Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Prynhawn da. Welcome to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. All Members are present today, and I've had no apologies or substitutes. Are there any declarations of interest? I see none. We welcome contributions in Welsh and English, and there is instantaneous translation available from Welsh to English. If you're unable to stay with us for the whole of our two sessions on social cohesion today, then you can catch it on Senedd.tv. 

I'm delighted to welcome, for our next evidence session, Dr Lindsay Cordery-Bruce, chief executive of the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, and Eleri Williams of the Building Communities Trust. Thank you, both, very much indeed for your detailed and thoughtful papers that you've submitted to us in advance. I just wanted to start off by asking if you could just briefly summarise what you think are the barriers and key threats to social cohesion in Wales. I don't know who would like to start. Lindsay.

Yes, sure. Social cohesion in Wales is a very multifaceted and complex social phenomenon. There are a number of things that are working really well in our communities. There are a number of things that are providing barriers in our communities. I think I’d just like to start by saying that no plan for social cohesion in Wales can progress without a thriving, well-resourced and well-connected voluntary and community sector, and I think that provides one of the enablers for how we pull communities together and instil that closeness that we’re aiming for.

There are a number of things at play that are threatening social cohesion at the moment in Wales. One of those things is the financial health of the voluntary and community sector. We are social animals. Everybody wants to belong—that’s the whole point of community. If you can’t find something to belong to, then we find that some people will find an alternative to that, whether or not it’s something that’s morally responsible or for the benefit of their family and wider community.

We are seeing quite a worrying resurgence of the far right in Wales, particularly in areas like Llanelli, but we’re also seeing communities come together to say, ‘Actually, we don’t want that in our communities.’ There are issues following the pandemic, for example, where there are still some young people and some adults that haven’t fully re-emerged following lockdown and just aren’t taking an active participatory role in communities. That’s led to things like a shortage of volunteers, for example, which is having a knock-on effect to weakening social cohesion in Wales. If I give an example from our colleagues in ScoutsCymru, there are currently 4,000 children and young people waiting to engage with that provision. That's how many. We need them off their phones, outside—friends, skills, adventures, all of those things—but there’s not enough volunteers to take them. So, that in its own right is a threat to social cohesion, because if they can’t get involved in something positive, then sometimes there’s a migration into something negative.

In terms of enablers, I don’t think it’s all a sad story in Wales. I think we’ve got some real strength to build from. A true partnership between local authorities, the voluntary sector and the communities themselves is one of the tickets out of this. The things that we already have outlined in our third sector scheme in Wales is another positive, but we are, really, in a position where we need to look at a longer term strategy, longer term funding for organisations that have an active role in building cohesive communities.

Thank you. Eleri, in your paper, or in one of the papers I read linked to it, was the really excellent figure that 28 per cent of the population in Wales is involved in volunteering in one shape or form, which sounds really positive. In my experience, there tends to be more volunteers in areas with the least need. I just wonder how much work has been done to—. Well, perhaps you'd like to speak about the work you're doing to try and strengthen the social cohesion in areas with the greatest need.

As an organisation, we fund close to 30 different initiatives across three different programmes, and they're all funded on a long-term multi-year basis to give that continuity of support. We work in areas that do experience higher degrees of socioeconomic deprivation, and what we've seen is that actually you really need to have that long-term ethos so people can build that trust, build those relationships to enable them to do something on a longer term basis, but also you need access to places and spaces. Without places and spaces it's really difficult for community organisations and volunteers to actually do things, but by default it's kind of a prerequisite to need that space. So if local authorities are potentially less willing to undertake community asset transfers, it can be much more challenging to undertake community action. We do see that, in areas where there is more socioeconomic deprivation, it can be harder for people to actually get involved in volunteering. There may be the need to undertake multiple jobs, for example, which cuts into people's volunteering time. It might be the fact that there isn't somewhere locally that you can get to to go and physically volunteer, which is why we really call for locally based volunteering and community action.

The Peckham principle, established at the end of the second world war, said services have to be within a mile's pram-pushing distance to be realistic. Obviously that is challenging in a rural area, but would you say that the same principle applies? 

Interestingly, when we have tried to map community assets across Wales we've been able to identify 438 community-owned assets. This was undertaken back in 2020, so that figure is going to be different nowadays. But we were able to see that there were proportionally higher numbers of community-owned assets in more rural areas, and that was quite a surprise to us. It depends how you define it, obviously. If you put into play population density, the figure will alter. However, we understand that part of this is because there seems to be more interest in rural areas, and more desire and more loyal patronage to own and actually get behind those community assets. There's also potentially slightly more disposable income, so if you are running a community share offer, that might be more achievable in a rural area where there's slightly more disposable income than some of our Valleys areas. That is quite a generalisation, but that's the trend that we've been able to see and identify. We've also seen that, in counties such as Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Powys, there really is a trend towards people being really actively involved in their communities. That could be through some volunteering, it could be through voter turnout, for example, or getting involved in a town and community council. That tends to be a slightly different trend in the more rural and peripheral areas. 

Thank you. WCVA, your paper recommends the Welsh Government clarify their interpretation of social cohesion. Do we need another definition of social cohesion? If so, why? Could you just speak to that, please?

Yes, of course. We reviewed a number of different definitions while we were putting our evidence together, and the preferred one for us is the one from the future generations commissioner, particularly because of the four elements that are cited there—they speak to attractive, safe, viable and well-connected communities—and particularly around people being active in their community.

Just to elaborate on the point earlier about volunteering, we have a big concern at the moment about volunteers ageing out. We have some key what I call cornerstone volunteers, where there's a lot of different activity centred around them, and they've done their bit and they want to step down, but we're not necessarily seeing the younger volunteers coming in behind them to fill up that space.

It's about connected communities, access to key well-being services and the equity that's involved in accessing services, and also looking at community anchor organisations, the importance of the CVC, the other charities that are in the area, grass-roots sport, all of those things that we think are really pivotal to social cohesion. The bit that's missing I think, Chair, is that the voluntary and community sector aren't clear what's the plan and what's our role in it. So, I think it's not just the definition, but it's that that needs further clarity.

Thank you. Do you, Eleri Williams, feel that there's a need for clarifying what the Welsh Government means by social cohesion? 

Yes, this is something we also identified in our evidence. We tend to align ourselves with that future generations cohesive communities definition as well. We very much see social cohesion as a feeling of togetherness that comes from three elements: the existence of accessible, inclusive, sustainable community groups and organisations; the presence of places and spaces that provide opportunities that are low cost or free to access to the end user; and then a feeling of trust within and between community groups and cross-sectorally.

I think too often national delivery plans have been focused on mitigating or ameliorating the negative harms that come from discrimination and prejudice, whereas we would like to see a much more preventative approach to building social infrastructure and social capital, because we feel really strongly that if there is strong social capital, social infrastructure and well-resourced community organisations, communities would, by default, be more resilient to instances of challenge and hate crimes or prejudice. It's not a silver bullet, but it will go a long way. We would prefer to see a broader approach, because there seems to be a lack of clarity between national delivery plans and then the ambitions of the future generations Act and that particular goal.

Okay. Well, as they're named on the face of the Act we would expect them to be compliant with the well-being goals defined in there, but if that needs further clarification then we can probe further into that. Thank you. Sioned Williams, would you like to ask your questions? 

Shall I go first? 

I think there are lots of opportunities. There's equally a huge number of challenges. Long-term funding is very hard to achieve, is very hard to build in. We've seen organisations jump from grant to grant to grant, which is not the answer.

We've seen in some research we did to look at how communities had responded to the cost-of-living crisis that 75 per cent of those who responded really wanted to see long-term funding. It wasn't just more funding; it was that long-term multi-year funding, because that will enable groups to build in those longer term plans, meet those long-term ambitions, but also it stops them having to jump through multiple hoops according to different funders, different monitoring and evaluation frameworks. And also, it gives them a bit of breathing space to be able to think over that multi-year period.

We heard that, more and more often, community organisations are having to get involved in sectors or areas of work that were previously undertaken by the public sector. They were getting involved because they felt a sense of obligation to the people they support. However, that was taking them away from their longer term ambitions as an  organisation and as a charity. 

We are very lucky to be funded from a long-term endowment. We are the only organisation in Wales to be funded in that way to focus on community development, but we are hopeful that the lessons that we can learn we will share to inform that future practice.

I think it's also worth stating that of all the organisations that we work with, very few will actually identify their work as tackling or building social cohesion; that's not to say what they're doing isn't building social cohesion. They will not use that terminology or that labelling, but they regularly run informal coffee groups. My favourite example is Plastonbury, an annual event in Plas Madoc near Wrexham, which is a carnival, and it's a really good example of when you trust a community to do what they feel is best, you can get real results.

That's not to say that this is trouble free; it can be risky. But, actually, if you trust and support communities to do what they want in their area, often it actually provides better success rates, or better opportunities for people to get involved, than if you were to do this in a grant system where there are huge numbers of onerous monitoring and evaluation frameworks, for example. I don't know if there's anything you would like to add.

Just to summarise what the real pressure is on our sector, we're seeing a higher rate of demand with just less resources, and a lot of our members are reporting that it's not just the volume of people, it's the complexity of needs that they're presenting with that align with the other challenges that everybody is experiencing in Wales right now. The increase in national insurance has really just wreaked havoc with our sector. People are either having to close, merge or restructure. There's the increase in minimum wage, which of course is something that we would absolutely encourage, but the resources need to be in place to match that. So, there really is a feeling of, 'How on earth do we meet the demand with the small resources that we have?'

I spoke to the Charity Commission last week, and they're reporting the highest incidence of charity mergers in 15 years. Sometimes, you can merge as a charity from a position of real strength and sometimes that's a great thing. I'm waiting for the data, but my concern is that we'll see those really precious small charities swallowed up by the bigger ones. And, actually, that's where the trust is, that's where the expertise is, that's where the volunteers are. That's where the magic is for our sector. So, I'm going to watch that with interest to see what happens.

Diolch. I think a blended approach of community leadership is needed, especially when it comes to things like challenging misinformation. We can present alternative rhetoric, we can challenge some of the misinformation that's out there, but it really depends on who it comes from as to whether certain members of our community see that as a credible voice or not, which was really encouraging when we saw the third sector-led response to the riots in Ely.

An organisation called ACE, Action in Caerau and Ely, were invited by the responsible authorities to lead the response and to lead the cohesive communities plan. I think there are 40 actions in it, and because they recruited young people who were from that community and part of that community, trust was able to be built much more swiftly.

I think, in terms of prevention, we do have a new funding code of practice that's imminently about to be launched in Wales, and if we can make sure that that's adhered to across local authorities and across various Government departments, that's going to be a real step in the right direction, building that resilience that the sector needs right now.

I would add, if it's okay, that we'd really like to see a communities policy that actually is cross-sectoral and can identify stronger mechanisms for that cross-sectoral work between the public sector and communities—communities we can also stretch out to be the broader voluntary sector in this case. But we don't feel that the current mechanisms around the ways of working, particularly around involvement, are sufficient. They don't appear to be adequate to actually meaningfully involve people. We still hear about endless consultation being done to rather than with people. So, a communities policy that is actually co-productive would be really important for us to build on those really positive cross-sectoral efforts that we did see, particularly during the pandemic. We saw a high spot, and we seem to have gone backwards a little bit in the interim period.

Yes, I think there's a real opportunity to learn from those pockets of good practice and then give that a megaphone so that everybody knows what occurred and what was happening. Another great example is from Llanelli Connect, and the response to the riots and protests that happened as a result of the refugee and asylum accommodation in hotels. They have pulled together a really nice report summarising the issues. They've arranged a series of events, and just conversations, and that's led to a new alliance of partners coming together to look at how they turned things around there. But I think what I really want to emphasise is that we don't have to wait until things are difficult in communities. NoFit State Circus did a brilliant piece of cultural work over the course of 14 months in areas of Cardiff where they brought together police, schools, housing associations, artists, and they came together over something enjoyable and something fun, rather than just having to respond to a crisis or a potential crisis. So, I think there's an opportunity to build those key and pivotal relationships while the going is good, and then, when things do go awry, the communities are in a stronger position to respond positively.

I don't have anything to add on that front, actually.

Jane.

Diolch. I would call for clear leadership on this from Welsh Government, and I would call for a measurement and evaluation framework to link to this that links also to the strategic equality plan for Wales, and those seven goals. I think there's an opportunity to really pull these things together. What I would really welcome is not just to see Welsh Government and local authorities leading this together, but the voluntary and community sector and people with lived and living experience of some of the issues we're trying to solve being around the table from day one. So, not, 'The strategy's written, and we've already got a draft', and then consult on it, but proper co-production around the table, rolling sleeves up and getting stuck into designing that together. I believe the answers to our community problems are already in our communities in Wales.

Eleri.

Yes, absolutely. I couldn't have put it better myself. It does need that leadership from Welsh Government, but it needs to be undertaken in a fairly co-productive approach that actually values and involves people meaningfully, and recognises the importance of that lived experience.

Very good. Can we move on to Julie Morgan?

Diolch, and bore da—well, prynhawn da. I think we've got to the afternoon now, haven't we? Your written evidence refers to the 24 to 28 strategic equality plan proposals, and you say that this indicates inconsistency in the overall approach to social and community cohesion. Would it be possible to explain what you mean by that? Perhaps, Eleri, you could start.

Yes, absolutely. So, I have seen the very recently published equality objectives. I haven't actually seen the new plan. I don't believe that that has been published and is in the public domain yet. At the stage of writing our evidence, the consultation responses, the summary, hadn't been published either. However, having looked at the 2016-17 national delivery plan for social cohesion and then the broader strategic equality plans, there was very much a disconnect between what the ambitions were and what the actions were saying. In particular, the 2016-17 delivery plan was very narrow in approach. It was around mitigating and responding to negative instances of prejudice, monitoring tensions within communities. It wasn't about building proactively and doing that preventative work. I really hope that the forthcoming strategic equality plan will have more of that preventative work clearly resourced and identified. But until I see the actual delivery plan, I can't really comment on it further at this stage. However, having looked at the equality objectives, there's not really anything to disagree with in the six or seven objectives that are out there as of last week, I think it was.

So, the plan you were talking about with the inconsistencies—you didn't feel that there was anything that was not responding to negative things.

No. We felt it was very reactive and mitigating those really negative harms, but wasn't proactively building stronger social capital or social infrastructure, which we believe would really help to build and strengthen social cohesion.

So, you're waiting to see now—

We're waiting to see, with bated breath.

Okay. Lindsay, have you got anything to add to that?

I think that the goals are a really good place to start, the goals that I've seen: rights-based approaches; pathways into employment—we do need to be mindful that a lot of European funding has gone from the sector that used to support pathways into employment; equal access to services. Anything that eradicates poverty is the business of the voluntary and community sector, so I welcomed the goals when I saw them. And also I think that there's an opportunity for our local nature partnerships to get involved in what that means for the environment. So, I'm quite excited to see how we can link on that.

So, you're optimistic now—

I'm optimistic, yes. I think it's the right direction. The devil's in the detail, as Eleri says, but, yes, I think it's what we would like to see.

Well, thanks very much for that. You also stress the importance of access to space, community-owned space or spaces—I suppose that this means buildings or open-air spaces, and we discussed that earlier on—the community asset transfer in that context. So, what is the current situation in Wales? You did refer to some figures earlier on. They were from 2020, I think, weren't they?

They are 2020. We were able to identify 438 community-owned assets back at that time. The figure will be different now. We hope to be able to re-run that exercise. However, we're very aware that local authority approaches to undertaking asset transfer has been really variable across the nation. It's a patchwork approach, it's not universal. The biggest driving factor appears to be cost savings, as you might imagine, but that can mean that community assets are actually liabilities for those community groups. We would really like to see the introduction of a community right to buy or own or manage on a long-term lease community assets that are at risk of being lost to the community.

One of the biggest priorities for the groups that we've worked with over this nearly 10-year period at this point has been undertaking or embarking on a community ownership journey, because they could see that those assets were at risk of being permanently lost to their community. Because of events that have happened in that time frame, it's taking longer for communities to actually get hold of those keys and to undertake maintenance or refurbishment. And the cost implications are dramatic for community organisations.

We really welcome the community facilities programme. We would really like to see that maintained with a view to increasing that budget line. We also really welcome the community asset loan fund, which I know the WCVA administers. These are all really important sources of capital that enable communities to have access to those spaces and places to do their vital work, but also to provide that space, that opportunity, for people to meet really informally across those lines of difference that exist. We don't have figures for Wales, but in England, if you bear with me, the Institute for Public Policy Research found that an estimated 75,000 council assets, which included buildings and land, at an approximate asset value of £15 billion, were estimated to have been sold since 2010. We don't have those figures for Wales, but if we don't act now to enable communities to take on those rights, or to streamline the approach to getting ownership, we feel that contributions to community well-being, contributions to social cohesion are going to be hampered.

My experiences of being involved with community groups who've wanted to have the ownership for use is that it not only takes a long time, but it's a struggle.

Absolutely.

It's very, very difficult, and there's a lot of convincing and going back and forth. Would you say that that was a common experience?

Absolutely. That's a very, very common experience. It's a bit of a battle to be undertaken, I think it's fair to say, in the current process, which is why not only do we want to see the introduction of the community right to buy, we want to see that backed by funded support through infrastructure organisations, but also better peer networking opportunities. So, when an organisation has been there, done that, and it might have taken them years, they can share that experience with people, because word of mouth is often the best way to access that real support, rather than an online toolkit, for example.

Yes. Well, Lindsay, you're quite involved in all this, presumably, with your position with regard to grants and things. Have you got anything more to add?

Yes, we have a scheme called social investment Cymru that has enabled communities to buy assets. What we're finding, though, is that it takes so long that the asset is so dilapidated, it's then often too costly to repair. But it's not just buildings—just to add that it's the village green, it's the places for grass-roots sports to happen, which is another threat to social cohesion. And also just to add that there are already these schemes in Scotland and in England, so we're behind the curve on this in Wales.

Right, thank you. You both also call for the Welsh Government to develop a community strategy, which we have mentioned already. So, why are you recommending this, what would it include and how would it work with the current cohesion strategy and any other action plans? Because, obviously, we've got the anti-racist strategy and others.

Do you want to go first?

Yes, I'll speak to that point. Well, following the COVID-19 report, there was a recommendation that came from that that a community policy would be developed, and Eleri's organisation did extensive community consultation, so this has come from communities themselves. We would like to offer recommendations for what that could look like. We haven't seen much development on this work and if there's an opportunity for it to not just cover community cohesion, but a broader sort of range of areas such as community resilience, which looks at your volunteers, your energy and grid capacity, storm recovery, and all of those things that are so important to communities. And also looking at community services and equal access. I was quite concerned by a Sustrans report that showed that because of transport, it's those communities that are lower down on the indices of multiple deprivation that aren't able to have equal access to things that are going on around them, and the other things that we've covered around participation, access to services, connected communities and nurturing our anchor organisations. We'd just like to see some longer term strategy and longer term funding streams to really support that work, so that we're not doing this annual or every-three-year fight and recommissioning process. Let's think longer term, with more of a future-generations approach, and really get stuck into what the issues are and bring some consistency there.

Yes. And obviously, when you talk about a community strategy, you think of communities throughout Wales, but obviously there are different groups as well, community groups and individuals, and it so happens I was meeting with a learning disability group this morning, and their inclusion is crucial. Have you got any comment about how these different groups and then the communities of place, how that works together?

As an organisation, we focus primarily on communities of place. We're a community development place-based organisation. However, we recognise that there isn't a dividing line between a community of interest and a place-based community. Very often, there is that overlap, there is that involvement on both sides of that invisible line that exists. So, when we're talking about a community policy, we're not talking just about place-based organisations, we're talking about people who make up our communities, be that a community of interest or a place-based community. I think it's really important that you look at the assets that exist for each group or area, whichever factor you're focusing on, and look at what is available and what you can capitalise on there, rather than looking at what's missing, for example. We would say that every community organisation will have something going for it: it may have a really, really strong volunteer team, it may have really good outreach and involvement opportunities. But it's about being creative and not looking to have a universal approach. It is about having that tailored approach, be that for a community of interest or a place-based community.

Thank you.

I think where social cohesion is under threat, it's those communities that are feeling the highest level of fear, particularly around social media targeting, misinformation, all of those sorts of things. So, I just wanted to add that those are the communities that we really need to reach out to and reassure and connect back in.

So, that would include, obviously, people of black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.

Yes, and people who have come here to work in our NHS, for instance. There are a lot of rumours going round Llanelli that they illegally immigrated here, and, actually, with the absence of a counter-narrative from any responsible authorities, that misinformation is still perpetuating.

You don't feel there is a counter-narrative coming.

I think there is from some places. There's a great Welsh Government blog about setting the record straight, but the people who are spreading the narrative won't necessarily see that as a credible counter-source. It's about finding the people in communities that they will listen to, and also responding to misinformation as it comes out. We have seen silence in Llanelli, for example, on some of these issues.

Right, thank you.

At this point, I'll try and ask Mick Antoniw to come in, and then I'll come back to you, Jane. Mick, do you want to ask your questions?

Just really to follow on, because we've inevitably moved into the area of social media, misinformation and so on. I suppose, in a more general sense, then, how do you see the challenges? What do you think actually needs to be done in respect of misinformation, particularly in an environment when social media is so open to abuse, and some of it is very systematically through algorithms perpetuating certain memes, certain attitudes? We've seen that particularly with X, but it goes in many others as well? How do you envisage this, because this seems to me one of the major catalysts of creating and generating disharmony and misinformation?

Would you like to go, or shall I?

I was going to say you've probably got a bit more to say.

Yes, I'm happy to speak to that. We've just seen this surge of misinformation, and we had a bit of it before in the sector, but the volume of it really seems to have come from nowhere. So, if you look at the Welsh Refugee Council example, where there was a retweet from Elon Musk, the landslide of hate, security risk, everything that hit them, they couldn't actually run their charity, because they were too busy just dealing with this onslaught of hate.

What I would like to see is a co-ordination of how we prepare organisations for these sorts of things, because this is new territory for us. I've been in the third sector 35 years, and I've seen charities being in the wrong place at the wrong time and swept up by these kinds of things, but I've never seen charities targeted like this, even a well-known grant funder. Elon Musk responded to an article in the press and called them 'woke money launderers'. They're supporting some of the most vulnerable communities in our society through their innovative funding streams. So, I think it's hard to field the hate; it's hard to then put security arrangements in place when you don't have a budget for that. And also I'm seeing this kind of piecemeal response; I would like to see more of a co-ordinated response and advice. So, the Charity Commission is doing a bit on it, CharityComms are doing a little bit on it, there's a Welsh Government toolkit that's being piloted somewhere—I haven't been able to get hold of a draft yet. But it seems that there are a few different pockets of people saying, 'Right, we need to respond to this.' I'd really like to see those threads pulled together and some real good advice for our sector on how to respond. It's really difficult.

Could I follow on from that, then? What we do know, increasingly—well, the more we're beginning to learn about algorithms and the generation of information—is that somewhere in the region of almost a third of this is generated one way or another through Russian channels, another through US channels, another then gets followed through and it comes—. It's because of the way the algorithms pick up and develop certain tropes. Two things. Firstly, is there a need for stronger legislation in this area? And of course, this goes into an area that goes beyond our competence. But the second point is, in terms of countering this, what you seem to be suggesting is that this cannot be done on the basis of individual organisations trying to cope, that this is of such a serious consequence that there is need for a properly funded, almost a counter false information unit that actually will challenge the tropes and challenge the misinformation that is coming through. If that's what you're saying, can you perhaps just expand a little bit on what your thoughts might be of how this might operate?

Yes. I think, if we could co-ordinate a response to that extent, it's something that I would love to see. It's not my specialist area as to how that would work in real life. I know something about algorithms; I know that there are some key strategic groups that are meeting about AI and how the charity sector can respond to things. It's really a case of what resources can we put in place for when charities are hit by this. Are there specialists that we can access from the private sector, or is there something else that communities can link in to? I think, for a long time, as a sector, we've tried to be the counter-narrative in places like X, and, actually, because of the algorithms and the bots and everything, we've just been overrun, really, in terms of the counter-narrative, and it's hard to get your message out to the right people, because we don't have as much control as we would like as to where our message goes and where our message lands. I sit on a UK-wide strategic group and it was noted there that LGBTQ+ History Month was so quiet on LinkedIn, just because the algorithms didn't work in the favour of those communities at that time, whereas, in previous years, it would be more prominent and people would be able to engage more with that content. So, yes, I wish I had an answer for you, but I think the jury's still out on that. We need to pull more sector experts together.

Can I just put this one suggestion to you? It seems to me that what is happening is actually the development of social media, or the manipulation of social media, in a way that actually not only destabilises communities, but is also politically destabilising, and that this actually requires attention at a national level—I'd say a national, Welsh Government level, but probably also at a UK level. Would that be something that you—? Is that where you're heading to in terms of your thinking?

Yes. That's something that I would like to see further co-ordination on, and it was heartening to see, when we saw the riots in England more recently, that action was taken against individuals who were inciting hate. I think there's more work to do in prevention here. How do we counter the hate early? How do we drag that out of our communities? How do we keep that out of our sector? And I think the answer is with our young people and how we develop their resilience; I think they're the ones who are going to have to tackle this in the future. I don't think it's going to go away any time soon.

Would you agree with me that, at the moment, we are losing the social media battle? And it is indeed a battle, isn't it?

It is a battle and it's something that everybody's worried about. My sector's terrified of this.

Thank you.

Eleri, is there anything you wanted to add?

I would just say that, if there is going to be anything at Welsh Government level or at UK level strategically done about this, please remember that many community organisations are volunteer run; they do not have any staff. If they have staff, they are not likely to have a communications officer. So, actually, you really need to think of what you can do when you have next to no capacity to do anything in that sense.

Thank you for that. Can I call Jane Dodds now? Oh, sorry, could I just go quickly to Sioned?

I think that anything that spreads good practice is valuable, so I would welcome training and education on this, because there are things that organisations can do. For instance, a lot of organisations have come off X recently. So, rather than deleting your account, you put a pinned post so that nobody else can then take your old handle and pretend to be you, for example. The advice that we're given is just not to give it airtime, not to interact with the posts, but that's very, very difficult when you're being personally targeted and you're just seeing the reputation of your organisation tarnished. 

Absolutely, and I think there is a real role for elected Members to actually put strong statements of support out there. That's not to say that those strong statements of support are the be-all and end-all and the end point, but actually having those statements of support goes a long way within our sector to show that there is that support out there for the work that you're doing and the hate that you are facing. It won't solve the problem, but it makes you feel that you're part of a bigger movement that is countering this challenge.

We put out a strong statement of support for the Welsh Refugee Council and then we got some of our own problems. So, there's also that to consider as well: if you speak out in support, they will come for you too.

Okay. Moving back to a more positive outlook, Jane.

Eleri, do you want to start?

I'm going to talk about co-production again. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but it's really important that the messaging is coherent and is consistent across both parties, and that could be Welsh Government, it could be local authorities, it could be community organisations. I think it's really important that we don't try and do this in silos. It is about collaboration and co-production. By default, co-production—and I don't know what the end solution would be if we do co-production right—would be developed throughout that process, but I think it will involve multiple partners in an equally formed co-productive manner.

Thank you. Lindsay.

Just to say that it's about leading alongside, not pushing to the front, and also just to look for whoever has a budget: whether it's trusts and foundations, whether it's Government, whether it's local authorities, we have to find a way of resourcing the work so that communities can mobilise to do this. While we're working on this, they're not raising money for their organisations. It's a really, really difficult challenge. Yes, the sector want to be consulted on everything, of course we do, but getting time away to be able to afford to do that is still a challenge.

Shall I go first?

Yes, go ahead.

We work quite closely with ACE, Action in Caerau and Ely, so we understand quite a lot about the approach to the development of the community plan. We spoke to them at great length and we think we do identify this as best practice. That was the public sector organisations funding a trusted, recognised, long-standing community organisation within the geographical area, over I think it was a 10-month period, to work with members of the community to develop this community plan. It's 40 actions across six areas, if I'm correct in my memory, and this was done through a lot of engagement processes, involvement processes with those members directly who were affected. And I think it was really important that that community organisation led that facilitation work, that it wasn't done to that community, and that seemed to be a difference in the more or less investigative response to the Mayhill riots that we saw—I think it was 2022, 2023; I can't quite remember, unfortunately. By involving that community organisation, by resourcing them to do that work, that was a key point—that they were resourced to do that work, they weren't expected to do that on top of everything else they're already doing—they could do that in a way that, members of that community who were really traumatised by the event, they trusted that organisation, they trusted the people because they were based in that community. They saw them in and outside of their workplace. And that is a real mark of success for us.

That's not to say it was without challenges. The 10 months might seem like a long time, but that's not a long time when you're doing that active work alongside people who are going through quite a lot of trauma. It also meant that the members of ACE's team, they can't escape from that community, they live there, so actually if they had a particular conversation or session that was really hard for them, they had nowhere to go. A public sector organisation might have been able to go away, come back a few weeks later; you can't do that when you're actually rooted in that community.

However, whilst it may seem like that 10 months was not long for the people delivering the work or facilitating it, it felt like an awful long time for people who just wanted to see some kind of outcome after that, the riots and those events. What I've been told is that the cross-sectoral relationships and bonds that were built have fundamentally changed the way that work happens in that community, and they are hopeful that will continue in the forthcoming years.

So, we do see that as best practice. We recognise that that can't necessarily happen everywhere. However, it is something to learn from, and you can perhaps adopt elements of that approach elsewhere, as and when some kind of hot-spot or trouble spot emerges, because there will be something that comes in the future, so you could tailor some of those or adopt some of those approaches and elements. Obviously, there is a published plan, but also there is an existing team that still exists within ACE, so you can learn those lessons directly from the organisation itself.

Yes, in addition, I like what Llanelli are doing with community cohesion partnerships. Yes, they were set up in response to unrest there. But just to re-emphasise my point, we need to do it while the going is good, build those relationships before communities are experiencing difficulty. We can cite a number of great examples. The other one that I put in the report is Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales—employability services, participation in sport, access to youth work. I think what they are doing particularly well is that it's not just about moving people from something negative; it's about moving people towards something positive that they want to engage in, and I think that's the difference that makes the difference.

Can I just come in? 

Julie. 

You've been using ACE as a really good example and I do agree with that very strongly. I know that the Welsh Government put money in very swiftly at the beginning, upfront, and I wondered how much that has been repeated in other areas, from your knowledge, or whether you think that was a key issue. Because we talked about leadership and we said we should have leadership from Welsh Government, and that example did seem to show that. I just wondered if you had a comment on that.

I'm not personally aware of other approaches or examples where that investment has been made upfront in response to particular trouble spots, but I would say it is absolutely crucial that that is the approach that is undertaken, because voluntary sector organisations, community groups, they do not have the massive resources or reserves to enable that level of work without that upfront investment. I'm not sure how Llanelli's work is being resourced currently. 

I think they just went ahead and did it. I think—

We can write and clarify that, get that clarified. 

Yes, I'll follow that one up in writing. I haven't heard of any other specific examples where Government money has got out to communities for this kind of work, but we do have an enviable position in Wales with our volunteering infrastructure with Third Sector Support Wales, with our county voluntary councils. We are very good in times of trouble at getting resources out into communities where it's needed, so that's another real strength. 

Thank you. 

Great. Thank you. Can I now call Altaf Hussain, please? 

Thank you, Chair. I've come to the last section, which is about monitoring social cohesion. Now, how do both of your organisations currently monitor and demonstrate the impact of programmes aimed at strengthening community cohesion? Is it evidence based?

Yes, loosely. As an organisation, we pride ourselves on being a light-touch organisation. We don't have onerous monitoring and evaluation requirements. We do have this long-term approach that is being independently evaluated; both of our major programmes are being independently evaluated, which is all available on our website. You can see those lessons learned. So, there is anecdotal evidence that exists to show that the work that we are funding is improving community well-being as well as community resilience and community cohesion. We are part way through that process, so it's an evolving picture.

So, it's beginning to be evidence based, I think it's safe to say. However, as part of my role, I oversee all of our research portfolio as well, and we are looking at developing more robust evidence bases along those lines, but we do try to do it in as light touch a way as possible because we don't want to put more workload or more requests on our community organisations. 

I'll just expand on that to say there's a global evidence base behind the approaches that we're taking at WCVA. We do have a CRM system that we share with our county voluntary councils.  

CRM? 

Case record management, I think it is. 

Thank you. 

And what that does is gather information about who's volunteering where, what funding has gone to which community. What we are working on next is a new exciting partnership with Nottingham Trent University, where we look to extrapolate more information from that data and do a whole other level of analysis of what's happening in our sector. So, as that develops, we're going to have better evidence to work from. 

I think in terms of a robust monitoring framework, there are some quick wins that we could measure: incidence of civil unrest, hate crime rates—things like that—the amount of assets that are actually transferred in communities, the amount of shared spaces that are available, which goes back to the mapping exercises that Eleri was recommending. I think there are places where we already have enough data to make a really good start on this.

Altaf. 

Thank you very much. And how could the Welsh Government set targets that help develop community cohesion or what would effective monitoring frameworks look like?

I think you don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel on that front. If you look at the national milestones and national indicators within the broader well-being framework, I think 29 of the 50 are mapped as demonstrating progress towards the cohesive communities goal. And they are not just your typical ones around percentage of people volunteering or feeling safer in their local area. They are much broader, which, in some ways, is really helpful; in some ways can make it harder to actually see that meaningful change. But there is the start of a framework. I think it is really important, though, that there are targets to work towards, because you're never going to see that progress unless you have the target to aim for.

I think what is missing, though, is the possibility of some sort of impact assessment for when we lose a key community organisation or when a key service is decommissioned, or something like that, through lack of funding. It would be really good to get a measure of what the potential unintended consequences could be before those decisions are taken, and then to measure those impacts in communities afterwards.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Okay. Just before I let you go, I had two questions, really, but I'll wrap them up into one. Neither of you mentioned any positive legacy left by Communities First. Is that because there wasn't any? And also the role that community-focused schools could play, because, obviously, most communities have a primary school, or several.

In terms of Communities First, for many of the places we work in, there isn't a positive legacy; it's a legacy of distrust and a feeling that the programme didn't work or result in benefits for those communities. A lot of our earlier work has been around building those bridges and convincing people we are not Communities First No. 2; we are a different programme.

In terms of community-focused schools, absolutely, I think there's real opportunity through the programme. But also, as you say, everywhere is going to have a primary school, or most places will have access to a primary school. So, there are opportunities there. Lots of our programme areas work closely with their schools and their other partners, be that a housing association or a school, for example. So, again, we would see that as part of the broader mapping that could take place in any kind of community development work that would take place.

Thank you. Lindsay.

Yes, moreover, there's going to be a new volunteering vision for Wales that we're expecting to launch in the summer, and part of that is emphasising the lifelong journey of volunteering throughout the life cycle, and looking at ways that we encourage that approach, rather than it just being things that people dip in and out of. So, community-focused schools could be a pivotal part of that approach.

Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. We'll send you both a transcript of what your contributions were. Please read it and correct it if we've misinterpreted what you've said. Otherwise, I just want to thank you both very much for the quality of your evidence, both orally and in writing. Diolch.

Diolch.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now take a 10-minute break until we restart our next session at a quarter to. So, if Members could come back a couple of minutes before then, so we start on time.

Welcome back to evidence session 4 on social cohesion, and I'm very pleased to welcome Jacqueline Broadhead, who's the director of Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, and Migration Oxford and the Inclusive Cities project; and Jonathan Downs, the corporate policy lead at Oldham Council, who are both joining us online; and Kate James, the policy and research officer for Migration Yorkshire. Welcome to all three of you. I'm just going to start off by briefly asking you to explain what you think are the headline barriers and key threats to social cohesion in the UK. Can I start off with Jacqueline in the first instance?

Yes, thanks very much. So, obviously there are external barriers to cohesion in terms of what's happening in communities, and I think that some of the other speakers might touch on that, but I think that what I want to touch on are some of the structural barriers that we see that can impede community cohesion. So, when we talk about community cohesion, we're generally talking about three things: the links and ties that bind communities together, institutional levels of trust and mitigating community tensions. And generally what we've seen in UK-wide reviews, ranging from the Casey review through to the Khan review, is a lack of impetus and overall policy focus on this as a topic. 

We know and my research really focuses on the way that this is multi-level in terms of government. So, there is a central Government role, but it's a very devolved responsibility, and that's both at a devolved administration level and also at local government level. And those reviews have found little co-ordination between those levels of government. They found areas of good practice, and there are lots of individual projects and areas of good practice that we can point to and I hope that we will touch on over this hour but, overall, a lack of UK-wide strategy—I know that the situation is different in Wales and there is strategy in place in Wales, but, overall, a UK-wide lack of strategy—a lack of funding directed specifically towards these areas—again, it works slightly differently in Wales—and overall, therefore, a lack of monitoring of what we're trying to achieve and how we're achieving it in cohesion policy. 

Monitoring of cohesion is pretty tricky, but we don't necessarily have a clear outcomes framework. I will say, just as a last thing, that cohesion is also—it's an interesting policy area, because it's both an ongoing process and a destination. So, a lot of it is happening and will happen without any proactive Government intervention, but we're also using it as a framework of something that we want to get to and something that we want to achieve, but we're not always that clear in setting out exactly what that is and the steps that we're taking to get there. 

Thank you very much. Briefly, Jonathan Downs, what's the view from Oldham Council?

That was an incredibly helpful summary. I think, for me, in Oldham, what we've seen on the ground over the last couple of years has been that social cohesion has been really tested by economic pressure. Deprivation has a massive impact on community cohesion at a local level. We've seen a lot in terms of political divide, both on the back of Brexit and more broadly with some what I call malignant operators who are deliberately trying to stir up hatred across communities. And we've also seen a rise in what I call deliberate misinformation, so, an attempt to undermine trust in public institutions, which is something that the social media, and I'm sure we'll get into this into a bit more detail, but which the social media era has really started to play on. I think there's also a lot around hate crime and discrimination that we're still seeing between certain communities, not just ethnic minority communities, but some of that hatred is now being more directed at LGBTQ+ communities and certain religious groups—that seems to be more on the rise, especially online. So, there are elements of trying to combat that at a community level, but there's also, absolutely, a need to think about how that's combatted at a digital level.

Thank you very much. We'll come back to a lot of that. Kate James.

I'd agree with everything that has been said. I think I'd also like to add that, because a lot of the work that we do focuses particularly on refugee integration, one of the big challenges for that area of work at the moment is a loss of funding. In Yorkshire, we have just recently come to the end of a five-year period of having some EU migration integration funding, which has been quite significant and funded large programmes of work. That has now gone and hasn't been replaced since Brexit, so I think we would see that as one of the big challenges, because without integration cohesion is more difficult.

There are also a lot of challenges in terms of social connection between people from different backgrounds, which I think is one of the key things that's important for social cohesion, and that has come out in pieces of research that we've done. Those can be things like structural barriers like the cost of accessing events and fears of racism and prejudice, individual and relational barriers relating to things like language and low confidence, and place-based barriers. So, there are a lot of different types of barriers for people who may want to meet people from different backgrounds, and that needs to be looked at, I think.

I would echo what has been said about the testing of cohesion in terms of the difficult economic situation, and I think I'd probably add to that that some of the national discourse hasn't helped with that, that we've heard over the last few years, and then we've seen that reflected and sometimes amplified in the media and social media.

Thank you. Just briefly, how important is it that we define what we mean by social cohesion? Jacqueline, you've already said that there is no community cohesion strategy in England anyway. There is something that has been on the table for a while in Wales, but it does need refreshing. I never hear people talking very much about redistribution. How much is this an issue of people who think that the world is not being fair to them?

I guess that they're two slightly different questions. I'll start with the definitional one first, which is that there isn't a full, clear consensus, as there is with a lot of areas of research, to exactly define what we mean by cohesion, but, as I said, there are some key recurring things. So, we know that it's about the links and connections and ties that bind; we know that it's about trust in institutions; and we know that there's something reactive about what happens when things break down.

I think where the research literature sometimes disagrees is exactly to your second point, which is the importance of other factors—so, the extent to which we can divorce cohesion from things like systemic inequality or those questions of redistribution. I think it's pretty clear that you can't, and that, actually, those things do have an impact, but they are slightly different. We know that place really matters, and that's also where you see some of those distributional questions.

Then, also, you can see that in questions of, for example, social and community capital. I think a good example of that was a piece of research that was done during the COVID-19 pandemic that looked at the rise of mutual aid groups, which basically said that, actually, the strength of those mutual aid groups, in lots of ways, was that they weren't state led—you know, that they were led by the community and they didn't have too much external involvement.

But the bind that we have with that is that, at the same, they also were much more likely to spring up in areas that had more social capital and also had less inequality and things like that. So, I think that's where there's a distributional issue, where there's a balancing act for the state in saying, 'Listen, this is not about stymieing community work'. Quite often, actually, it is community groups that are best placed to do some of this work and have the trust on the ground, but there are questions of systemic inequality that mean that some areas are more able to devote the time and energy to this type of cohesion work, but obviously in others it's a lot more challenging, either because they have less community infrastructure, or because people are really suffering, as you heard from other witnesses, and find it hard actually to be able to spend the time on the types of, for example, contact activities that we know are beneficial to cohesion.

Very good. So, Kate, in the work that you’ve been doing in Yorkshire, how much has this concept of social cohesion played a part, or how much is it down to poverty and people feeling that they’re having to share limited resources with new arrivals?

I'd agree with everything that Jacqui said. I think within that context it’s still possible for constructive work to take place, but it is more difficult. We did some research a few years ago called Communities up Close and we took a detailed look at 10 different communities across Yorkshire and Humber and their experience of and response to recent migration-driven population change. On the basis of that—. So, that was done by the Institute for Public Policy Research—we commissioned them to do the qualitative part of that research—they developed what they described as a neighbourhood typology, where they categorised neighbourhoods according to their responses to recent population change, and found that their response was tied up with a number of issues, such as neighbourhood identity. A lot of those places had a rich industrial heritage, which had changed in recent years. Areas with a more limited history of migration struggled to adapt to that change more than some other areas that were more diverse to begin with, and the impact of the local economy was quite stark in terms of the response to migration. So, in those places experiencing decline, community tensions could be heightened, basically. So, just to echo what Jacqui said, really.

Despite that, what we did find, although there were those tensions and people sometimes made an association with their difficult situation and recent incoming migration, there was a real curiosity to get to know people from different backgrounds and to get to know their new neighbours. It was hampered by people’s situations, working 60-hour weeks in different part-time jobs and those kinds of things, but that appetite was there for people to get to know people from different backgrounds. Therefore, one of the big recommendations from that report was for national and local organisations to look at how to facilitate that meaningful social connection more effectively. I think, as was discussed in the previous evidence session, it’s much better if that is done in a co-productive way and a community-driven way, rather than something that’s imposed from the outside.

Jonathan, is co-production the solution?

I absolutely think so. From my perspective, just picking up the point that was made earlier about redistribution, for me, it’s about recognising that redistribution isn’t just about money and resources, it’s fundamentally about shifting power, influence and decision-making down to communities as much as possible. So, a lot of our work in Oldham has really focused on how we can generate more community-led support, how we can work with communities hand in hand to develop new policies that do reduce demand on public services while promoting more cohesive communities. It’s about how we’re worked with our voluntary sector to really tackle inequality and start to bridge some of those gaps between people. I think you can only do that by collaborating, by co-operating.

Thank you. Julie Morgan.

Thank you very much. My first question is to Jacqueline. I understand that there are 12 cities that are participating in your programme, and that that includes Cardiff and Newport. So, I wondered if you could tell us what the work involves and have you noticed any difference at all in the issues facing Welsh cities compared to the other cities in England?

Sure, absolutely. And just to clarify, those 12 cities cover all four nations of the UK, rather than just England and Wales. But, yes, Inclusive Cities has been running since 2017, and it’s a knowledge exchange and research project that, effectively, looked at—. It came from noticing that there was no UK-wide either integration or cohesion strategy, and yet local areas really wanted to understand what the research base was on some of these topics, and also to take action at a local level.

Each of the 12 cities that are involved have developed an action plan based against five different thematic areas, under a framework. Those five thematic areas include telling the story of welcoming and inclusion, how to promote inclusive economic growth, and that includes skills development, connecting communities, which is probably the one that is most linked to community cohesion, access to mainstream services, and finally, representation and co-production, similar to what Jonathan talked about.

That's also underpinned by a number of ways of working, I guess probably one of the most important of which is that this is not work that is solely focused on newcomer communities. It's about the interaction between newcomer and longer standing communities, understanding that inclusion work can't just be focused on one side. We work with an organisation called Welcoming America, and their CEO has a line that plants can't grow in stony ground. So, cohesion and integration work has to look at both sides of the equation, not only one side, and that matches more formal academic definitions of integration and things like that.

It's been fantastic to work with Newport and Cardiff as part of the programme, and also to understand this as an area of devolution, and so where there is difference in the approaches between the four nations. Obviously, we're delighted that they participate in the programme—I'm not going to speak on their behalf in terms of the work that they do—but I guess some of the things that I've noticed that have been distinctive within Wales was, firstly, that the programmes have sat predominantly with the community cohesion co-ordinators that have been funded in Wales, and that's distinctive to what we see in the rest of the UK, because those posts, generally, don't exist, and that means that they have had a cohesion perspective for quite a while, and that's not true elsewhere in the UK.

The leads for the programme—and we have both a political lead and an officer lead in each city—can be based in lots of different departments. For example, in Glasgow, the programme is situated in the economic development department and the focus there is on the inclusive growth. In other local authorities, it can be here, there and everywhere. So, there isn't necessarily, outside of Wales, a natural lead for this work, and that's partly because it's by and large non-statutory, quite discretionary, and local authorities are finding space as and when, rather than having a specific programme. I would say that's probably the major difference in Wales, where there has been this funded support.

I would say that, with the significant increase, for example, through the Ukraine programme, and through other programmes, there's been a lot of pressure on the services in Wales, and that's been notable. That's certainly not unique to the Welsh cities, but it has been notable that those teams have grown quite significantly over the last few years, as those programmes have developed, and perhaps there's been a lot of reactive work that's happened, as opposed to proactive work. But, again, I wouldn't say that that's unique to Wales. That's been something that we've seen across the country where teams have really been involved in crisis mobilisations, rather than necessarily proactively developing strategy.

Thank you very much; that's very interesting. So, there are no community cohesion co-ordinators in other cities throughout the UK.

Some cities have chosen to appoint those roles. They've done that themselves. I would say that Sheffield would be an example where they take a community cohesion focus to the work, but not in the same way as Wales, where there is this specifically funded network of community cohesion co-ordinators. So, you will find some across the UK, but not in the same way as in Wales.

Thank you very much for that information. This is to all of you: given you've all got the expertise in this area, have you had any engagement with the Welsh Government, or any Wales-based organisations, on any issues related to social cohesion, or are you aware of any other research into these issues in Wales? Could we start with you, Kate?

I'm not aware of anything specific. We do work quite closely with our equivalent organisation in Wales, which is the Wales Strategic Migration Partnership. I know the heads of those organisations meet weekly and they try to work collectively across the UK, and I know there are connections with other parts of the team on topics like asylum and refugees as well. In terms of cohesion, I'm not aware of anything specific, but I could go away and check that, because there may be something I'm not aware of.

From my perspective, we have done some work in the past with Cardiff Council and Swansea Council, through something called the co-operative councils innovation network. I don't know if you're aware of the co-op councils innovation network, but it's a national network of local authorities who are all committed to sharing best practice and working together to tackle some of the big challenges that are facing our communities. When it comes to specific community cohesion initiatives, we've probably shared learning between our respective organisations, but not necessarily worked on something collaboratively, if that makes sense.

Thank you. And Jacqueline, obviously you've had contact with the cities that you've mentioned, but have you had any contact with the Welsh Government?

We've done some work looking at the migrant integration strategy the Welsh Government developed and also Wales's work as a nation of sanctuary. Then finally I'd just mention some of the work that the Bevan Foundation has done also, looking at migrant integration and inclusion in Wales.

Thank you. And again to you, Jacqueline: in your submission to the Women and Equalities Committee you noted that a further review of the community cohesion programme is taking place in 2025. Do you have any more information about this review?

No. I would defer to the people in the room. I guess I was looking at this process and other processes rather than having any specific intelligence on that.

Thank you. That's fine, thank you.

Thank you. Sioned Williams, would you like to come in, please?

Who would like to come in first on this? Kate, do you want to start?

I think from our perspective we work very closely with the third sector. They are the backbone, I suppose, of support for newly arrived migrants in our region and elsewhere. I think funding is always a huge challenge, and I think that's become more difficult over recent years. I think we heard some of that in the previous evidence session as well—short-term funding streams and a lack of funding, some of which I've already alluded to. We've lost a big amount of integration funding over the last few years since Brexit.

There's also a real disparity in terms of funding for different programmes for people seeking sanctuary. For example, for people who arrive through the resettlement route, they're quite well funded programmes. In recent years we've had the Syrian resettlement scheme and then more recently Afghan resettlement schemes. There isn't the same level of support for people who come through the asylum route in terms of housing, English language and those kind of things, so I think that's a major challenge and the voluntary sector are usually the ones who try to fill those gaps. But it's challenging in the difficult context in terms of funding.

I think the voluntary sector is also doing what it can to support people who are living in hotels, but again that's very challenging. We don't see that as an appropriate environment for people to be living in for any length of time. In terms of what happened last summer, obviously that's a key indication of why they're not appropriate, but for many other reasons as well. People don't have agency if they're living in those situations, and it's very hard for them to integrate into communities if they're not dispersed and living in those situations. They're some of the key challenges that we would see the voluntary sector facing at the moment.

Jonathan, I'm—

Would you like me to come—? Sorry, Chair, we were both being too polite there. Do you want me to jump in first just with a couple of quick examples from Oldham's perspective?

I think Oldham is a really interesting place in the sense that we have a history. Twenty years ago, we had the Oldham riots, which was a really hard time, as you can imagine, for the borough, and they were caused by some really strong community feeling. Following that, over the past 15 years and longer, we've been doing an awful lot of work with the voluntary sector to really build those relationships with the different communities that exist across the borough. We now have a really strong relationship with our local mosque council, for example, as well as the local churches, as well as some of the smaller community organisations. What we've found is that those organisations are actually an excellent litmus test for the mood of the community. So, it's really important to be bringing those groups of people together on a regular basis to share their learning, and to share how they're perceiving things out in the community.

That became really prevalent last year, of course, after the atrocities in Southport when certain parts of the country devolved into violence. Everyone had a bit of an eye on Oldham nationally because they were expecting that, perhaps, Oldham would bubble over again given its history of having had riots here before. And actually, nothing happened at all. We were really proud of the work that had happened across the community to make sure that none of the right-wing narrative that was playing out infected Oldham and infected the communities that live here. It was a real testament to the strength of community feeling that nothing bubbled over. 

So, I think it comes back to that point that we were making earlier—it absolutely is about collaboration, it absolutely is about working with all elements of the communities that you represent, and making sure that everyone's voice is heard and has an opportunity to contribute, because it's only through dialogue and discussion that we can really start to crack a lot of these community cohesion issues that we all face. Thank you. 

Yes, absolutely, of course. We've got a really strong partnership structure in Oldham. We have something called our communities board, which is a board made up of key community representatives, voluntary sector partners, police, public health—all the big players—but it gives the community a really strong voice on that partnership to raise any concerns that they're seeing. That's one sort of board that we have. Sat alongside that, we've also got our voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise board, which brings together the VCFSE organisations and, again, gives them a voice that they're able to feed into policy planning and practice.

But on top of that, we've also, in recent years done a lot of work pulling together what we're calling our lived experience groups, so community groups who have genuine lived experience, for example, of poverty, inequality, or have faced things like racial prejudice. We're bringing them together, to really share their learning, because we know that they have so much to offer us in terms of our approach to responding to these issues. So, we've had things like our poverty truth commission in the last couple of years—incredibly valuable; it's changed the way that we're designing services now so they better meet the needs of people in poverty. Our approach to supporting people who've been through trauma, who've faced racial prejudice—. Again, we've completely changed the way that we provide services to those people so we're not furthering or exacerbating that harm.

So, there's a whole load of stuff there, probably more than I can talk about today, but I'd be more than happy to share some written testimony on that, if it would be helpful, just to give you a flavour of what that partnership structure really looks like.

Yes, please.

Just to come in from my point of view, the first thing I wanted to say is that I think Jonathan's given some really great proactive examples, but there are also some, if not reactive, less proactive, examples, which are about creating the spaces for interaction that aren't directly created by the state or by community groups. So, often, we think of a lot of community cohesion work as directly bringing groups together, but there's also a real role for creating the spaces in which people meet more naturally and more frequently every day. So, for example, we know that schools and workplaces can be really powerful sites of community cohesion, because they're places where people from different backgrounds naturally meet. But there's also quite a lot of work that can be done to think about what's happening within those sites. So, there's a programme that started in Bradford called the Linking Network, which is about connections between schools, for example, in order to promote cohesion.

I do think there is a role for employers within communities—a broader role, thinking about, particularly if there are communities in which there are lots of people who are coming to a particular place to work, how do you increase opportunities for social mixing, and then in the way that we design spaces and places. So, there's been a move to create more welcome hubs, using the community spaces and places that we have, and thinking of them as spaces for connection. So, I think there's quite a lot that we can do that isn't necessarily around saying, 'Right, how do we bring group X together with group Y?' Some of that work can be incredibly effective; some of it can also be a little bit clunky, because these are very sensitive things sometimes—actually just creating spaces for natural interaction can be a really effective way of working on cohesion space.

But in the proactive space, I also think there are some really good examples of work. I think, often, we don't look as much as we could towards the work that happens in Northern Ireland. They have a framework for good relations work that's funded throughout the local authorities in Northern Ireland, which has obviously been predominantly focused on the historic challenges there, but, increasingly, is being used to think about the interaction with newcomer communities. There's quite a good infrastructure there that thinks about how we proactively bring together different communities and understand exactly and build exactly the sort of trust that Jonathan was talking about.

There are also examples where you bring people together but you're not bringing them together about the things that they have differences on—you're bringing them together about the things that they have in common. And that's where—. Generally, it's focusing on other things that people are interested in, whether that's sport, music, heritage, culture—anything that's not about talking about the things that are divisive or difficult. Although, I will say that there are methodologies about how you bring people together where there has been conflict, and the way that you create and foster that space.

There are some really interesting examples from the United States, for example a programme called Village Square, which is about how you create the conditions to make those types of interactions successful. A lot of contact theory focuses on—. One of the things that I think gets missed is the equality between the participants in those types of interaction, and that sometimes can be quite a difficult thing to create. So, if you're getting involved in proactively bringing together groups that have previously been in conflict, I think that's something to be quite careful about how you do, in order to ensure that it's going to be successful. But there are lots of opportunities, actually, for just encouraging more everyday contact between groups that would have beneficial outcomes and perhaps a slightly lower risk, or requires less very proactive development.

Yes, thank you. I was just going to come in and say that, in terms of interventions, I think one of the things that we try to do is to improve understanding, and we share an awful lot of information about migration. We try to be seen as a trusted source of information, so that people will come to us, and we've tried to do some creative things around that. So, one of the things that we did a couple of years ago was to commission a play called How to be Lucky, created by a company called An Invisible Man theatre, and this explores the journeys of Syrian refugees settling in the UK. It's about a character called Anwar, who's a Syrian man, and the play follows his journey from the troubles starting in Syria to him arriving in the UK, and his experiences of settling here. The play was predominantly aimed at schools, and over 3,000 students at schools in Yorkshire and Humber saw the play. It's also been performed at public theatres as well. One of the things that we did was ask students to complete a short survey before watching the play and then after watching the play, so that we could see if the play had affected their attitudes and their knowledge in any way. We found that, for example, after seeing the play, they were much more likely to understand the difference between somebody seeking asylum and somebody with refugee status, which is something about which people often don't know the difference. Nearly everybody found it really engaging and said they would think differently about what refugees have been through to get to the UK. There were some really interesting comments from students, like, 'It changed my mind about refugees', and, 'Nobody really tells you it's like that. It's horrible what happens to people; we should definitely do more to help them.' It was clear, from reading the responses, that the play had really opened their eyes and improved their understanding. It would've been really interesting if we could have gone back and spoke to them again, after six months, and done that more longitudinal work. But, yes, from our perspective, those kinds of initiatives that can really help promote understanding can be very, very beneficial.

Okay. Thank you very much. Jane Dodds, would you like to come in now?

Thank you. So, it's a really interesting question, and I think there's probably quite a few different roles for Government to take in this space. I think one of the key roles with—. I feel like I keep repeating myself, but there's something about how you do create the space for these conversations to actually happen in Wales, at this moment in time. I think cities like Cardiff, Newport, Swansea have seen increasing levels of migration, including asylum seekers and refugees, and while that does bring cultural benefits, diversity and economic benefits, it does present challenges in terms of housing, employment and integration, and giving people the space to have those conversations and express their concerns is really important.

I also think there's something about how you tackle some of that—what I was talking about before—deliberately disruptive narrative, which is existing across certain communities at the moment, and is being portrayed by some what I call, sometimes, international actors who are deliberately trying to provoke and exacerbate community tensions. I think we need to take a really strong line as Government organisations when it comes to that kind of narrative, and make sure that we are presenting the counter-narrative as strongly as possible, in a really positive way, which gets people excited about the future of their communities and isn't just responding and reacting to that narrative, but is taking a much more proactive approach to creating that sense of community and community feel.

And probably lastly, I think there's definitely something about still thinking about how we tackle things like racism and discrimination, and our own approaches to equality and diversity. I think all local government organisations should absolutely be adopting proactive equality, diversity and inclusion strategies, thinking about how we involve more racially minoritised communities in decision making. So, a really good, proactive example of that, Jane, is in greater Manchester. We have something called the greater Manchester civic leadership programme where people from under-represented communities can apply to go on a development programme, which gets them more involved in public decision making. So, I've recently had a lovely Syrian chap who's been coming in to Oldham Council shadowing me, seeing how local democracy works and operates, because he really wants to represent his community and help shape local democracy, so it makes a difference for him. So, I think doing more of that kind of work from a Government perspective is also really, really important. I'll stop there.

Yes. I agree with a lot of what Jonathan was saying in terms of work on narrative. I'm going to talk a little bit about funding and structural work that I think the Government can do. Firstly, I do think that this is a real multilevel area, so it really sits between central and UK Government, devolved administrations and local authorities. So, I think the interaction between those layers is very important.

I think the first thing I want to start with is the overall funding envelope, not necessarily to say how much, whether it's additional funding that's needed, but the way that the funding is structured at the moment. So, we know that there is an aim to simplify funding settlements for local government. I think cohesion is an area that's particularly bedevilled by this because so much of the funding is bespoke, nationality-scheme specific. There are very few dedicated funding streams for this work. I know the situation is slightly different in Wales. But often, it's work that's specifically for Ukrainians or specifically for Hong Kongers or specifically for Afghans, people coming from Afghanistan, and actually, at the local level, that doesn't necessarily make sense. So, it feels like we're remaking projects. Old projects are being remade, and they tend to be quite short-termist rather than being able to have planning for the medium or longer term.

I would also say that because of the way that these schemes are funded, they tend to focus on upfront orientation challenges rather than longer term questions of community cohesion. So, we don't really have very much monitoring that looks at how successful you as a local area have been in cohesion over the longer term. Those funding programmes, they tend to look at how have you met initial needs for the first days, weeks and months that people have arrived. And what that's meant is that cohesion has dropped in salience, and it tends to rise in salience when something happens like the disturbances that we saw, the riots that we saw last summer, rather than being something that's there, upfront, and where we're taking a strategic review.

I also think that there is a role for Government in terms of learning. One of the things that we found with the inclusive cities programme is that with local government being under so much pressure in terms of responsive service delivery, there's very little capacity for learning and sharing between different places, and I think cohesion is a topic on which actually being able—. Because it's so focused on dialogue and partnership, actually having some capacity to be able to learn between areas feels like it would be very powerful, and there are vanishingly few—. Kate has obviously spoken about the role of strategic migration partnerships, and Yorkshire has done, I think, incredible work in expanding the remit of the strategic migration partnership to include cohesion and integration, but that's not, as far as I'm aware—Kate might correct me—formally part of the brief for those strategic migration partnerships. So, there isn't any formal place to share learning, and one of the things that we've spoken about with our local authorities is whether you would expand that remit for the strategic migration partnerships, and fund and support capacity to be able to share learning.

And then, finally, I would just say that central Government could have a real role in terms of monitoring and understanding short-to-medium-term threats to community cohesion. So, we know what some of the threats, from a migration perspective, can be. Basically, the stressors for an area are when change happens in a very small area, very quickly. And so, actually having that information locally, so that places can be responsive where change is happening—if we had something like a migration impact fund, for example, as the previous Government started trialling in the early 2010s—that could also look at some of the tensions that we see arising around, for example, if there are gaps in school places, GP places, et cetera. So, you could have something proactive that mitigates tensions.

And then, lastly, it also allows you to monitor progress. We know that we have the national survey for Wales, which asks some questions around community cohesion, but I'm not sure that we necessarily have an outcomes framework that says, 'What would "good" look like in this area? What are we looking to achieve with those numbers? How would we expect them to change over time?'

I'll just come in briefly, if I may. I haven't got a lot to add, but I think I would just say, from our perspective, on the Government's role, a very well-funded refugee integration strategy, nationally, is something that we would like to see. But, as Jacqui was saying, it's very important that that could then be implemented at the correct geographical level. For example, strategic migration partnerships, as Jacqui was saying, are very well placed to do that work because of our very close links with local authorities—so, Migration Yorkshire, for example, and the Wales strategic migration partnership here. And I think we'd also like to see leadership from Government in terms of messaging. I think the Homes for Ukraine scheme was a really good example of where, when leaders and the media are being very constructive and positive, that can result in really positive action across the board and a clear partnership approach. And I think if that could be replicated in other scenarios, that would be something that we'd really like to see.

Okay. All right, I'll bear that in mind. Mick Antoniw.

Thank you. We're moving into an area that is pretty blatant now. Just on the issue in terms of the breakdown of cohesion and destabilisation of society or even civic society, you, right at the beginning, focused on the issue of economic deprivation and so on, and the extent to which that is a destabilising force. That's, obviously, a very macro area that needs to be addressed, but is one we talk about a lot—inequality as being, I suppose, the summary of it. But, of course, that also feeds into the issue of misinformation—destabilisation of society now by the growth of social media and the increasing manipulation and use of social media, and misinformation. Of course, one of the issues is how do actually counter that, how do we address that, because it has now become a very generic form of destabilisation. I'm just really wondering what your thoughts are as to how that might best be addressed, co-ordinated, funded. Are we moving to a stage where we actually need, as a matter of democracy, a counter unit in terms of countering the abuse and manipulation, and that's aside from the broader issue as to legislation and regulation?

Okay. Jonathan's nodding. Do you want to go first? 

Yes, absolutely, and I think that's absolutely spot on. I think, responding to the kind of social media misinformation, in our experience, really requires a very strategic and a proactive approach. It’s about making sure that falsehoods don’t take root and undermine the really good work that’s already happening. So, I think, from my learning, I’ve probably got a couple of ideas. I think getting ahead of misinformation is really key, and part of that is that, as organisations, we need to be as transparent and open as possible. You can’t leave room for people to try and say, 'Oh, well, you were trying to hide something.' That’s how misinformation spreads. So, ensuring that we are really transparent and open as organisations is really important, and, I think, monitoring the kind of misinformation trends. So, we use quite a lot of social media what we call 'listening tools' now, which try and help us track kind of the sentiment of our communities and the people on social media. That can be really, really useful when it comes to spotting topics that might be starting to bubble over and cause some of that kind of community concern. And, also, I think that engagement—and I know this will be probably the hundredth time I’ve talked about engagement today, so forgive me—engaging with communities, working with those really trusted local voices, those community leaders, those influencers, those journalists that we work with and do trust, who can help us amplify the correct information, is really important. And when it comes to that point about amplification, it’s also about making sure that we don’t amplify the false narrative too. So, that’s really key.

Can I just ask about that then, because one of the challenges in doing what you’re saying—? I suppose the first thing I’d like to ask you is: do you see any of this co-ordination actually happening, because it doesn’t seem to me that there is anything other than a sort of fragmented and, often, knee-jerk response to the growth of the impact of the abuse of social media? But the other is in terms of the fact that, no matter what you do on it, it's the algorithmic input of it that we see in particularly one or two—we don’t even need to name them, do we—social media channels, where counterinformation is played down, or completely excluded, and contrary information is exacerbated. We’ve seen particularly, we know, the influence of significant elements emanating generically from within what seem to be very deliberate circumstances, from Russia, from the USA in particular at the moment, but also from other countries. So, we’re now part of a sort of international destabilisation process that latches onto impacting within our communities, and not just within the UK and abroad. How do you think we should be addressing that? What do you think needs to be done to begin to be capable of addressing it?

It is, again, a really interesting question. Over Christmas time, December time, we had Elon Musk very directly attacking Oldham, which was really, really interesting, because we suddenly had such a high-profile figure encouraging—. There were hundreds and thousands of tweets coming in every day, with negative press about Oldham, which was being facilitated by this one individual. So, absolutely, we recognise this concern, and we’ve actually started to open a dialogue with central Government departments on precisely that need for a more co-ordinated response. We definitely need more support in this area as a local authority to help us mitigate some of that online narrative.

But just as a couple of practical points from my perspective, and I’ll be quick because I’m very aware of time and I don’t want to hog all the time, misinformation spreads because it plays on fears and frustrations fundamentally. So, one of the things that we try and do is think about how we acknowledge those emotions while trying to provide the truth. We’ve started to do a lot of engagement with partners in schools and community groups to help people spot misinformation, and also to encourage more community fact checking—so, similar to what you have on some of these platforms where you’ve got people who pop up and actually say, 'This isn’t true. This is nonsense.' We’re trying to encourage more of that in our communities, and to create more of a culture where verifying information is the norm. And it’s a sad state of affairs that we’ve had to get to this point where, actually, you can’t simply trust what you see, and even what you see on the mainstream news now can be quite distorted, depending on the channel that you choose to watch. There are plenty of nefarious news channels as well as social media organisations, of course. And so, it is about encouraging people to challenge what they're seeing. It's about education. It's about working with communities. There is no magic bullet to this, though, Mick, in my opinion.

Okay. I just want to know whether there's any other input into this.

I'd largely agree with what Jonathan was saying, but I would just add two things. The first is on the point about trusted messengers. I think that point about finding who the community anchors are and who the trusted voices are feels very central to me, and there was some interesting work that was done, looking at the role of football clubs. It was work that was done with Huddersfield Town and Brentford by British Future, which was looking at what's the role there in having that conversation and that coming from a slightly different place. And then, secondly, I would also just add that, from the cities and local authorities that we work with, this feels like a real gap in capacity and expertise, specifically around strategic communications as a policy tool. So, the fact that we're asking local authorities to tackle some of this—. My expertise isn't in the social media side, but, in the tackling misinformation or trying to develop a different narrative, in our work we've seen that local authorities see the importance of that and they want to do it, but it's not what their communications teams were set up to do or were ever intended to do. I've seen some places that are doing incredible things, but it's something that it feels like they're learning on the fly, rather than it being something that's been proactively invested in.

Just another very, very quick question, then. Do you think there is benefit to looking or exploring the need for a more co-ordinated, centralised, funded counter unit to achieve this variety of things that we've identified that are either good practice or things that should be put into practice?

I think that there could be some benefit in each local authority not replicating all of the work or learning all of this individually. I think a lot of this work happens on the ground and is based on local intelligence, so I would be a little bit reticent to have the starting point be a centralised unit, because I think you would want it to be able to be responsive to local need. But I wonder if there's a way in which, actually, you're able to take some of the learning and, as I talked about earlier, having a place where you can share approaches and intelligence. But, yes, I would be a tiny little bit reticent about the starting point being a sort of central Government unit, because I'm not sure how responsive that would be able to be.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. I think Kate James just wanted to add something.

I know we're very short of time now, so I'll just come in briefly. Just to echo Jonathan's point about the importance of being transparent and open, one of the things that we do at Migration Yorkshire is we publish publicly available migration data in one place in a very easily accessible, user-friendly way—we call them data dashboards—because it can be quite difficult to find that information, sometimes, on Government websites. We're very clear about the number of people who are seeking asylum or are resettled refugees in our region, so that people can't say that we're hiding anything. We're very clear about that, and that information is very useful for our partners in terms of evidencing funding bids, et cetera, but also it means members of the public can clearly see what the numbers are. We've also commissioned opinion polls so that we can see what people actually think in our region, rather than just the voices that we hear in the media, so we can then go to the newspapers, and we've had headlines about the number of people in Yorkshire and Humber who are happy to support people seeking sanctuary in our region, and we can see that, over time, things have changed. People see our region as more welcoming now, for example. So, being able to put out those positive messages rather than—. As Jonathan was saying, it doesn't always work to try to debunk the myths; sometimes you can end up amplifying those negative messages. But we try to put out our positive stories of integration and individual human stories as well, where, for example, fostering unaccompanied asylum seeking children has been very successful, or Ukrainian hosting schemes—nice stories like that that we've managed to get out there. So, I think that's part of the picture. It's very challenging, obviously, with all of the disinformation. But, yes, that's part of the approach, I think, and being very in-front of the messaging. As soon as there's a crisis, we go straight to the media and we'll talk about Yorkshire and Humber being ready to take its fair share and being welcoming. So, we try to get in there first in the messaging.

Thank you. I hope that we can just extend the session by five minutes, so that we can get in two or three questions from Altaf Hussain on monitoring social cohesion.

Thank you very much, Chair. Yes, it's the last section and my questions are on monitoring social cohesion. Now, in one of our previous evidence sessions, Dame Sara Kahn identified the positives behind your thriving communities index. How has this affected community cohesion locally? What lessons exist for other areas adopting similar strategies?

Jonathan.

So, again, it's a brilliant question and I'm glad that you spoke about Sara Khan. Just for context for everyone, she visited Oldham as one of the many places she visited across the country to understand cohesion. And one of the things we spoke with Sara about was our thriving communities programme, which was an initiative that was very much about early intervention, prevention and social action to build resilient communities.

So, there were a lot of proxies for the kind of measures that we looked at. You're right, it's very difficult to measure social cohesion as almost an end in itself; you need other proxies for telling you where, again, that kind of community sentiment is. So, we looked at a whole range, a raft of measures from how isolated communities were feeling, how people would rate their happiness in the area they lived, how they thought about the relationship with their neighbours. Would they say that they had a positive relationship with people on their street? Did they feel that, if they wanted to borrow a pint of milk that they would be comfortable knocking on their neighbour's door and asking for that?

And we did this at quite a hyperlocal level. So, we took sentiment from numerous communities and streets across Oldham, and built quite a good picture of where community sentiment was. And that enabled us then to think about where we needed to target. So, we knew where the areas were where community cohesion was really positive, and we knew the areas where there was still work to do. And that allowed us to get in and do some of that work.

In terms of sharing best practice, that's been a model that, you're right, has been picked up by other places now who are looking to do something similar. Again, I'm not going to pretend that it's a magic bullet, but it's another way of starting to scratch below the surface of what is an incredibly complicated topic and giving you a way to, hopefully, measure some of the impact of your interventions and actions. So, in summary, it's about thinking bigger than just thinking, 'How do we measure cohesion?' It's about measuring all of the proxies for cohesion. I hope that that answers your question.

Okay. Altaf.

Yes. My second question is: what impact is your data dashboard having on community cohesion within Yorkshire and Humber? Would Welsh Government be best advised to adopt this tool?

Thank you for that question. It's hard to measure that specifically, I think, but as I was saying before, I think that the key benefit really is that these dashboards enable us to be seen as a trusted source of information. It brings together this publicly available migration data all in one place. We know that it's being used for service planning by local authorities and voluntary sector organisations, and it's being used to justify new posts, for example. So, it's being used to evidence need and therefore to inform service planning. And I think it just enables open and honest conversations, really, because it's very clear what the numbers are.

We do get queries, sometimes, from journalists and from members of the public, so having that data there just enables us to go back to them with clear, factually correct answers, rather than speculation. So, I think, yes, it's difficult to measure a specific impact, but I think those are the benefits that we see, really, of having that data so readily available in a very accessible format as well, really, and it's possible to see changes over time, and you can look at it at a local authority level. So, they're regional dashboards, but you can pick your particular local authority and it will show the numbers for your area, the number of dispersed asylum seekers, the number of people living in hotels, for example; it can be that sort of detail at your geographical level.

Thank you. Chair, let me ask the last question, really. It is important. How have data-driven initiatives informed a wider working that is addressing any gaps not held already by the public sector services? Are any unfortunate challenges constraining building these things? I think Jacqueline might address that.

Okay. If you could keep your answers brief.

Yes, so I would say that there are significant gaps. There has been an attempt to understand the data availability around integration. The Home Office developed indicators of integration in 2019, but if you look underneath that, what you will see is that when you come to try and do some of that measurement, quite a lot of the data sources aren't active, so it's very hard to measure in certain areas.

Now, in cohesion, I think, we actually do have some good data sources on top of the ones that you have already heard about, so that would be the community life survey in England, and obviously the national survey for Wales, which includes some questions about community cohesion, and that gives this kind of longitudinal data that can be used, and it can be broken down by local authority. But what you don't get from that is some of the ability to do some of the more responsive work that I think that Jonathan and Kate have mentioned. And partly, that's because some of that data goes out of date quite quickly, or that there isn't particularly very much capacity within local authorities to use that data.

So, the important thing, obviously, about having it is what the purpose of it is for. So, is it to monitor the effectiveness of an intervention? We know with cohesion that's very, very hard to do. To basically say, 'We do this intervention and this had a substantive change on a population level outcome' is really hard to do. Normally, what you have to do is match that with some more qualitative work that's based on the types of partnerships that Jonathan talked about. And if you're wanting to do things that are about having more of an early warning system with the type of data dashboard that Kate was talking about, that's very useful in using publicly available data, but how do you integrate that with the data that the local authority holds about, again, what's happening locally? And we have this disconnect between nationally available datasets and then the actual interventions that have been put into place and how you're monitoring how effective they are.

Thank you very much indeed.

That was it, very quickly. [Laughter.]

Thanks a lot.

Okay, thank you, Altaf. We have run out of time now, so if there's anything further that we want to ask you about, we'll be in touch. We'll also be sending you a transcript of what you've said, so that you can correct it if we've heard you wrong. But thank you very much indeed, all three of you, for your really interesting and useful contributions.

So, before we move into private session, are Members content to note the correspondence from Colm Gildernew, the chair of the Committee for Communities in the Northern Ireland Assembly? I see no dissent.

Can I now ask that we move into private session to exclude the public, if you're agreeable? Thank you very much indeed.