Where is the voluntary sector in the draft budget?

Natalie Zhivkova, WCVA’s Policy & Insights Manager discusses the challenges facing voluntary organisations that Welsh Government’s draft budget fails to address.

Welsh Government just published its 2025/26 draft ‘Budget for a Brighter Future’. We are relieved to see a more positive budget featuring funding increases instead of cuts, but with strikingly few references to prevention, a big question remains.

Will voluntary organisations receive a fair share and will that be enough to counteract the impact of the cost of living crisis, and the upcoming Employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and National Living Wage (NLW) increases?

The lack of portfolio-level detail available on budget publication day is always a challenge. This year, the big difference between the amount of funding Welsh Government was planning to distribute and the much bigger settlement received from UK Government, is making initial scrutiny particularly tricky.

We note a modest £10m increase for Social Justice and much more substantial increases for Health and Social Care, as well as Finance and Local Government. However, we also see a worrying continuation of last year’s shift away from long-term thinking and preventative spending in the budget narrative, despite the considerable expansion of Welsh Government’s overall budget. This has left us wondering which budget elements are designed to ensure the brighter future we are promised.

As we wait for Cabinet Secretaries to devise their spending plans, there is no better time to shine a light on the state of the voluntary sector.