Earlier this summer, the First Minister of Wales informed the media that we had to brace ourselves for £900m of cuts.

After months of speculation and anxiety in public services, we finally received further detail on the government finances halfway into October.

Far from clarifying matters, the extra detail brought with it further questions.

For example, the statement kicked off with the news that an extra £550m has been found for spending in the NHS and Transport for Wales. Confused?

Well, you are not the only ones.

I have spoken to a number of journalists this week whose job is to digest, analyse and present politics in a digestible format week-in, week-out, and it is fair to say that they have been left baffled by the statement from the government.

It has not helped matters that Rebecca Evans - the Finance Minister - has maintained talk of a £900m deficit while the First Minister has bandied about a figure of £600m when talking about the blackhole in the Welsh Government budget.

Whichever is the right number when it comes to the deficit, the figures in the Finance Minister’s statement just do not seem to add up.

As I said earlier, this is causing confusion and it is causing consternation because there is little confidence in the figures that have been provided. This is why I have secured cross-party support in the Finance Committee that I chair to invite the Finance Minister to appear before us at her earliest convenience.

There is a real need to scrutinise the Welsh Government budget in greater detail to see the state of the current finances. Until we have that scrutiny, we will be missing the accountability that is central to any healthy democratic system. So far, it feels like we have had smoke and mirrors from the Welsh Government and that is not good enough.

I also question the heavy reliance in the Welsh Government’s approach of going cap in hand to the UK government to ask for permission and flexibility in the form of an agreement to turn capital spend to revenue spend. If the relationship between the two governments was a healthy one, this would not ordinarily be a problem.

However, understanding and flexibility are in short supply when it comes to Westminster’s approach to Wales. We have been shafted far too many times to list them here but the example of no Barnett consequential from the England-only HS2 project – which should have seen £5 billion come to Wales for investment in rail projects – is the latest and starkest example.

I fear that the Finance Minister will only be met with obstinacy from the Tories and this will leave her plans to balance the books in tatters.