in 2013-14. This level of protection reflects our commitment to ensuring the provision of frontline services across
* This protection also provides a solid platform for the NHS to take forward its 5-year service plans following the 2009 reforms. We are also protecting the social services element of the Health and Social Services budget.
* Revenue funding for 2011-12 and 2012-13 remains at the same level as the budget for 2010-11. This means that all unavoidable cost increase (including pay awards inflationary pressures) will need to be self-funded by savings. In 2013-14 the budget increases by £13.8 m or 0.2%.
The Capital budget to 2013-14 has decreased by £83.5 m or 27.5% with the largest reduction (-12.6%) occurring in 2911-12.
click here to read full summary.
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