Welsh Government budgetary trade-offs : looking forward to 2021-22

2018 is a watershed year for devolution in Wales. From this year forward, each annual budget will now incorporate decisions on Welsh taxes, borrowing for capital expenditure, and any use of a new facility called the Welsh Reserve. In addition, recent developments at the UK level – the Autumn Statement 2016, the Spring Budget 2017 and the General Election – each have an impact at the Welsh level through the UK’s block grant to Wales. This report sets out the key changes to the UK fiscal context and to Welsh devolution over the past year, and using this as a basis, runs through a number of public spending scenarios. It demonstrates that current UK spending plans could result in a further and potentially damaging period of cuts in unprotected services. With new devolved tax powers expected to have only a limited impact on total spending by 2021-22, decisions about the future balance between protected and unprotected services are likely to become increasingly stark and may prompt questions about the affordability of the current range of services.