, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Of course, yes.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
That my be true in general terms and that maybe truer in some areas than others, but what I can say is that, in my own constituency, which happens to fall into the same kind of area of deprivation as your own, we have seen local clubs that have applied for…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
So, I assume the department that's responsible for that would know that.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
With local authorities? Well, each local authority has to put an active travel plan together and submit to Welsh Government—
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Well, I think, it goes back, actually, to your earlier question, Alun, when you were making the comparisons between us and other countries. I started by saying that we've got the highest level of capital investment ever in sporting facilities and my remit…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
He's now going to have to explain why he was changing in the changing rooms in his school.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Hefin, I just said that about gymnastics, so it wasn't just on you; you'll be fine.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
But there were other things, and I think—
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
I can relate to that.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
I think that's right. Hefin was saying to me recently—we were having a conversation about this, and he was telling me—he used to hide in the changing rooms when he was at school, because he didn't want to get involved in school—
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Yes, and that was, I think, what I was trying to allude to earlier on when I was talking about some of the activities that we've seen, for instance, in the Summer of Fun activities, the kind of stuff that we saw with the urban games at the weekend. Those are…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Absolutely.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Well, no, I don't mean about that. You can set the targets, but then how those targets are delivered sometimes can be driven for the wrong purposes and the wrong way. So, I wouldn't rule it out, Hefin, but I'm not a big fan of targets.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Well, certainly, the cross-party working, I think, is already happening. I talked earlier on about some of the things that we are already doing through social prescribing, through the work that I do with the Deputy Minister for mental health. I've just talked…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
But it would also be my ambition as the Minister with responsibility for sport, and participation and activity in sport, that we can access those facilities.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Yes, and I think that is absolutely right. And when I say they're the heart of the community, they're the heart of the community in the sense that, at some point in time, everybody has to use the school, or nearly everybody has to use the school. And, again…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Well, sometimes, yes—
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Yes, I think that would be a reasonable thing to ask local authorities to do. Local authorities could be having conversations with schools that have good facilities. As I say, it is a matter for the governing bodies of those schools, but there's no reason why…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Absolutely, we'll do that, Alun, but just to say, Chair, that those programmes, those pilots are being evaluated in August this year. So, I can certainly write and tell you about them, yes, but we'll have the full evaluation after August.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Okay. So, I certainly think that school facilities should be available to the community. You will appreciate that I'm not the Minister for education, so I don't actually have an awful lot of control over that, and schools do make their own decisions…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Again, they're very fair points. I think what we perhaps forget, because we don't see it necessarily as a sport fund but it actually does assist in the way that you're talking about, is the pupil development grant. The pupil development grant is available for…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Yes, absolutely, because again that is very clearly set out in the remit letter to Sport Wales that those are exactly the considerations they have to take into account when determining how they're going to spend the capital allocation on grass-roots…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
Again, I think that's a fair point and it's something that—
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
You will appreciate, because you've sat in my seat before now, that you work within the budgets that you've got available to you, and within that, you work to maximise the money that you've got. And we have absolutely maxed out on capital investment over the…
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Participation in sport in disadvantaged areas: Evidence session with the Welsh Government
It's more than has ever gone in before—
