Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Thank you, Cadeirydd. Bore da, Ms Neagle and Ms Howells. Bore da, bawb. Good to see you. I'm going to start with some questions about your general approach to setting the budget. The revenue budget in the draft budget increases education by £84 million, compared to the revised baseline, once non-cash money, such as student loans, are disregarded. Can you explain to the committee how that specific level of cash was decided on? So, was it that you were told how much was available and that you then decided what to do, or did you make a case for what you thought was needed and were given a particular amount as a result? So, how does the overall £84 million increase come about?

Okay. Thanks, Vaughan. It's good to be here with the committee. Setting the budget was an iterative process and, obviously, as you'll be aware, it involved working closely with Cabinet colleagues, in particular the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language. So, we were considering our requirements over the summer, using the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts from March 2024, and at that time the planning was done on a cash-flat basis, because that’s the expectation that we had. Information was fed in to the Cabinet Secretary for finance, who considered the information provided by all Ministers, and we had the usual bilaterals. Well, then, obviously, we had the UK Government’s autumn budget and the very welcome increase of £695 million revenue funding for next year, and then we had the opportunity, as a Cabinet, to consider how we would best allocate those additional resources. As a Cabinet, we had to consider pressures that were reported, statutory and contractual agreements, the need to rebuild public services following a period of austerity, but also, vitally, how we deliver on the First Minister’s priorities, and the committee will be aware that the First Minister set out four priorities. One of those was opportunity for every family, which includes boosting standards in schools.

So, our decisions in Government, in the draft budget, have been very much underpinned by these Government priorities. I have aligned the education budget to support the priorities for education, which were also my priorities anyway, in terms of improving attainment, especially with literacy and numeracy, improving attendance, which is obviously crucial for better attainment, but also I really wanted as well to try and make sure that we responded to the funding pressures that I’ve heard about since coming into post from schools and from local authorities. So, that was very much our focus and, as you’ve highlighted, that resulted in an additional £83.5 million for the education main expenditure group. I’m very fortunate also to have received in-year non-recurrent funding of £119 million for this year to also support our priorities in education.

As the committee will be aware, the vast majority of funding for schools goes through the local government settlement. I’m really pleased that we also saw an increase of 4.3 per cent, some £253 million, for the revenue support grant, and, with the discussions that I was having with the Cabinet Secretary for finance and Cabinet Secretary for local government, we’ve also made it clear, in the letter that went to local government notifying them of the settlement, that the increase was there to meet pressures that they had identified in education, additional learning needs, as well as, of course, in social care.

In tertiary education, the Minister and myself have, again, decided, in line with the First Minister’s priorities, to prioritise ensuring further education and sixth forms can meet the needs of learners. The data that we’re seeing so far from Medr suggests we’re seeing growing participation in further education, which is brilliant, and we’re expecting that to continue. We’ve also taken the decision to prioritise developing mental health and well-being support, and I know that this is an area that the committee has made previous recommendations on. So, the budget also includes an additional £29.2 million to Medr, and that’s to support the anticipated increased participation in FE and sixth forms in the next financial year, the expansion of the junior apprenticeships programme, which we’re both massive fans of, further development of well-being and mental health support in further and higher education, and the continuation of pay parity between schools and colleges, because we want our learners, wherever they study, to have the highest possible standard of education, and that comes, then, on top of the £20 million that we allocated to Medr in-year this year to support HE and FE, and that brings our total investment in tertiary education over the two financial years to nearly £50 million.

Thank you for a broad and comprehensive answer about your approach. I think the case has moved from a cash-flat situation—there’s then an increase in the overall budget following a change in a UK Government event, and you then make a case for how to spend that money with the pressures you’ve got and the priorities that align with an announcement in the First Minister—. And I’ll come more on to that, but I just want to—

Can I just—?

I just want to clarify one thing there on what you said about the in-year money. So, some of that is one-off money, but I just want to confirm whether that in-year money changes the baseline or not, just for clarity's sake. And then I have a particular point about the additional £50 million that you announced in-year, because that included £20 million for repairs in schools and colleges. Can you just confirm whether that's resource or capital? And then there's the point about the £84 million being on top of the baseline that you started with, or whether the in-year money makes any difference. I think you were saying that this is in-year, one-off money, so it doesn't affect the baseline, but just for clarity's sake—.

Okay. Just to go back to something else that you said, where you said that we were planning on a cash-flat basis, but obviously we were also making the case for our priorities, and it’s been a clear priority for the Government to raise attainment and attendance in our schools. So, although we were planning on that basis, all of the bilaterals and discussions that we were having were looking to secure that additional money. And, yes, the extra £85 million this year is non-recurrent funding. That includes £35 million capital funding; £20 million of that is for school and college repairs, and £15 million is for support for our Hwb programme.

Okay. I'm sure that there will be more questions later on about how local government money can be used, as well as more questions about post-16. As you know, the committee is looking forward to doing an inquiry on FE participation, so we look forward to seeing you again during the course of that.

In terms of the points about priorities and principles, you set out some of this. I understand that you have got three A's in your priorities: attendance, attainment and ALN reform. And then there are funding pressures around all of that as well. Obviously, we have the First Minister's priorities, the main one being opportunities for every family, but you can see how education has a role to play in all of the others. Good health, green jobs and growth, connecting communities: there's a role for education based in all of those. Again, I would be interested in how you then expect to use those to set out what you said, in very clear priorities, for improvements that you want to see made, and then how you would expect to see those delivered over the course of the year.

There's a further point about whether you think that you could have done more if you had had more in the budget. There's always a question about—. You know, you get what you get. But if you'd had more, do you think that you could have done more, and in what areas would you prioritise future spend? It's always possible that there are in-year events for different reasons. But, to start with, how have you gone about moving the money into those areas that you set out in your own statements? You know, the three A's: attendance, attainment and ALN reform, which we all know is still a significant issue.

Thanks, Vaughan. Well, I think that I've been pretty consistent, really, since coming into post, that we've got to raise school standards. As part of that work, literacy and numeracy are absolutely critical. That’s why some of that extra money is going to support additional national support in the space of literacy and numeracy. Attendance is absolutely critical. We haven’t recovered from the pandemic. It's not a problem that is unique to Wales, but we are investing an extra £7 million next year in support for attendance. Obviously, we're not going to raise attainment unless children are actually in school. It’s absolutely critical to do that, and we've got a lot of work to do, not just in raising attendance across the board, but in particular making sure that children on free school meals are in school. The persistent non-attendance rates for children on free school meals are particularly concerning. So, we really need to focus on that.

I've also been clear, since coming into post, that we've got lots of work to do on ALN, and I know that that has been a particular concern of this committee. But I see ALN—making sure that that works—and curriculum reform as key to improving standards anyway. The whole system has to work together in order to raise standards. We've got a lot of reform in the system. If it’s not all working effectively, then we're not going to raise standards. And I've forgotten what the second part of your question was.

Attendance, attainment and ALN, and how you see those three. But then there was the point around whether you think—. If you had more, where would that go? There's something about understanding what you can do with the money that you've got, and all of us can make a case for spending more money on virtually every area of the budget. But I'm interested in what would be your next priority, if you had more resource available, and how that conversation works with, obviously, the First Minister and the finance Minister?

Well, obviously, the extra money that we got as a result of the UK Labour Government's budget was incredibly welcome—really, really good news—and we were delighted with it, but we have to be clear with the committee that it's not going to address all the pressures in the system, I'm acutely aware. I continue to have a really close dialogue with schools, school leaders and local authorities around the pressures that they're continuing to face. So, I need to be clear on that. But it is a really big help, and, obviously, it puts us in a much stronger position than we were when we started this budget round, and also in comparison with the really difficult situation we were in as a Government last year, which, although I was in health at the time, was unprecedented. We are in a much better position on that, so that does give us some hope for the future.

In terms of what we would do with any additional money—and, obviously, more money is always welcome; I'm very much in the market for arguing for the maximum amount of money for education—one area I'm keen to look at is the extension of free school meal thresholds in secondary school. We haven't been able to do that yet, and that's not just because of the cost of the meals, it's because there is a link between the provision of free school meals and other passported things like the pupil development grant and the school essentials grant. I'm really keen not to break the link between those, because I think it is crucial that we've got that means of focusing resources for our most deprived children and young people. But that issue of free school meals at secondary school, and whether we can look at the threshold, is something that I'm keen to feed into the spending review next year, and we'll hopefully be in a position where we'll have a three-year spending review, and we'll be in a better position to plan.

Just on the priorities, there are always difficult choices to make, and I recognise the point you're making about the fact that you can't undo 14 years of reducing budgets in one year, but I'm interested in whether you still have to make savings. This is always a question that I know every committee asks about how the money and policy and the delivery work together. This is not just, 'Can you make the numbers work?', but given the priorities you've set out about how you expect not to go through this budget round, but moving into that spending review, of being able to look and say, 'These are the areas that work and the ones that I want to do more of to meet my priorities of improving attainment, attendance and ALN reform.' Because not every intervention, valuable as it is, can deliver the same return. So, if you were doing something on attendance—because I do know we've got a problem; I see it in my own constituency as well—then which interventions work? And sometimes that's about money, and sometimes that's about practice. So, I'm interested in not just your three broad priorities, but then how you expect to go through in terms of, 'These are things that I think will work and deliver the biggest return for children and young people in Wales, so those things I want to do more of, and here are things I'd like to do if I had the money, but they don't make it over the line, because I can only do six things, not 20.'

Okay. Well, prioritisation has been really important for the sector as well really, because schools constantly tell us that we're asking them to do lots and lots of things, so I hope that it's been helpful to be clear about the priorities of literacy and numeracy. But you're absolutely right when you say that we've got to make sure that we're doing what works. We don't want to be throwing precious resources at things that don't work. And in terms of literacy and numeracy, there's an additional £10 million in the budget to recognise that they are the building blocks of learning, and we've tried to allocate that money then in what we believe are the most effective ways.

So, there's £2.5 million going into the local authority education grant, through the education reform strand, to boost local authority capacity to support their schools locally, but then we've also got £6.5 million with the curriculum and assessment BEL, which is for national support programmes to enhance teaching in literacy and numeracy, and that includes phonics support, because that's a clear message that we've had from the sector: the need for more national support on some of these issues. But an area that I'm particularly keen on is making sure that we've got the data to make sure that we know that what we're doing is working. So, there's also £1 million via the curriculum and assessment BEL to make sure that we've got the right information available. So, we're looking at our personalised assessments and how we can have clearer age-related expectations through those, and a whole information ecosystem, because if we don't have that data then we're not going to be able to see what is working on the ground, and we're not going to be able to make those informed decisions going forward.

Chair, did you want to bring someone else in before I move to question 4?

Georgina wants to—

Yes, could I—? Could I bring—?

Sorry.

I was going to bring Jenny in, but Georgina, if you would like to—.

Yes, just briefly as well off the back of that, some of these interventions and issues are international, so attendance is something that is experienced across countries across the world. You recently spoke to the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on the Programme for International Student Assessment side to talk about what the most effective interventions were, particularly around attendance and family engagement, who was very, very supportive of the approach that we're taking more widely. So, we talk quite a lot to other partners internationally to make sure that the approaches that we're taking in Wales are aligned with international best practice as well, because some of these issues are emerging, and are emerging in countries across the world.

And we've got a peer learning event that we've established with the OECD. They're coming here to Wales to spend a chunk of time with us, looking at what we're doing, looking at best practice and working together to try to make sure that we get these things right.

On the OECD and PISA, I've never been clear about how much they value learner well-being in their assessments, and whether they have a proper feel for that, and best practice in that, because that underpins the ability to learn in lots of communities, particularly our least advantaged communities.

I think the OECD are taking a rounded approach to these things, and certainly the meeting that I had with the head of education last week was very focused on well-being. They were very much on the same page, and I've been clear since coming into post that we won't achieve any of these things without promoting mental health and well-being. It is absolutely the platform from which we can improve our education system.

Great.

Jenny, please.

Thank you very much. I just want to take us back to the issues around your current feeling that you can't uprate the free school meals entitlement for secondary school children because of its link with the school essentials and other benefits. The Cabinet Secretary for finance boldly stated that this was a budget targeting the 20 per cent least well-off members of our communities. So, I want to just challenge the reason why we aren't uprating the secondary school threshold entitlement, because it hasn't been uprated for five years, and in the meantime we've had a massive increase in costs for families and the cost-of-living crisis that we all know about.

So, I just think that the Bevan Foundation have clearly stated that there is a need to raise both the free school meals threshold for secondary school children as well as the school essentials. School shoes are definitely more expensive than they were. It's very welcome that the education maintenance allowance threshold has been raised to the level of the real living wage, but could you just explain to us why it's not possible to also do the same for the entitlement to the school essentials and the free school meals, as well as the actual amount of the EMA and the school essentials? Because the lack of school essentials is what drives non-attendance amongst young people who are entitled to free school meals.

Thanks, Jenny, and obviously I agree with the finance Secretary that this is a budget for the worst off, and I think you have to always remember that the clearest route out of poverty for everyone is through education. Our standards—I've been really clear—are not where we would expect them to be, and that's why we've put this really strong focus on getting children back into school and on raising attainment.

I think it's also really important to recognise how much money we do spend on tackling disadvantage. The pupil development grant is a very significant strand of the budget. We're spending £13 million a year on the school essentials grant, and that's a demand-led budget. You've referred already to the decision around the EMA and the additional money there. So, I think we are very much focused on doing what we can, but it is not a straightforward matter—and obviously I'm aware of the Bevan Foundation report—to just alter that threshold because it would have a knock-on effect on the pupil development grant, and that would be a substantial cost. And I am keen on maintaining that link. But that's why we're saying that we are keen to look at that as part of the spending review.

And just to say as well that we aren't resting on our laurels on this. All local authorities have been reminded of their discretion to provide free school meals to young people at secondary school who are in particular need. I'm particularly worried about young people from families with no recourse to public funds. I wrote to local government just before Christmas, reminding them of that again, but there is variation in the approach from local authorities. So, at the moment, I'm looking with officials at what more we can do in that space to formalise some more support.

Okay, so what conversation has been had in the Cabinet about moving the school essentials grant, the EMA and the school meals entitlement into the social justice budget? Because I can see that there's a really difficult competition going on between the really important need to raise attainment and attendance versus these targeted benefits that are aimed at the poorest households. There's always going to be huge numbers of needs within the education budget, I appreciate that, but how are we going to ensure that these poorest children, who are the ones we have the most difficulty getting to attend school, and for a variety of reasons, that there is targeted money that would help them increase their attendance?

Well, I'm not aware that we've had any discussions about moving free school meals, et cetera, to the social justice MEG because it is a matter for education. And I take a really holistic approach to education. I think you can see that with what I've said about mental health. The focus on attendance is about tackling disadvantage. We've got the additional money for attendance. A lot of that money will go on extra family engagement officers, to work with families who've got really complex needs, to try and make sure that they can come into school. So, I wouldn't be in favour of separating off those issues because it is a holistic matter. Children are not just in school to learn and reach standards; we want to look at the whole child. I'll bring Vikki in on the EMA.

Thank you, Lynne, and thank you, Jenny, and I'll just talk a little bit about the EMA and also the financial contingency fund because that's important for our tertiary learners. So, as you know, in 2023 we uplifted the EMA from £30 a week to £40 a week for learners, which makes it the most generous EMA in the UK. But I've been able to look again at the household income threshold for the EMA, and in this budget what we've been able to do is to uprate that, which I think is really important for post-16 participation, because we know that some learners are dropping out of their learning because of the difficulty in funding their studies or their transport.

So, that increase to EMA household income thresholds we hope will provide the EMA to an estimated additional 3,500 post-16 learners, and that will increase our total expenditure on the EMA to an estimated £19.7 million in the year 2025-26. Full detail on the increased household income thresholds for learners will be outlined in an oral statement that I'll be delivering in the Senedd Chamber at the end of this month. Also we're going to put out more information when applications for the EMA are launched in the spring, so that we can really raise awareness.

But if I can also touch on the financial contingency fund, because every college has really highlighted to me just how important that is, and the flexibility it gives them to address the different needs of learners within their college. So, that's targeted towards learners who are experiencing financial hardship, and it provides help for eligible learners who might otherwise be unable to attend college. So, it can be used for things like course-related costs, childcare, transport, free meals, equipment and learning materials. Colleges receive thousands of applications annually for support from the financial contingency fund. The bulk of those are from young people aged 16 to 18. So, there was £6.88 million for the financial contingency fund allocated in the financial year 2024-25, and Medr will determine the budget for the next financial year, considering its statutory obligations and competing demands on the budget.

Okay. Those are really important contributions, I agree, to keeping young people in further education. Cabinet Secretary, would it be possible to have a note on what it would cost to uprate the free-school-meals entitlement in secondary schools, with all the implications that would be too complicated to go into now?

I'm very happy to provide a note, because it also depends on how you do it, and there are quite significant variations in the amounts, depending on how you do it.

That would be very useful. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Could I just take a quick step back and ask if you could clarify whether you were categorising the £20 million for school repairs and maintenance as capital funding?

For this year, yes.

Thank you. Vaughan.

Some interesting views. We haven't discussed as a committee moving spend out of the education MEG, but we'll consider that, and your answer as well. I just want to say that the point made that the lack of school essentials drives non-attendance—I'm not sure that's the whole picture, particularly in primary school, but it's understanding how finances can make a difference for some category of learners. But that's why I asked the question about what works in attendance terms, because, sometimes, it isn't necessarily about spending more money, but it is about what works, and that will be context specific sometimes as well.

My final question, which is a bit odd for me to ask, because I used to be in a different chair answering questions like this, as did you—it's about the children's rights impact assessment. There isn't one for the education MEG or the draft budget. Instead, the Welsh Government continues to use the strategic impact assessment. Are you confident that this is the best way of ensuring that consideration of children's rights is at the heart of the budget for education and more generally? I guess the next part of that is: how are you ensuring that children's rights are at the heart of the decisions that you are making? Now that you're not a committee Chair and you're a Cabinet Secretary in the Government, how can we be clear that children's rights remain at the heart of what you're doing?

Thanks, Vaughan. Well, I am really passionate about children's rights. That's something that's endured in me since I was Chair of the committee and, as you're aware, the Government's current practice is to undertake a strategic integrated impact assessment, which is one of a suite of documents published as part of the draft budget. That enables us to identify key trends, cumulative impacts at portfolio level, strategic issues, and it remains the position of the Government that the integrated approach underpinning the SIIA is the best way of understanding the intersectional and unintended impacts of spending decisions.

I am personally, as I said, really committed to children's rights, and I'm always keen to see what more we can do in this space. We do undertake CRIAs on a range of policies in the education department. But I don't think as well that it is just about CRIA, as you've highlighted in the second part of your question; it is also about the practice and everyday way of working, and I'm always keen to make sure that we put children's voices at the centre of what we're doing. When we're developing new policies, I'm always asking, 'How are we making sure that children's voices are being heard here?' And also that it's not just the usual children's voices as well, that we're reaching some of those children and young people who don't get listened to. So, it's a work in progress, but it's something that I'm really committed to and intend to continue to drive as Cabinet Secretary for Education.

I could carry on, Chair, but I know there are other Members who might want to ask questions.

Thank you, Vaughan. I'd like to bring—. Oh, Joel, have you got a question?

Yes, sorry to jump the queue there.

That's okay.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to pick your brains, if I may, following on from the questions from Vaughan and from Buffy. You mentioned there about the additional £28 million you've made available for general capital funding. You've also then made £20 million available for college repairs and maintenance, and you say that that's capital funding as well. So, does that mean, then, that most of that has been allocated, so going ahead, then, there's only going to be £8 million available?

No, the £20 million—. It's £35 million in-year for capital funding; £20 million of that is to help with school repairs and maintenance, and the £15 million is for some capital costs associated with the contracts around Hwb, but then the money for this year is additional money, and I can give you some detail on how that's spent, if you want me to do that now.

Would that be okay, Chair? Yes.

Yes. So, as I say, it's £28 million. We're still working through—. That's for sustainable communities for learning. We're trying to focus on pressure areas highlighted by delivery partners. Obviously we're working through the detail, but just to let the committee know that this includes an additional £5 million ALN capital grant for further education institutions, £5 million to support the low-carbon heat grant towards decarbonisation of the education estate, and £2 million to uplift the grant allocation for Hwb and the school's ICT infrastructure grant. I think it's important to note that that's on top of a massive investment. We've spent £2 billion on school and college capital since 2014. That is in sharp contrast to the situation that has been in place over the border, so I'm really proud of our commitment to making sure that our children and young people are educated in first-class facilities.

If I may, Chair, just a quick question, then: your predecessor highlighted the impact that inflation was having on school budgets. Of those figures that you've just read out then, what assessment has inflation played in reaching those figures?

Well, obviously, inflation has been a challenge for a number of years now. One of the things that I know my predecessor talked to the committee about last year was the fact that primary schools were more exposed to those inflationary pressures because they haven't got the economies of scale. So, one of the things that has happened is there's been a benchmarking exercise to understand the costs per square metre for building a primary school. And in order to make sure that all project types will benefit from our new funding, we've identified new benchmark costs per square metre for each of the project types that we have, and that is 9.9 per cent higher for primary school projects. So, we've got separate benchmarks for primary schools, secondary schools, through schools and colleges so that we can try and make sure that we tailor that support to the needs of the applicants, and our processes within Welsh Government for deciding on these applications, then, are all using the updated benchmarking data. So, hopefully those concerns that the Cabinet Secretary raised last year have been addressed.

Thank you. Could I bring Carolyn Thomas in quickly, please?

I remember as a councillor, with the school maintenance backlog in front of us, trying to allocate budgets, thinking, 'How on earth are we going to address this?' It was dire, and I remember children complaining about the state of school toilets, and the director of education said, 'We've got this twenty-first century school budget coming from Welsh Government', and we're going, 'Oh, yeah', but the difference it's made has been amazing, with new schools in every community, it feels like. It's wonderful to have the right learning environment. I'm just thinking, though, going forward, because councils have suffered with austerity and they've used budgets and they've sold off areas, used the capital, sold off the silver, to meet all the projects from Welsh Government, including housing, twenty-first century schools, early years buildings, because they needed a match as well from local authorities—. So, they've raised with me that they're a little bit concerned now, going forward, that they have got that match available to carry on with the new school building programme. So, what conversation have you had with the Cabinet Secretary that covers local government to see if it really is an issue going forward for the projects that are in the pipeline? Thank you.

Thanks, Carolyn. Obviously, this is something that I discuss regularly with local government as well, with executive members and also leaders, so I’m well aware of the pressures that they’re worried about in terms of capital spending. I think it is important to recognise that we’ve tried to mitigate those pressures by changing the intervention rates as well. So, where it used to be 50:50, we’ve changed that now. So, for general schools, it’s 65 per cent intervention rate for Welsh Government. That intervention rate is higher for special schools, for voluntary-aided schools. So, we’re trying to help there as best we can. And the in-year money that we’ve announced this year on repairs and refurbishment, that’s also to recognise the local government pressures, because we know that it’s fantastic having new schools, but if they can’t maintain the schools that they’ve got, then that in itself is storing up a problem for the future. So, within the resources that we’ve got, I’m really pleased that, as a Government, we’ve continued to prioritise school and college capital.

Thank you.

Thank you. Right, we'll have questions from Cefin Campbell now, please.

Thank you very much. I will be asking the question in Welsh. We know that you’re not responsible for the funding of schools’ core budgets, and that that comes from local government budgets, but, as Cabinet Secretary, how confident are you that local authorities have sufficient resources in 2025-26 to fund schools adequately? Also, how confident are you that local authorities will prioritise schools as they make decisions about how to allocate the revenue support grant?

Thank you, Cefin. So, for the next financial year, local authorities are going to receive £6.1 billion from the Welsh Government RSG and non-domestic rates to spend on delivering key services. And the revenue funding for local government for the next financial year will increase by 4.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis, compared to the current year. And despite significant budget pressures, we have continuously prioritised public services, so that builds on previous increases of 9.4 per cent in 2022-23, 7.9 per cent in 2023-24, and 3.3 per cent in 2024-25. And I think I mentioned earlier that the settlement for local government increases by £253 million, and we were clear in the letter to local government that that was in recognition of the pressures that they’d raised on schools, on ALN and on social care. So, we are trying to make sure, obviously, that local government has the funding that they need. That’s not to say that I don’t recognise that there will still be pressures. I’ve referred to the letter that made it clear that the expectation was that this would meet education pressures. In terms of making sure that that money is spent by local government on education, you’ll be as familiar as I am with the freedom that local government has to make choices based on local democracy, but I think, actually, they have a very good record of investing in education. So, this financial year, school budget expenditure is budgeted to be £3.591 million, and that’s an increase of 7.4 per cent over the previous year, when their increase from us was 3.3 per cent, and schools expenditure per pupil is budgeted to be £7,926—a year-on-year increase of 8.2 per cent, or £599. So, I think the figures show that local authorities are prioritising school funding.

Obviously, there’s always more that we can do, and I know that the committee is aware that we’ve had a review of school funding formulae across Wales. We’ve currently got a situation where we’ve got 22 different formulae operating. That report has been completed. I’m hoping to publish it in February, and that will be followed by a consultation on some policy changes, and then a technical consultation to look at regulation changes, so that we can try and make sure that there’s more transparency and consistency in the system. And I know that, obviously, these issues go back to when I was Chair of this committee, when we did the work on school funding.

Thank you very much. The next question is on teachers' pay. Back in November, you committed to providing additional funding to support local authorities to honour the award of 5.5 per cent on teachers' pay in the academic year 2024-25. However, according to the report that we've received from you on the budget, it appears that the funding allocated is lower than what's required in reality. You've committed £56 million for 2024-25 and £96 million for 2025-26, but does this therefore mean that local authorities will be short in terms of the funding required to pay that pay rise to teachers?

Thanks, Cefin. As you know, meeting the cost of teachers' pay is part of the core funding that's provided to local authorities by the local government settlement. Where the timing doesn't allow for inclusion of unforeseen amounts, the Welsh Government has in the past provided additional grant funding in-year. But local authorities will have been expected to plan their budgets to include the 2024 pay uplift within their settlement allocations. But as you'll be aware, there was a difference between the planned uplift and the increased pay award that we provided, following the report of the independent Welsh pay review body and the decision in England to increase pay by 5.5 per cent. We've got a long-standing principle of no detriment in Wales, so we have provided additional funding to local government to meet those additional costs. That's been £18.2 million through the LAEG and then we've added some more money to the local government settlement for part of the year that was in the new financial year. So, we have provided additional funding. The Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government took the decision to provide the available funding upfront, and that funding has gone in to support teachers' pay. And in addition to that, we also provided £5 million to meet the recommendations of the IWPRB on additional learning needs co-ordinator pay, which is very important to me, to make sure that we can boost capacity and strength in our ALN system.

Sorry, Cefin, could I just quickly welcome, before they leave, the young people that have joined us in the gallery? Sorry, Cefin. And the teachers, yes.

That's fine. Just to finish on that second question, are you saying that local authorities won't be short-changed in any way by meeting the increased pay award for teachers?

I am saying that we provided additional funding. There was already some funding for pay in the local government settlement, and local government will have expected to plan for that, but because of the unexpectedly high increase in teachers' pay, we provided the additional money that I've referred to.

Okay. My third question is about reserves. Now, as the paper outlines, the reserves that schools have have gone down quite substantially over recent years. It's now down to £115 million. Two questions: (1) do you think schools and local authorities have got the right balance between prudence and supporting schools? Thst's my first question. And the second question is: if things carry on at this rate, in two years about 50 per cent of schools will be in deficit, and in about three years 80 per cent of schools will be in deficit. This, obviously, is unsustainable. You mentioned earlier on that the uplift or the consequential from the commitment made to increase funding, to Wales, from the general election pledge to increase support for education, has been put into this budget. Has all of that extra money been put into this budget, or are we expecting more later on? So, two parts to that question.

Thanks. Obviously, I know that the committee always has a strong interest in the reserves position. In terms of the first part of your question, I don't think it's possible to say that there's a right or wrong level of reserves. I think it's understandable in the current climate that schools are anxious and want to hold on to the funding that we've got. This coming year is a one-year settlement as well, which also adds to that anxiety about future financial planning. We have, of course, seen the situation where reserves have been abnormally high because of the pandemic. We put a lot of extra money into schools over the pandemic. We also obviously had schools closed, which involved not spending certain amounts of money. So, we have had an abnormally high level of reserves. But they are now coming down.

In March 2019, that was an all-time low, really, for reserves. They were £46.4 million. Then, into the pandemic, they went right up, but now they're coming back down. The latest figure we've got is £114.5 million. But you are right to highlight the fact that there are lots of school settings that have deficits rather than reserves, and currently the figures show that we've got schools in Wales with deficits totalling £40 million, and obviously that's a cause for concern. I think it also shows the importance of us having this work done around the school funding formulae so that we can get a clearer and more consistent picture of what's happening on the ground.

Okay. And the second part was about the budget uplift.

Oh, yes. Obviously, we've had a very significant budget uplift from the UK Labour Government. The actual changes to VAT have only just started now, this month. That's not devolved. The money goes to the Treasury. But I would expect that we would receive more money, going forward, when we have a clearer picture of how much money is raised by that. We've also had money to cushion the impact on the Welsh Government of the VAT that we'll have to pay for specialist post-16 placements, and local authorities are also going to be able to reclaim the VAT that they pay where they are placing children and young people in private placements. But the change has literally only just come in, Cefin. It started in January.

If I could just maybe tease out of you how much of that uplift is actually in this current projection for Welsh Government spending.

I don't know if we have a figure for that, because it's only just started. The money was announced in the budget. They'll have made planning assumptions and made their spending announcements accordingly, and we've had a consequential. But one of the things that I'll be wanting to do is obviously to continue a dialogue with the UK Government so that we can keep abreast of how much extra money they're generating from the VAT changes to make sure that, going forward, we continue to get any additional money through consequentials.

So, some consequentials have already been fed into this coming budget.

Yes. The UK Government made available the additional in-year money and the money for next year, which education has benefited from.

We now have a question from Carolyn Thomas, and an extra one.

I didn't realise that, already, money is coming forward from that. So, the money is going to the UK Treasury and then coming back to the Welsh Government. Okay.

Yes. It started on 1 January.

Very good. That's positive. This time last year, your predecessor merged a number of different funding streams into the local authority education grant. That's worth £400 million in 2025-26. What do you believe has been the main impact of this grant amalgamation, and are you content that there's been no dilution or lessening of focus on these activities supported by previously ring-fenced funding? I know it's been asked for by local authorities. Your view on that, please.

Thank you. It's still a relatively new process, obviously, the LAEG. The decision was taken by my predecessor. I think, during really difficult financial times, visibility and transparency is really important around funding. One of the things that came out of the Luke Sibieta review of school funding in Wales was the complexities of the school funding system. One of the things he wanted us to do was have a grant rationalisation exercise so that the situation was clearer. So far, and it’s obviously early days, we’re seeing a positive impact, with a reduction in the administrative burden on schools—and we need to remember as well that workload is a major concern for the profession—and also a reduction in the burden on local authorities.

Although we’ve got new arrangements in place, we have got terms and conditions for all the grants in place to make sure that the funding is spent on what it is intended for. We have monitoring reports as well as regular meetings with local authorities. They’re allowing officials to monitor the activity and make sure that it is spent on the intended purposes. We’ve got detailed grant conditions and we’ve also got a timetable against which local authorities have to report on each of the areas. From my point of view, I am very keen, obviously, to make sure that that money is spent on what it is intended for—that’s vitally important.

I know it will be welcomed by local authorities, because it was the administrative burden of applying, when resources should actually be spent on delivering—making sure the money is getting to the right place. So, that is welcome. Thank you very much for that response, it's really good.

Earlier, you said that increasing attendance is a priority. Extra money has gone into initiatives such as the family engagement officers. What has been the result of the value for money going into the family engagement officers so far, and are you proposing extra resources for that?

Thanks, Carolyn. It's a key Government priority, boosting attendance. I announced a little while ago additional money in-year for supporting attendance. For the forthcoming financial year there’s an additional £7 million in the budget to support attendance, and £3 million of that money is to have additional family engagement officers. There’s some additional money for community-focused schools work, because, obviously, that underpins the work of the family engagement officers.

We’re also investing additional money in enrichment activities in schools, because we want our schools to be really appealing places, and particularly to appeal to learners who are really not very keen to come to school. But we’ve also announced an additional £1 million for the school holiday enrichment programme, to make sure that we can expand that. That’s on the back of the review that Julie Morgan MS did, because school holidays have an important role to play in keeping children and young people connected to their schools.

In terms of efficacy of family engagement officers, obviously, it’s still early days. We established the attendance taskforce, which has now completed its work. As part of that, family engagement officers emerged as a really good way of tackling attendance. It’s also been raised with us by Estyn, in the regular discussions I’ve had with school leaders and in the visits that I go on, headteacher round-tables—all of them have spoken really powerfully about the role that family engagement officers can play.

The reasons for not attending school are really complex; there is no one silver bullet—it could be additional learning needs, it could be mental health, it could be school transport, it could be not having the clothes to wear to go to school—and what family engagement officers do is they can do that detailed work with families to break down those barriers and it’s all through building relationships, so I feel really, really positive, and I think the sector will very much welcome the help with that work and we’re seeing really good practice on that. But, obviously, as with all things where we’re spending money, we will be evaluating and monitoring the efficacy of that, and we’ve established now a network of family engagement officers across Wales. Officials meet with them regularly; I’ve met with them as well, so we’ve got that dialogue to hear from them on the ground. And I’ve got to say, the work they’re doing, I’ve been really inspired by it. I think it’s absolutely brilliant, and it also helps with the workforce challenges, because teachers and school leaders can’t do all this work themselves if they’re going to be focused on the business of education.

Thank you for your answer. That’s really good to hear. In terms of improving attainment, one of the consequences of the grant amalgamations means that funding is now distributed to local authorities rather than through the regional consortia, which was predominantly the case. What assessment has been made of the impact of that decision, and do you intend any further funding to be distributed that way or whatever replacement structures you have in place?

Okay. Thanks, Carolyn. So, the purpose of what we’ve done with the LAEG reforms was to make sure that the funding did go via local authorities. Obviously, they’ve got the statutory responsibility for school improvement, and the consortia came under the local authorities, really. So, we’re not planning funding for consortia any more, because, obviously, we’re moving to our new school improvement partnership programme, which will work on the basis of school-to-school working, supported by local authorities. But that will be underpinned, then, by the new professional learning and leadership body that we are establishing nationally, and we’ve also established a school improvement team as part of our new arrangements. Obviously, this is a new and ongoing process, and we’ll be continuing to monitor it. One of the things we’re going to be doing is having a survey to get more feedback and evidence from partners, but we’ve got an ongoing dialogue and we’ve got structures in place to monitor this work. And obviously, I also have the regular dialogue that I have with trade unions as well.

Can I bring Joel in quickly here, please?

Thank you for that. Quickly, you mentioned there, then, that move away from regional consortia, it’s sort of like a new programme, and it’s constantly being evaluated. Can I just get some idea of how you expect that to lead to improvements, then? What work has been done to say, ‘Well, actually, this, in theory, is the better route’?

Well, Professor Dylan Jones, he undertook a major piece of work for us, and, at that time, it was called the middle tier review, wasn’t it?

'The strategic review of education partners' is how you'd find it on the internet.

Yes, yes. So, and—

Could you repeat that, sorry?

The strategic review of education partners. It was published in a written statement at the beginning of January this year [correction: in a written statement in January last year], alongside a written statement from the then Minister.

Thank you.

Sorry, Cabinet Secretary.

No, that’s okay. So, he did an extensive piece of work talking to the sector, talking to school leaders, and we had really good engagement from school leaders in the process, obviously talking to local authorities, and the result of that review was that the system was too busy, really. There was too much going on in the system. There was the white heat [correction: white noise] of professional learning, as it was described, so we’re trying to move now to a more coherent system, where schools are working together to improve education, but supported by these new structures, the new professional learning body, an enhanced role for local authorities, and the education team in Welsh Government as well. But we can supply, if it helps, some more information on that for you.

Okay. Thank you.

That’s great. Just going to bring Vaughan in quickly there.

Picking up on something you said there about how busy the system was and your previous comments about lots of reform in the system and going back to priorities, I’m just trying to understand whether the approach you’re taking is about slimming down priorities, with a choice around what makes the biggest difference, and not trying to push more things into the system. There's always a challenge, isn't there? A new Minister, a new committee, a new report says, 'Here is the next big thing, just add it in.' It's a bit like curriculum reform. Everyone says it's a good idea to have a coherent approach to the curriculum, then there's a campaign to add something else into it. I'm trying to understand whether the approach you're trying to take to the budget and what you're doing as a Cabinet Secretary is to have greater clarity on purpose and priorities, and that means there are some things about which you say, 'Well, actually, we can't put more things in if we're going to have the coherent system the whole system needs to improve.' Because I think that's what you're saying, but I just want to make sure that I haven't misunderstood you.

No, that is exactly what I'm saying, and that's why we've been so clear about the priorities—I think the school sector have welcomed that—but it's also why we've tried to develop a simpler and more coherent school improvement structure around schools, because, with the consortia, they were all working differently, as well, weren't they? So, now, we'll have this, local authorities—it'll be clearer—working directly with their schools. We're working closely with local government on it. We've got the national coherence group, which is chaired by Kirsty Williams, to make sure that the whole system is as coherent as it can possibly be, but I'm definitely not in the space of loading more things on to schools. It's definitely got to be about making sure that we are doing the basics really effectively. Georgina wants to come in.

Sorry, just to add briefly to that, an important part of this, as you've suggested, is that, because some of the professional learning was happening in different ways across Wales, the establishment of the new national professional learning and leadership body means it's done once in one place where there are areas of national policy. Similarly, with curriculum, the Cabinet Secretary has been really clear about the need for curriculum design, progression and assessment to be done once nationally. That's been a really clear ask from schools and that's something that the budget is reflecting, trying to make sure that we're streamlining where there are things that absolutely need be done in one particular way.

Thank you.

Could I just quickly bring Cefin in here? Sorry, Carolyn.

I'm interested as well in the point that you made about the school improvement partnerships taking over from the old consortia. Could you maybe clarify whether there's a budget line to support that, because, obviously, it will have financial obligations on local authorities over and above what they used to do, because that money used to go to the consortia? So, if we want to improve standards and other kinds of support that local authorities are now expected to do, I expect, then, maybe an uplift in that line of budget to do that work.

Well, the budget—. It's in several different budgets, but all of them we're increasing funding for. But we've had to move some of the budgets around, because, obviously, the consortia aren't going to exist any more [correction: the consortia may not exist any more]. A lot of the professional learning will be done on a national basis, so we've had to strengthen the funding for that at a more national level. Did you want to come in on that?

Yes, so some of the budgets, you'll see, reflect a sort of move around of different budgets around, particularly, the reform area of LAEG. So, the funding that previously went to the regional consortia directly last year went directly to local authorities to reflect those wider sets of expectations. So, local authorities have larger budgets around this. Now, this year, because of the establishment of some of the national functions, we have removed some of that money and put it into a set of national functions. It may be easier for us to share a note with you on this, because it's quite complicated.

Yes, please.

Fine, thank you.

Thank you. Back to Carolyn.

Reflecting back some time ago, before they used to have a school curriculum liaison officer or people that would give advice, they went to the regional consortia—I know north Wales's was GwE. So, if schools needed that extra help and advice on different things, then they would refer to GwE. So, going forward, will they be working together as schools to support each other if needed or—? And also is there resilience as well, still, in LEAs, or do we call them LAs now, to be able to come together to lead on this? Personally, from my experience, it's very welcome. So, is it to help streamline? I think you said it was. Thank you.

Yes, the system will be based on school-to-school working, because school leaders were very, very positive in the review about the potential for that. We want to have a self-improving system that's based on really strong self-evaluation in schools, but they can't do that on their own, obviously, and support will need to be there from the local authority, as well as from the new professional learning body and the central unit we've got in Welsh Government. And as Georgina said, it is a busy landscape, so what we've tried to do with things like curriculum support is provide more national intensive support, and the same with literacy and numeracy, so we're doing things on a once-for-Wales basis.

Okay. Very good. Okay. Thank you. Moving on, can you explain to us what's behind the transfer of funding between some of the pre-16 education budget lines, specifically, the curriculum and assessment budget expenditure line and the teacher development and support BEL, which, collectively, increase by £5.8 million? This appears to have come from the ending of the international education programme budget and the reduction of funding for the education reform and 'Cymraeg 2050' strands of the LAE grant.

Okay, thanks. Well, as Georgina said, it's a question of money moving around the system, and it's important to say that there is more money available. We're making more money available, it's just in different places and is influenced by the fact that we've got this new national body. So, we're transferring £2.465 million out of the LAEG reform BEL into the teacher development and support BEL, and that's for the continued delivery of the national professional learning programmes for teaching assistants, newly qualified teachers, which will now be taken forward through the national body. And then there's a £1.1 million transfer from the LAEG 'Cymraeg 2050' BEL into the teacher development and support BEL, and that, again, is for national support for the teaching of Welsh and through the medium of Welsh, and £0.6 million of that funding is going to be allocated to the national body to support Welsh-medium schools on a national basis, and £0.5 million to the National Centre for Learning Welsh to increase the provision of Welsh language skills, professional learning for practitioners. And that's all, obviously, in line with the ambitions of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill that’s currently going through the Senedd. Then, we've got £3.65 million that is transferred into the teacher development and support BEL, which is going to be utilised to support the new body and the National Centre for Learning Welsh.

In terms of the international education programme BEL, if I can just reassure the committee that that programme isn't going; the BEL has been merged with the teacher development and support BEL, and that's because, traditionally, the IEP BEL has been really small and that didn't provide the flexibility, then, to increase the funding available. So, we are actually increasing the funding for the IEP from £0.524 million in this financial year to £0.59 million next year. And that's to provide additional funding to the British Council and the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Okay. I've got a final question—

Can I—? Sorry, I forgot to say that there's also £1.73 million that's going for local authority curriculum support from the education reform BEL. That's going to the curriculum assessment BEL and that's to take forward some of the national programmes that I've described on literacy, numeracy and curriculum support. Did you want to add anything on this, because it is complicated?

It is complicated. This is the explanation of how the money has moved around to support the new structures that we're talking about under the school improvement partnership programme. So, we can include that in our notes so that it's a bit clearer. There's no reduction in money, as the Cabinet Secretary has highlighted, and there's further investment around literacy and numeracy in particular. But we can just share a little bit more detail around that, because it's just cutting the money in a different way to support this new streamlined approach.

Yes, that would be really helpful. Thank you.

Because I don't—. I've got a final question, but I don't know whether that was covered there. [Laughter.] I'll read it out for clarity, if that's okay, and then—. So, I was going to say: what's the difference between the funding contained in the dedicated budget expenditure lines of £24 million for curriculum and assessment and the £5.6 million for additional learning needs, which I think you've covered, compared to the £67 million funding contained for both of these policy areas in the education reform strand of the local authority education grant? What is the reason for having two such different budget lines for curriculum and also two different budget lines for ALN? Do they have different intentions and purposes? It just feels like we’re coming from one side and you're coming from somewhere else. I’m just trying to join it all up.

They do have different purposes. The education reform LAEG BEL is the direct allocation to local authorities and education settings. The curriculum and assessment BEL aligns with the local authority support and provides funding for a range of other curriculum-related activity. But we’ve got money then in the ALN BEL, which is maintained centrally. I could run through everything that they’re for, but I'm conscious of the time and that it might be better to give it to you in a note.

Yes, please. No wonder local authorities wanted some of the grants to be paid—

Imagine what it’s like for me. [Laughter.]

I think it would be helpful to have all that in a note. Thank you.

I now have some questions around Medr. The establishment of Medr means that funding for tertiary education is now decided by an arm’s-length body, as opposed to by Welsh Ministers. Your paper says that

‘Medr will set out its indicative funding allocations in the coming months and will be open to Committee scrutiny regarding those decisions.’

Can the committee expect to see those indicative allocations to scrutinise those decisions ahead of final allocations being made, as we have always done with Welsh Ministers in this policy area?

Thank you for that question, Chair. As an arm’s-length body with a significant budget, we would expect that the committee would want to provide scrutiny of Medr and its financial allocation decisions. Probably the best way to do that is for you to liaise directly with Medr to set that up. Officials have notified Medr of its indicative allocation under the draft budget and, most importantly, of our expectations of how it will utilise that additional funding, which we’ve set out also in evidence to the committee.

I understand the Medr board will be meeting next week to make its initial determinations on funding, and then Medr will advise us of how they will allocate that indicative budget. So, once the Welsh Government’s final budget has been approved by the Senedd, we’ll then issue a formal funding letter to Medr confirming that budget and Medr will, in turn, then be able to confirm its grant allocations to providers. I believe that Medr will be appearing before you next month, and that should provide an opportunity for them to share information about how they intend to deploy the indicative budget that we've provided.

In terms of clarifying the relationship between the Welsh Government and Medr, I think it’s really important that I make it clear that the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 doesn’t provide for Ministers to approve Medr’s funding decisions. In fact, when the Act was undergoing scrutiny in the Senedd, Members of the Senedd and, in particular, this committee, I believe, were clear that Welsh Ministers shouldn’t interfere in the day-to-day work of Medr and should ensure that it’s appropriately arm’s length from the Welsh Government. Medr will be subject to quarterly formal monitoring through meetings with Ministers and officials, but my officials meet with Medr colleagues weekly to collaborate on matters of policy and to provide an ongoing steer on topical issues and our ministerial priorities.

What I’ve seen is that Medr is continuing to build its capacity so that they can deliver on our ambitious agenda and they’ll continue to do that over the next financial year as well. In my meetings with Medr I’ve been really impressed with their professionalism and the knowledge that they demonstrate to date, and that’s both amongst the staff and the board, who I’ve met with also. I’d say that includes the approach that they take to engage with a wide range of stakeholders during the development of their strategic plan. Just to finish on that, I’m confident that, through continued close partnership working with myself, fellow Ministers and my officials, Medr will be in a position to deliver its strategic plan and provide strong stewardship and oversight of our tertiary education sector.

I think that you have just answered my second question there. I will ask it anyway, though. Medr is required to submit its final strategic plan to the Welsh Ministers for approval. Will its indicative funding allocations also be submitted to the Welsh Ministers for approval before being finalised?

I can certainly add more to that. Medr submitted its strategic plan to my officials for review, and that’s in line with section 15 of the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022. Then, we would expect to receive the final plan this month for approval.

Tertiary education, as the committee will know, cuts across many areas of policy and different ministerial portfolios as well. So, a number of ministerial colleagues would rightly have a keen interest in that. In addition to my approval, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership will also be invited to formally approve the Medr strategic plan. The plan may also be shared with other Ministers for information purposes as well.

We have been clear to Medr how we expect them to utilise that additional funding provided, as we set out in evidence to the committee. That’s going to be formally confirmed in our funding letter, on approval of the final budget.

Joel, did you want to come in quickly?

Yes. Thank you, Chair. I don't know if you are able to answer this, so apologies if you can't. So, £2 million has been allocated to increase and broaden suicide prevention and self-harm, and expand the FE/HE student mental health liaison service. I just wanted to know if you had any idea how Medr will allocate that, and what targets you have set for those to be met.

Also, one of the things that is always brought up with me is the inconsistency in services across the country, but also how there is a lack of link-up with NHS services. I just wanted to get your ideas on that, on what money might need to be allocated to tackle that.

Thank you, Joel. That's a really important question. Mental health and well-being, particularly in higher education, is something that I am really strongly focused on, and I know that Medr is too. To go over some of the figures to start with, in 2024-25, we provided £8 million to Medr to support mental health and well-being in HE and FE, and that continues the allocations that were made by HEFCW and the Welsh Government. So, it is being used to support universities’ well-being strategies.

But also, something that you’d be interested in from the comments that you made there is the pilot south Wales student mental health liaison service. I recently went to Cardiff University to see how that is put into action. It is a really impressive project that has delivered some really good results and integrates with existing health board facilities, where they are available, rather than using Welsh Government money to replicate those, but then adds on additional layers of support, such as instant access to counselling services, which really ensures that students get that help as soon as possible.

What we are looking to do with the additional £2 million that we have allocated to Medr this year is to increase and broaden the suicide prevention and self-harm activity, most particularly in expanding that mental health and well-being services model that I have just outlined to you. We are looking to see if that can be rolled out across Wales. That’s the challenge that we are setting there, and I would be happy to come back to talk to the committee further about that as the work progresses.

Thank you. Carolyn, did you want to come in quickly?

Just on one specific issue. It's about training for lecturers for providing those links to children—not necessarily counselling provision. In my experience, just listening to young people doesn't work; it's that conversation with the lecturer and having somebody you trust, and making sure that they are aware, going forward. So, I just wanted to make sure that that's taken on board and listened to.

Yes, absolutely. That's something that has come out in some of my visits to universities that I have been conducting over recent months. I think that it is help as well for academic staff, so that they can be given some of the skills in this area, but crucially, how they know to signpost to those experts.

Thank you. This is my final question. It's understood that, between the education MEG and the economy, energy and planning MEG, Medr will receive around £948 million in total revenue funding for 2025-26. Your paper sets out a small number of areas that you expect Medr to use this funding for, such as degree apprenticeships. Have these areas been ring-fenced within the funding to Medr, and are there any other areas where you’d expect to see certain amounts spent? If so, could you provide further details on those, please?

Thank you, Chair. There will be an overall ring fence between the funding provided to Medr from the education MEG and the funding provided for apprenticeships from the economy, energy and planning MEG, and that's really in order to provide appropriate line of sight for respective Ministers from their MEG, so that they can scrutinise how that money has been spent and if it's been made the best available from that resource. We'll continue that approach that we've had since Medr went operational on 1 August.

You mentioned degree apprenticeships, I believe, there. Historically, they've been co-funded quite uniquely between the education MEG—so, that would be £5 million for this financial year, 2024-25—and then just over £4 million from the economy, energy and planning MEG. We stated in the evidence paper that we anticipate that Medr will continue to allocate £5 million from the education MEG for degree apprenticeships, and officials from my team and from the Minister for skills's team are working with Medr on whether it will be appropriate for this to be formally ring-fenced or not, because we just want to ensure that both sides of the budget can be best utilised. We'll confirm our approach in a funding letter to Medr, and that letter will be published for the committee to see. We're absolutely committed to ensuring that continued funding for degree apprenticeships across the two MEGs.

We're still working through the details of some of the allocations to Medr, which will continue funding previously administered by the Welsh Government and HEFCW. Some examples of that would be funding for medical education, entrepreneurship support in FE and HE, and higher education research capital. Where those allocations will involve transfers to Medr from other MEGs, we'll be ring-fencing that funding, and those funding allocations will be confirmed then in the final funding letter to Medr, or in a supplementary funding letter confirmed at supplementary budgets, because that's what's previously happened with HEFCW.

If I can just touch as well on a ring fence that we expect to put in place for the junior apprenticeships programme—I believe that's an area the committee has an interest in. We're currently expecting to ring-fence £600,000 for the junior apprenticeships programme. We've asked Medr to continue funding this programme, which is for 14-16 learners, so it's an area that I work really closely with the Cabinet Secretary on. But we've asked them to fund that as part of their grant allocation to FE colleges.

I'm really pleased that the budget for 2025-26 will see a 50 per cent increase as we seek to expand the programme in line with the recommendations of an Estyn report published this year. The work that has been done on this, particularly in Cardiff and Vale College, has been absolutely transformative in terms of reaching those young people who are furthest from education, the most difficult to reach, re-engaging them and getting that passion for learning, and really good academic outcomes from the project as well. Both the Cabinet Secretary and I are really excited to see what can be done with that really significant 50 per cent increase there.

Thank you. That's really pleasing to hear. We are running around 10 minutes over. Are you okay to stay, or do you have to rush off? Thank you so much. We now have some questions again from Cefin, please.

Thank you. I'm going to ask my next questions in Welsh. The draft budget does provide around £1.5 million additionally to support increasing and widening participation in post-16 education, including widening access to the Seren programme. You know that I have doubts about this programme. You've heard me note that before, but that's something for some other time. Could you explain to us what you mean by widening access to that specific programme, and does that include, perhaps, vocational options?

Thank you, Cefin. I can see you looking at both of us there, because, obviously, this is another area that cuts across both portfolios, but, because the main focus there in your question was on post-16 participation, I'll take that.

So, the additional £1.5 million is going to be allocated to a range of activities. It's not just the Seren academy, I'd like to be clear about that, but the whole of that pot of money is allocated to improve and widen participation in tertiary education, in line with our stated priorities. So, it's going to include research and evidence gathering to improve our understanding of patterns of participation in post-16 education, as well as some further work to take forward recommendations of the recent review of vocational qualifications, also known as the Lusher report, and the pathways from education into employment report, the Hefin David report. You'll be aware with regard to Seren that the current eligibility criteria are primarily based on academic attainment. So, what we're going to be doing is, as part of our commitment to widening participation, we're going to be exploring the scope to introduce a new equity-based approach to widen access to those high-potential learners, regardless of their attainment, regardless of their background or their circumstances.

So, we're going to do that in a number of ways. Firstly, we're going to redevelop the eligibility focus to identify all high-potential learners and make sure that we're looking at the vocational elements there as well, not just the narrow academic. We're going to design a programme to provide learners with the most appropriate educational pathway, so, again, that's going to be not just academic, but vocational too, fitting in with their ambitions and their aspirations and recognising the breadth of the different skills that we need to take the economy forward in Wales. We're also going to co-design a new support and delivery structure with schools and with stakeholders so we can trial new interventions and remove barriers to participation in the programme. And the final crucial part of that as well is work that we will be doing to empower teachers and college lecturers to develop the skills they need to deliver interventions to create sustainability within those learning environments to support those high-potential learners.

Okay. Thank you very much. My next question: funding to the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol has been increased this year, but last year there was a reduction. Do you think that the reduction last year and the increase this year, even though that is to be welcomed, of course, very much so, has impacted the momentum that the coleg has and the progress that it has made as an institution?

Thank you, Cefin, and, I think, first thing, I can start off with some good news, which is that, despite the tough financial settlement, the coleg's budget wasn't reduced in 2024-25. We were able to maintain its funding at the same level as 2023-24, and that meant the coleg continued to receive an additional £2.825 million. So, I think it is safe to say that the coleg has received significant additional investment in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and the draft budget includes an additional £0.494 million, bringing our total additional investment to £3.319 million since 2022-23.

Obviously, the thing we really want to be measuring here is the levels of Welsh delivery for our learners and I think we can be reasonably confident of maintaining the current levels of Welsh-medium delivery in 2024-25, but, to be frank, I think what's more difficult to determine is the potential loss of momentum as a result of maintaining the budget at the 2023-24 levels, not least because the coleg's budget is one of a number of budgets that directly impact on provision in the post-16 sector. But I think, when we look at what the coleg has been able to deliver, I certainly think that this is something we should be proud of, providing funding for over 100 practitioners in the FE and apprenticeship sector, and we're hopeful that this investment will lead to continued growth in the numbers of FE and apprenticeship learners accessing Welsh-medium or bilingual provision as part of their learning programme.

I'd like to say also at this stage it's too early to tell what the full impact of last year's budget was, because the data on the previous and current academic years is still being gathered and processed. But, on the latest available data that we've got, which is for 2022-23, that suggests significant increases in the proportion of learning activities in FE and work-based learning settings taking place either bilingually or in Cymraeg, with a proportion approaching that seen in the wider schools sector.

And just one final statistic to close that I think we can all be really proud of is that, with the exception of one college, St David's Catholic College in Cardiff, all colleges in Wales now offer either Welsh-medium or bilingual provision, and that provision is delivered across the main subject areas, with delivery being at its highest in Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, Coleg Sir Gâr, which I visited recently and was really impressed to see the number of lessons being delivered through Welsh, and Coleg Cambria as well is another good example.

Okay, thank you very much.

My final question is on the Welsh Government's international learning exchange programme, Taith, and you have alluded to this already. The budget is being maintained for 2025-26 at the same level as the current financial year. However, we know that the 2024-25 budget saw a significant reduction in funding of about 20 per cent. So, what assessment has been made of the impact of that reduction on learners' opportunities, and could you outline the reasons for not providing any additional funding for Taith this year?

Yes, thank you, Cefin, and I think I'll start with just that reminder that the 2024-25 budget round was the most stark and painful budget choices for Wales in the devolution era. I wasn't in Government at that time but colleagues remind me all the time how difficult it was, but, certainly, for me coming newly into Government this year I'd say that, even this year, although we've benefited greatly from that additional funding, the level of defunding that we've had over the last 14 years means that public sector finances do remain very challenging.

So, unfortunately, the redirection of funds from the Taith programme will impact on those international learning opportunities for learners and the international student recruitment and partnership-building activity, but what we've tried to do is to take as many actions as we can to minimise the impact on learners. So, there's been a focus, for example, on reducing operational costs, so that a greater proportion of the funding that we've allocated can be focused directly on delivering those learning experiences, which, I've seen through my ministerial visits, have brought such huge benefits to learners.

I would encourage you all, if you want to find out more, to take a look at the Taith website, because there's a wealth of case studies on there that really showcase just how wonderful the opportunities are that have been provided to learners through there, and it's right through FE, HE and the adult learning sector as well. It's a programme that I'm really proud that we are continuing to deliver. So, the focus for Taith really remains maximising the impact of available funding, prioritising the participation of under-represented groups and the projects that will deliver the greatest learning outcomes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. We have two final questions from Joel. Are you okay to stay for those two final questions?

I've only really got one, if that's okay. A lot of my questions have already been answered.

Yes, that's fine.

It's just a general one, really, on your priorities. I read that you made an additional £7.8 million available for school standards to help retain teaching and other school staff. I just wanted to get an idea, then, about why staff, then, are leaving the profession. From what I gather, I think, in 2022-23, about 5.6 per cent of the workforce left. I think about 50 per cent of that was just normal retirement, and I just wanted to get some idea of why staff are leaving, and a bit of a better idea, then, of how that money is going to be used to try and retain them. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thanks, Joel. I mean, that's quite a big question, really, and we know that it is a really challenging time for the school workforce. They're grappling with not just lots of reform, trying to raise standards, but they're also still dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic. We're seeing huge issues with behaviour that is becoming increasingly complex. So, it is a challenging situation for our school staff, and that's why we're focusing not just on raising standards but trying to support our school staff. We've got our whole-school approach to mental health and well-being, which is equally applicable to school staff. We've been doing all the work around reducing workload in partnership with our trade unions. Obviously, we've tried to recognise the role of our school staff through the additional pay that we were able to make available.

But you may have seen that, on Monday, I announced that we're going to be developing a strategic workforce plan for education in Wales, and the reason that I've been talking to officials about that for quite some time now is because I recognise it is a really challenging space, and we have got these issues around recruitment, retention, well-being, tackling problems of behaviour, we've got issues with support staff. So, I wanted to bring all that together as part of a coherent piece of work to start tackling those issues. The funding obviously helps on the coalface with the classroom. The money that's gone in this year in-year has reduced school pressures; the money for pay has helped as well. But it is a complex picture, and that's why we want this workforce plan to bring all that work together.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Well, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We really, really appreciate your time. You'll be sent a transcript in due course. Thank you so much again.

Thank you.

Diolch.

Thank you.

Thank you.