Belated Birthday Greetings

I appear to have inadvertently missed a very important anniversary. Last Friday, 20th June, marked exactly one year since the Assembly Government announced that it was to set up a commission to examine the funding formula which determines the resources available to Wales.

The decision, of course, predated One Wales; there was a minority Labour government at the time whilst negotiations continued. The motion came from the opposition, and the government, staring defeat in the face, took the sensible precaution of agreeing with the motion instead.

Now a cynic might feel that they did so confident in the knowledge that once they had finalised a coalition deal, they would be able to kick this one into the long grass. However, I'm sure that isn't true, and that somewhere deep in Tŷ Hywel, or maybe in Cathays Park, there is an entire team of civil servants busily working away at preparing detailed terms of reference. And they've hit all sorts of problems of detail which prevent them from making any progress. Or else it's a one man team and (s)he's on long term sick leave.

Or maybe there are just 'other priorities'; there must be lots of things more important than how much money they have to spend.

I'll try harder to remember next year's anniversary.