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I thought that the NHS Assembly voted to move towards correcting the distance from target issue for many CCGs - there was a workshop and a vote. Then December came and the announcement was "flat allocation" again. Why ask the Assembly to vote and then completely disregard the considered opinion? Are the quarter of CCGs facing financial difficulty the same as the PCTs who were most distant from target allocation when the pace of change was frozen (for now the 3rd year). Being distant from target, year on year, accumulates lack of investment in health economies and they become more efficient through necessity until there comes a point when they can't innovate any more and services become rationed - again through necessity. In the meantime, perhaps less efficient health economies who find themselves in the enviable position of being positively above target get allocation as the same percentage of their previous large allocation. I thought that the Assembly made the bold move to support reallocation appropriately in a Robin Hood style move towards fairer allocations. Who made the decision to disregard the Assembly clear and considered steer towards fairer allocation? NHSE did in a private Part 2 session at their Board Meeting in December. No agenda published, no minutes available. Hardly an open transparent process to decide how to allocate £65 billion of public healthcare resources. I hope that CCGs will be more insistant on a transparent process this year.