9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
It's one of these quirks of Welsh Government, Carolyn, that Ministers actually have no say in the staffing issues around departments; that is within the purview of the Permanent Secretary. What I can say is I have an amazing team that work with me in children…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes, and I think it is a real challenge, isn't it, at a Government level, and it’s the kind of conversations that are taking place with the UK Government. Our budgets are set on an annual basis, so it's very, very difficult. As a Welsh Government we know what…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
They've filled the gap, yes.
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
No, that's absolutely right, and we've had conversations with the third sector around all of this, and it is something I think they would welcome. I had a meeting with them relatively recently where we talked about just what I'm saying now, the pockets of…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
I mean, there are a number of grants—. You're quite right, Carolyn; there are a number of grants that are that are allocated on an annual basis, but we do we do also allocate a significant number of grants on a three-year basis, particularly through the…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Did you also raise—? You were raising the question about three-year funding, was that specifically in relation to the ADSS and WLGA?
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Before that—. Before the spring statement, I think, yes.
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Is it in June? I don't know.
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
We do have an initial estimate of the insurance costs for the devolved public sector employees in Wales. We think it's about £253 million. That was what Hywel just said. But, beyond that, how all of that is going to be dealt with is going to be very much down…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes, and you're absolutely right, Carolyn, that, of course, national insurance is not devolved. It was not a decision taken by the Welsh Government, but the UK Government has confirmed that it's going to provide funding to public sector employers to cover the…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
On the National Adoption Service and Foster Wales, there’s a very specific pot of money that’s available to them. We’re absolutely committed to supporting foster services in local authorities. They’re an integral part of our transformation of children’s…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Absolutely. We know that we've got an awful lot of children that are still not covered by Flying Start. Flying Start is very different from a standard childcare offer. I think it's important to note that. We have two aspects of our childcare offer, don't we?…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes. I did a written statement on this a few weeks ago, when I announced the uplift in the hourly rate. Within that statement, I committed to an annual review of rates. Previously, it had been every three years, which is why things had fallen behind to the…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes.
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
No, not at all. The aim is still there, the objective is still there, it is still a programme for government commitment. It was part of the co-operation agreement, as you know, and we’re still committed to that. We’ve made very clear that we’re committed to…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
I think that’s a very good question, actually. The Families First programme and the new online family support programme, Teulu Cymru, is aimed at doing just that. So, Teulu Cymru is a new online service for all families to access to find out where is the most…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes, sure.
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
So, within the budget—. I’ll start by saying that we do, actually, acknowledge that childcare places for children with disabilities is a challenge, and we noticed that from the report that you did and we responded to that. So, what we have to do, in terms of…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes. Well, to a degree, I think I've just answered that in the previous question, so maybe I was anticipating where you were going with this. But, to be clear, we haven't expanded the childcare offer; what we have done is we've uprated the hourly rate and…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Yes. Well, I think we do have the obligation to roll out the Flying Start programme and before I answer that question in detail, it's probably important to explain what we have done with that, with the additional funding that has been in over the last two…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
No, no, no, no. But that is absolutely right, and I think it's probably important to say the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 requires all Ministers, regardless of their portfolio, to have due regard to the United Nations Convention…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
We absolutely expect them to be delivering the policies that we're setting out. So, I'll give you a 'for example'. We're currently taking a piece of significant, quite groundbreaking, legislation through the Senedd, as you know—the Health and Social Care…
9 January 2025 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 1
Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary is absolutely right, of course, the local authority budget is set by the local government main expenditure group, and that includes, primarily, the funding for social care. And it's the local authority's…
22 October 2024 , Plenary
& 9. The general principles of the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill and the financial resolution in respect of the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill
Thank you. I'll try and have a little bit more brevity this time. On commitment to future funding, what I can say is we have set out very clearly what we consider will be the funding levels required for the next three years. That will be a joint enterprise…
22 October 2024 , Plenary
& 9. The general principles of the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill and the financial resolution in respect of the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill
I've got lots more to say, Llywydd, but I am very conscious that I'm out of time, and I did say that I didn't feel that I was going to be able to get through all of the issues that were raised.
