Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I would like to welcome Members to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We have received apologies from Jack Sargeant MS and Hefin David MS. Julie Morgan MS is substituting for Jack, and Lesley Griffiths MS is substituting for Hefin. I would like to welcome you both to committee today. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv. A Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. The meeting is bilingual and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. There are no apologies. Are there any declarations of interest from Members? I can see there are not.

Just for the next item on the agenda.

Thank you.

We move on now to agenda item 2. I would like to welcome the Cabinet Secretary, Minister and their officials. I'm very pleased to welcome Jane Hutt MS, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip; Dawn Bowden MS, Minister for Children and Social Care; Taryn Stephens, deputy director, social services improvement, Welsh Government; and Alistair Davey, deputy director, social services enabling, Welsh Government. Before we start the session, can I please check that the translation is working? It’s channel 1 for translation, and 0 for amplification.

Yes, fine. Diolch. 

Sorry, Chair, we do have another official with us as well. Sorry, Jane.  

I'm Mike Connolly, I'm deputy director in the community safety division, and I work for the Cabinet Secretary. 

Thank you. Welcome. 

So, we'll now start our question session, and I will begin. We’ve heard significant concerns that there is no accurate source of Welsh data that records episodes of all missing children across Wales, and that in turn this means we don’t have the right policy responses. What assurances can you give us that Welsh Government has a firm overview of the scale of missing children in Wales?

Thank you, Chair. I’ll start by answering that question, but before I answer the specifics of the question, particularly around data collection, I think it’s probably important to set the Government’s policy context around children’s services, because the inquiry that you’ve done around this is, I understand, necessarily about how do we know who’s going missing, what data do we have around that, what the process is and so on. But I think it is very important to see that our response to how we deal with children who are reported as missing is to look at the wider transformation of children’s services that we’re working on.

There is a huge transformation programme that we’re delivering, and the main element of that transformation programme is to, as far as possible, work with children and families to prevent as many children as possible going into care in the first place. There are far too many children taken into care. This has been something that we’ve been long aware of. So, our work is really around working with those families to keep as many children with their families, where it is safe to do so, and where children need to be looked after, that they’re looked after in more appropriate settings—one of the things that we’re trying to deal with through the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill and the elimination of profit—and, also, to place children much closer to their home and familiar environment, because one of the things that we do know is that many children that are reported as missing are often children that are trying to get back home; they’re trying to get back to the place and the people that they know.

So, the whole process around just monitoring children that are reported missing isn’t enough. We really need to be getting underneath all of that, and we need to be having a programme of support available for children and families to prevent them going into care in the first place. So, I think it’s important that we set that context out before we deal with some of the process and kind of data-related issues, which are important, but I think are underpinned by what we are seeking to do to try to improve that situation. So, I think, hopefully, that will put that into the context of what our policy response might be to all of that.

But what I’d say in terms of data collection is that data is collected by the Welsh Government, it’s collected by local authorities, by Care Inspectorate Wales, by police and the Home Office, and all of that informs practice, both in relation to children who are reported missing and children who are being exploited. And we’re constantly trying to develop and strengthen our ability to be able to collect data, because data is really important. It is the basis that can inform how we deal with policy, particularly around safeguarding.

So, what we have done is we’ve established a performance improvement framework for social services, and a guide to local authorities for them to measure and improve their social care services. That framework is part of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, and it includes several key components of quality standards, performance metrics, guidance documents and so on. And all that data on missing children is collected in the performance improvement framework, and that includes a total number of reports of children who go missing from care.

It's important to say at this point that the total number of reports of children who are reported as missing is not the same as the total number of children who go missing, because you can have one child that will be reported as missing on several occasions, so that will account for several reports, but it relates to one child, so I think we need to be clear about what the reporting is actually telling us. But we know that we've got to develop that data further. The missing persons measure has now been added to the children's census for 2023-24, and that will capture the number of times that children and young people go missing—the point I was just making—and that will allow us to explore characteristics of children who are reported missing, including their ethnicity, their gender, their age. All of that might be important. We don't know unless we've got the information. So, that will help to further inform on the local and national responses.

I would say that data is not collected on all children by Welsh Government. It's only collected on children who go missing from care, and we know that children that are not only in care go missing. All the evidence we've taken, and I would say the majority of the evidence that we've heard, has said there is a severe lack of data, and this severe lack of data is hampering efforts to ensure that there are the correct procedures in place to support these children that are going missing.

Yes, and children do go missing for all sorts of reasons in all sorts of circumstances. What we do know, of course, is that children who are care experienced are far more likely to be reported as missing than other children. But, Taryn, do you want to deal with that specific point that was raised by the Chair?

If I can just add, we know that that data needs further maturing, and that's why, for the next collection series, we've looked at, in the children's census, adding data to be collected on missing children. That will be for children who are known on a care and support plan basis to local authorities, so that's not just children who are looked after, but it will have a far wider reach. We also know that local authorities will collect data on all children that are missing in their area, but that at the moment is not as standard reported to Welsh Government. But we know that we have a series of steering groups to look at about how we expand data further.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. How often does Welsh Government review the data it collects on children missing from care and its accuracy? For example, the data shows that in 2022-23, only 16 children went missing from care in Cardiff, despite it having over 1,000 children in care, while Conwy is reported to have had 273 individual children go missing, despite only having 215 children in its care. So, again, back to my original point—

Yes, and the reporting data therefore is important, because it is important to identify whether we are talking about the number of incidents or the number of children, and I think that's where the data is important. But it is reviewed and updated every year. It's updated annually, and with input from local authorities, because it's primarily local authorities that are collecting that data. It's collected by them and it's supplied to Welsh Government. So, the guidance and the data is reviewed and quality assured by us, but the data is collected by local authorities and is within the remit of the local authorities. What I would say, though, is that many of the data collections for social care are new, or have recently been improved, so there aren't really baselines to compare with. That can make the process of quality assurance more difficult during initial reporting. When we looked at the last bit of data—and again I may ask Taryn to say a little bit more about this—some data collection issues were identified with missing children earlier in the year. So, when we identify that there are gaps, then we seek to deal with that. I don't know, Taryn, if there's anything you want to say about the gaps that we identified last time and what we are doing about that.

Just to confirm, we did identify that there were some inaccuracies that we wanted to look at in terms of the missing children data that was collated by local authorities. Our team have now gone out and spoken to local authorities and improved our guidance on how that measurement will be taken by local authorities to improve our data quality for the following reporting year.

Okay. Thank you. How high a policy priority are children missing from care, given the length of time that stakeholders have been calling for very specific changes, for example on return interviews, apparently without success? What assurance can you give us that the Welsh Government's policy response is sufficient?

I think I'd probably go back, Chair, to what I said in my opening remarks. Our policy response, not just on this but on the whole way in which we deliver children's services, is our transformation programme, and this will be central to that, because as I say—and I reiterate it again—we do believe that, fundamentally, we have to take a different approach, which is about keeping as many children out of care as we possibly can. If they don't need to be in care, they shouldn't be. And where we can keep families together, where it is safe to do so, then that is what we seek to do. So, that's the policy response: our transformation programme for children's services. But, specifically, as a Government, we did acknowledge the calls for the return-to-home interviews to be made mandatory, and we commissioned two pieces of research to inform policy in that area. Now, the outcomes of the work have been shared with those who participated in the research, and the findings and the recommendations from both of the reports have been shared with stakeholders. We had a round-table event back in July, and that was shared with those stakeholders. But it was interesting that the research itself didn't come to a consensus around whether return-to-home interviews should be mandatory and who should conduct them. So, that's why we're now having a wider consultation around that, to make sure that we can get a clearer position, because the evidence that we've gathered so far has not been consistent. It has not delivered any kind of consensus. 

I think it's important to note—and I know that your inquiry will have picked this up—that the reasons that children are reported as missing, the reasons they go missing, are very varied, they're very complex, and they're unique to the individual child. So, it is quite difficult to reach a consensus around some of those things. And, as we said, we know that children in care are much more likely to go missing than those who are not, particularly those who are placed in care outside of their local area. So, I go back to saying that the transformation programme is vitally important in our policy response to that concern. 

Could you tell us a little bit more about what that wider consultation entails, if possible?

Yes, sure. Do you want to say a bit more on that, Taryn?

Yes. So, given the feedback that we had from the research that we commissioned, we felt that it was appropriate to bring stakeholders back together to look at what the next phase was for ourselves in terms of exploring return home interviews. What's important in that context is to make sure that any further developments that we do actually enhance current practice, as opposed to being a duplication of any processes that are in place. So, once we've met with the stakeholder group, we'll be defining what the next steps are for consultation, and of course that will involve young people. We do have our care leaver summits, or care-experienced summits, that are held, and we know that the voices of care-experienced young people have been really central to policy developments, and we're going to ensure that that focus is maintained. 

And what about the children who are not care-experienced who go missing from family homes for a varied number of reasons?

So, as part of the stakeholder group that we'll draw together, we'll be considering how we capture the wider voices of young people. 

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'll now shoot over to Lesley Griffiths, who is online. 

Thanks very much, Chair. The committee has heard that, as is often the case, each local authority in Wales uses different tools when they're looking at missing children, or children who are possibly at risk of doing that. One of the ways that this could be obviously overcome is to have the national practice standard on missing children. The committee was told that this would be published by the end of 2023, which it obviously hasn't been. Why has there been a delay? When will it be published and, when it is published, how will it be monitored to make sure that local authorities are adhering to it?

Sure. Thanks for that question, Lesley. So, there was a delay, which came out as a result of the consultation, which identified that there was far more work that needed doing in this area than we were able to deliver within the timescale. So, we are looking to publish a draft framework by the end of the year, but, again, it would be helpful, I think, if I asked Alastair to talk a bit more about the process that we were involved in in getting to the point that we're at now.

Thank you, Minister. This has been a huge piece of work, but it's really important, because it's about driving consistency across Wales. And the initial, or the original, plan was that we would have an overall framework that would have 26 identified standards in it and, when we went out to consultation at the beginning of the year, we included six of those, because those are the first six that we had prepared and one of those was missing children.

We had pretty comprehensive feedback, particularly from local authorities, about the purpose of the framework, how it was going to work in practice, whether it was cutting across existing standards that were already there, and they felt that 26 was too many and this was a huge undertaking, given the pressures on local authorities. So, there was real feedback that we could be causing confusion here and that was obviously the last thing we wanted to do; we wanted to have clarity.

So, we had a look at that feedback and Anthony Douglas, who was the former chief executive of Cafcass in England, has been doing a lot of work with us on this. So, we went back out and what they wanted to focus on was that they felt that we were really focused just on local authorities and they thought we should be refocusing on a multi-agency framework.

So, we’ve refocused that now into five standards that are very much looking at that multi-agency working: infrastructure, strategy, learning, governance and delivery. We’ve redrafted now that framework. It’s about to go out for further engagement and we will be underpinning that framework with a number of practice notes, and missing children will be within that first tranche that will be delivered by March next year. So, the plan is that we go back out, we’ve got feedback already that it’s in much better shape. We will then publish that by the end of the year, then we will have the practice notes, and there will be a wide range of those.

We need to make sure that training and leadership is out there. At this moment, obviously, this is guidance; it’s not statutory guidance. Our plan would be to put this out for a year, operationalise it, and then look down the line about whether or not we’d want to put that in statutory guidance. We’d also want to consider the role of Care Inspectorate Wales in monitoring that.

So, I think Welsh Government have listened to the feedback. We need something that’s fit for purpose; we think this is far better tailored because it’s looking at multi-agency working. We’ve got a draft standard and, obviously, we’re working very closely with officials across Government on that. So, it is coming. The framework will be published by the end of the year, and that draft framework, the standard on missing children, will be delivered by the end of March 2025.

Can I just pick up on what you said, Alastair, about leadership? So, again, if you've got 22 local authorities, assuming lead capacity and capability across all 22 could be a matter of concern, did I pick up from you?

We did an initial piece of research about 18 months ago about practice frameworks—this was across the UK on a variety of things. And the big issue wasn't that they were just too long, over 100 pages, and people didn't really look at them—so, we've got to think about having something short, sharp and focused on practitioners—they also said that the training and behaviours and leadership around that weren't as good as they could be, and this was across research from England as well. So, as part of how we implement, we will be focused on that training and development, and obviously working with colleagues, particularly in Social Care Wales to make sure that we’re driving those practice frameworks, those behaviours and cultures and leadership so that that is known at all levels.

Okay, thank you. Something else the committee have heard about is that, in England, after a child has gone missing and returned home, they have an interview—a return home interview. That's going to be offered on a statutory basis. Is that something we're looking to do in Wales?

I think there are two things about that, Lesley: one is that the offer in England, or the statutory provision in England, is actually only an offer of an interview—it's not that the interview itself is mandatory or statutory. And I go back to the question I answered previously around some of the research that we've done on this, and the research findings have shown that there isn't a consensus around whether we should have that as a mandatory offer in Wales, but that is something that we are continuing to talk to stakeholders about, because we absolutely recognise the benefit of return home interviews, and NYAS Cymru is commissioned by the police and crime commissioner’s office in south Wales to provide that independent return interview for young people who do return home after a missing episode. But what I would say is that the engagement with NYAS in that is around 50 per cent, which is really very good, and it’s been hugely supportive to those children and young people that have used it, but the service is child-led, which is the key to ensuring that children feel supported and safe, and we must listen to the voices of children in this, and, as I’ve said, we’ve not yet been able to establish a consensus view around that, but we are going to be having further discussions with those stakeholders through a steering group that we've set up, the first of which I think is meeting next week; the first time they’re going to be meeting is next week. Probably also important to point out that children and young people who are in care do have a statutory right to access an independent advocate, not just when they’re looked after, but at any time, including when they’ve been reported missing.

Lesley's disappeared off the screen. [Laughter.]

She's gone. [Laughter.]

Just quickly, I don’t think anybody is calling for the return-to-home interview to be mandatory. From what we’ve been told, through our evidence gathering, they just want it to be an offer, so that every child has that offer, has that opportunity, for that interview. 

Yes. Well, as I say, that’s not something that we’re ruling out, Chair, it’s just something that we have not been able to establish evidence of consensus around at the moment. And what we don’t want to do is force on children something that there isn’t a consensus around. We can’t say that we’re going to have children-centred policies, and then we issue a diktat that doesn’t actually chime with what children are telling us. And at the moment, we don’t have that consensus view from the children that we’ve been speaking to.

Okay. Can I move on to Cefin Campbell, please?

I'm going to be asking my questions in Welsh.

I’ll be answering this, as Cabinet Secretary. I think we have to be very concerned, as this committee is, about the fact that child criminal exploitation is a frequently identified form of exploitation in Wales. In fact, in the evidence that we gave to the committee, I think you will see that—exploitation type, we’ve given you some examples. But it is obviously Home Office who publishes the data on modern slavery, through the national referral mechanism referrals, but that’s on a quarterly basis. And I think from the most recently published data, April to June of this year, modern slavery referrals will refer to all four Welsh police forces for investigation, so, obviously, that is of great concern.

Just in terms of looking at that from a more regional level, the highest number of referrals for all forms of exploitation was in South Wales, 75 NRM referrals; Gwent was second with 39 referrals; North Wales with 27, Dyfed-Powys with 11 during that quarter. Fifty-nine per cent—that’s 90—of Welsh modern slavery referrals were for children at the age of referral and almost half, 49 per cent—that’s 74—of Welsh modern slavery referrals were for criminal exploitation. I think that’s again laid out in those statistics I gave you.

So, it’s really important, that data. It goes back to the earlier questions about data: what do we do with that data? How does it inform policy? How is it followed up? How is it influencing strategic and operational activities to tackle that exploitation? It's very much across Government and cross-sectoral in terms of Governments, all Governments in the UK, and Welsh and local government and partners.

Just to follow up on that, have you seen any regional variations on other crimes? You were talking about exploiting children and you mentioned modern slavery. Are there any other patterns or regional variations?

In relation to child criminal exploitation?

Yes.

I don't know, Mike, if we've got any further—. I've given you some identification of the levels of referrals. I think we could look, actually, at the evidence that we gave to the committee. We could perhaps regionalise that, if that would be helpful for the committee. I was very concerned, looking at that evidence, that criminal exploitation is way up, the highest, and this is about exploitation, county lines, all of the links that we know, unfortunately, and also there are regional variations as far as that's concerned. But also, next in line is labour exploitation, and then labour and criminal. So, we'll give you that regional breakdown in terms of the statistics I've given you.

Diolch yn fawr, Cefin. We do welcome the UK Government's focus on prevention, preventing this form of exploitation. Obviously, this is early days in terms of considering the legislative proposals that are coming forward in the crime and policing Bill, but officials have already met with the Home Office. Obviously, this, again, is where we have to have good, open and very clear relations at official and ministerial level. But I think it is going to be about what will be useful there in terms of implications about how we can respond in terms of our work to prevent exploitation and protect children and young people in Wales. It's early days, but this committee inquiry is really useful to feed into that.

What's the Welsh Government's take on having a specific definition, which is the question I asked?

I think it's early days for us to look at this in terms of a statutory definition, and I think it's something that we haven't given a view on at this stage. We need to see what is emerging from the draft legislation and look at this. Do we need a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation? We have the tools, we have the levers, we have the frameworks, but I think this is something across Government—not just between us in the Welsh Government, but also with the UK Government. But I don't know, Mike, if you feel that there's been any discussion at this stage, or official engagement on this, or whether Alistair has been involved.

Just to reiterate what you said, Cabinet Secretary, it is very early days. We are engaging in what I'd describe as preliminary discussions around the Bill, but we're yet to get into those detailed discussions around the content and the implications for Wales.

Diolch yn fawr. This is something where I've already given some statistics, obviously, in terms of a regional profile, and I want to then give you more definitions of what forms of exploitation they represent. But those are very interesting figures, aren't they, in terms of the differences. Obviously, there's variation between local authorities, very different populations and demographics, and also different levels of need. We would expect some variation, but I think this is where, probably, again, back to the all-Wales practice guide on safeguarding children from child criminal exploitation, very much a cross-Government responsibility, it is really important to review that in light of those variations. Going back to earlier points that have been made by the Minister, we've got to look at this from a child-centred approach, very clearly, and look at it with multi-agency collaboration to safeguard children effectively. This is about working together with our partners. It's back to prevention, isn't it, in terms of the way that we can address this.

Thank you. Now we'll go back over to the screen to Tom Giffard.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. All the evidence that we've heard has emphasised that prevention and early intervention is key to building children's and the community's resilience to all forms of child criminal exploitation. For example, we've heard from many young boys that their motivation for being lured into gangs is to gain a sense of belonging, rather than a financial motive, and not money. So, to what extent is the Welsh Government being prevented from addressing the root causes of child criminal exploitation, given the financial pressures on investing in youth work provision and the pressure to focus on the sharp end of safeguarding when children become actual victims?  

Thank you for that question, Tom. It very much follows on from the previous question. I want to focus on the fact that there is much prevention work in this area, particularly in terms of our youth justice prevention framework. I think this is an area where our youth justice blueprint is very important, as well. We don't focus all—. Obviously, in terms of prevention, it's not directly focused, always, on child criminal exploitation, and the committee has noted that, but it's a much broader role, isn't it, in enabling children to thrive and live fulfilling crime-free lives.

I did want to mention, just in terms of the context of your work on this inquiry, that I recently visited an exemplary project, I think, in Carmarthenshire—and you'd be interested, Cefin, and Tom, as well—the Bwlch project, a youth support service that brings youth work and youth justice staff together to deliver youth support services across Carmarthenshire. They've got an outstanding overall rating from HM Inspectorate of Prisons. I know you've done visits, it's probably too late, but I would say that it's worth seeing—and you're probably aware of it in Llanelli, Cefin, and possibly Tom. But this is about actually how we divert young people. I met young men and young women there who have directly benefited from this. This is where the specialist prevention work, I think, by youth justice services teams in local authorities is really important. Our youth justice prevention framework, which I hope you will reflect on in this inquiry, brings all of the work together in a single, joined-up approach.

But it's also very much back to the points about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; we're looking at this from a child-first and child rights approach to youth justice and prevention. And I can't go without saying this morning, Chair, that, yesterday, I was very pleased to meet the new prisons Minister, James Timpson, Lord Timpson, and he said that the first thing he did—. One of his big memories—he's done a lot of work in Wales—was to set up a cafe for young people in Ynys Môn who were in danger of being caught in the criminal justice system. So, he's very keen to work with us on these issues. I think youth work, youth prevention and youth justice, bringing them together in the way they have at the Bwlch centre and many others in Wales, is really important.

Thank you for that. Can I move on to the national referral mechanism? That's obviously designed for victims of modern slavery and human trafficking, and not specifically for child criminal exploitation. But how confident is the Welsh Government that the repurposing of the NRM is effective in addressing the unique needs of exploited children and that it will stop child criminal exploitation?

We recognise the significant shortcomings with the national referral mechanism—significant waiting times for decisions—and we have repeatedly highlighted this to the Home Office, namely that we need national referral mechanism reform. It was designed, the NRM, to protect victims of all forms of exploitation, but many children and young people have not only experienced criminal exploitation but other forms of exploitation.

Unfortunately, there is an interface there, isn't there, once you are caught in that vulnerable trap of exploitation. So, we have got to see if there is any new system of support that we must influence, which recognises those links between child criminal exploitation and other forms of exploitation.

I think that you only have to again look at the evidence in terms of—. Yes, criminal exploitation maybe at the top of the exploitation types that actually are recorded in data, but we know that that can link to sexual and criminal, sexual and labour, sexual and domestic servitude. The circumstances of those children and young people are such that they will be caught in many threads of exploitation.  

Sorry, Tom. Can I just jump in here a second? We have heard on more than one occasion that some gangs use the NRM to avoid children being arrested. Do you have any views on that? We have heard this on more than one occasion, through our evidence gathering, when we held stakeholder events here. That was one thing that, I would say, the majority of people who attended said.

That's really important feedback, isn't it? If we are going to—and we must—reform the shortcomings, as we said, in the national referral mechanism—. These gangs will find a way to use existing arrangements. You have got the evidence; the evidence is quite clear. But this is, again, something where it is very helpful to have your evidence of that coming forward, because we will be working with the Home Office on this need for reform. 

Sorry, Tom.

No, that's fine. Just coming back on the NRM, obviously, it is only utilised when a child is already in police custody or has come to harm. So, is that too late in the exploitation process, in the view of the Welsh Government? 

That's something again where, on all levels, we want to influence this. I don't know whether Alistair or Mike want to come in on this. I think that it is important also to say that, of course, there is a pilot in terms of NRM decisions for children and young people. We have got two pilot sites in Wales, and I think that the Home Office is looking at expanding that. I don't know if either of you want to come in. 

Just to add around the pilot, I think that the intent around the pilot is to make it a faster and more streamlined process, to address the issue that was raised by the committee. Alistair, I don't know if you want to come in, or Taryn. 

This is one for Taryn.

Just to highlight, as part of the safeguarding procedures, there's specific guidance around early identification and how that will be a safeguarding concern so that those young people would hopefully come to the attention of local authorities and be provided with preventative services, so that we can be more proactive in our approach. But we have shared with the committee in our briefing loads of documents that we are looking to enhance further. Naturally, the missing person standard will help us even further in that endeavour.

Just finally from me, we obviously know that child sexual exploitation affects both girls and boys and is evolving rapidly as technology advances. With Welsh Government statistics reporting a significant rise to nearly 1,500 children as victims in 2022, compared with 894 in 2020, is that an accurate picture? What specific actions will you want to see included to tackle child criminal sexual exploitation in the Welsh Government's new child sexual abuse action plan, which you say will be published in 2025? 

Thank you, Tom. As we have talked about already, the national delivery plan is going to be covering all forms of sexual harm, including sexual exploitation, and has been the subject of four successful stakeholder-led workshops. So, that work is currently going on now to formulate the actions. We’ve kind of talked about that and we’ve covered that. That’s going to go out for consultation this year. That work really is being shaped by a range of partners, including adult survivors. The second iteration of the national plan includes adult survivors and how we support them, and that wasn’t included in the original plan. But since the completion of the original plan, of course, we’ve seen that there have been other developments. There’s been the subsequent publication of the final report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. So, we’ve been engaging with the statutory and voluntary sectors and survivors of childhood sexual abuse to further understand what we achieved under the first plan and what now needs to be done. These things don’t stand still. From your earlier question about the use of technology, we see that the criminal gangs are very inventive in terms of how they engage. So, regional safeguarding boards have continued to work under the headings of the original plan, which is around prevention and protection, but they’re contributing to this plan with their own ideas and sharing from their own experience of what they’ve seen and done previously.

So, as I said, the new plan will be out for public consultation this autumn, and we’ve commissioned a consultation with children and young people specifically, which will take place in that same time frame. What I would say is there are a couple of things that we’re specifically looking at, key preventative actions that we’re looking at in the new plan. We’re looking to tackle societal views about child sexual abuse, raising awareness with the public and what the public can actually do if they’re concerned that a child is being harmed, and support for parents whose children have been affected. One of the other key protective actions that we want to look at is ensuring that children are believed when they disclose, because that is a hugely important element of the whole safeguarding process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tom. Thank you. We'll now move on to Gareth, please.

Thank you very much, Chair. I want to talk about the capacity of the social services workforce, including issues such as high case loads, staff turnover et cetera. What progress has the Welsh Government made in this regard and for developing a cohort of social workers to specifically deal with highly vulnerable children?

Thank you for that question, Gareth. It’s one of the things that I am particularly concerned and exercised about, the social care workforce, right the way through from social care workers through to social workers, and right the way through the social care profession. We have been doing a tremendous amount of work through Social Care Wales, through the social care fair work forum, to try to address this. We have the social work bursary, we have social care pathways, career pathways, so that we can grow our own, from social care workers through to social work. But we absolutely do need to focus on those foundational activities, don’t we, so that we’ve got sufficient staff with the right skills in the right place?

There’s so much work to do around this. Gareth, I could sit and talk to you about this all day because this is something that’s very close to my heart, not just since I’ve been in the Senedd, but in my previous life as a trade union official, this was something that I was pressing for for many, many years, that we have equity of esteem across social care with NHS workers that are doing very similar work. And an awful lot of that work is being delivered now, an awful lot has been done, as I say, through Social Care Wales and the social care fair work forum.

We’ve got 6,736 social workers now registered with Social Care Wales, and that’s an increase of 185 on this time last year. So, we’re starting to see some shoots of improvement around that, but there’s still a huge amount to do, because not only do we need to recruit people into social care, whether it’s as social care workers or social workers, we need to keep them. So, there’s still a huge piece of work to be done around that. I talked about the social care bursary earlier on, we’ve invested £10 million now in the social care bursary to make a social work degree financially attainable for those that are on an higher education institution study route. But we are mindful of the fact that social work training can take between three to six years to complete. So, even if we can get people in through the training, much like the dilemma we have in the NHS with training nurses and doctors, even with an endless pot of money, you can't switch that on just like that, because you have to go through a process of getting people appropriately trained. We are building on the progress we've made so far, and we do have a social care workforce delivery plan. It was published only in April this year. There's quite a lot of work around that. As I say, I could spend all day talking to you. But perhaps if I ask Taryn, who's been very closely involved with the work of the fair work forum, to talk about some of the things that we're still doing and progressing.

Just to confirm, the 3 per cent increase in social workers was an increase from the September 2022 figures to September 2023, and we're currently waiting an update on the September 2024 figures, which we will happily provide to the committee, if you wish for us to do so.

In terms of the question, and I suppose looking at our social care workforce, it's threefold really, isn't it? It's about ensuring that we have the workforce that we need to be able to deliver for our young people, but it's also ensuring that we create the right environment for our practitioners that they are able to engage in prevention work, that they have the right guidance and support to be able to identify children's needs earlier, but also that we have a group of social workers with the speciality required to be able to deliver interventions. And we know, as we've said earlier in today's committee, that we have really different demographics across Wales, and we know that some areas who have increased levels of child exploitation, who have increased levels of children going missing, have developed some teams that specifically focus on this work. So, from our role as a Government, it's about ensuring we have the right environment for practice, and people have the right guidance and training, but we know that local authorities are developing the services that they need, to meet the needs of their local communities.

Could I—?

Thanks for that comprehensive response—sorry, Chair.

Sorry, Gareth, could I just bring Julie Morgan in quickly here?

Just quickly, in terms of—. You mentioned the social care bursary. Was the 3 per cent that you mentioned, Taryn, an increase in the number of social workers going on the courses, or what evidence have we got of how the bursary is working?

So, the 3 per cent increase related to qualified to social workers who are registered and are in practice. In terms of the social work bursary, we know, since the commitment to implement the bursary, we have seen an increase in the cohort of social workers that are going through training, and we are waiting for this year's figures, but we do know there was an increase last year, based on the previous year. Again, we would happy to provide those figures in more detail.

That would be great. So, you think it's working.

It's definitely having a positive impact.

Early days, Julie, but promising signs, yes.

Great.

Thanks. I want to cover multi-agency information sharing, if I may. You mentioned in your response to the first question, Minister, about parity of esteem. So, in terms of making sure at-risk children don't slip through the net, what can be done better to share information between different organisations, such as accident and emergency departments and sexual health clinics, getting that parity of esteem across NHS and social services, to make sure that information can be shared in a protective and safe way, but in a way that all agencies that are applicable to that child's care are known, so that as many professionals can be aware of a child's case as possible, as and when that's needed?

There are extensive examples of multi-agency working, but there's still a huge amount to do. I'll ask the Cabinet Secretary just to say a bit about this, because, of course, her work involves multi-agencies, including justice and so on.

Yes, it's a very cross-Government responsibility, but also you've identified the multi-agency network of responsibilities, from health boards to local authorities, and, indeed, also in terms of the engagement with the police and criminal justice as well. So, there's good, robust multi-agency information sharing, and work together, and extensive information about that, and that can be seen, really, in terms of some of the projects, as I'm sure that you visit. You've seen that multi-agency working. Where it works well, we've got to share that.

There is some research that's being commissioned by the National Independent Safeguarding Board—the research is being undertaken by Manchester Metropolitan University—to work with regional safeguarding boards, because that's where we really have to locate that responsibility, at regional safeguarding boards, to develop a performance management framework. We have got to assess the performance, don't we, to see if that multi-agency is working. But I think, again, we are turning quite a bit to Taryn because she's really at the sharp end of understanding how this is working. It may be useful if you come in here, Taryn, but I think also, interestingly, we need to look at the role of the information commissioner's office, for example. They've developed materials to support the ways in which professionals can understand the sort of statutory basis about information sharing, because there is a worry about information sharing that, perhaps, we would want to touch on. But that is really available, I think, for professionals in the field. Also of course there are the joint inspections, which are crucial for this, and that does include not just Care Inspectorate Wales, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, but also His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services. So, we've got to recognise it goes way beyond just local government, health, social care and education, but also into the criminal justice and fire and rescue—indeed, they have a role to play. But, Taryn, did you want to offer anything else?

Just to emphasise the work of the joint inspection of child protection arrangements, so the joint inspections that are being undertaken, and the work of the national independent safeguarding board looking at the framework that we have to report data—they all have a common theme about making sure that we're bringing multiple agencies’ information together so we can look at how the whole system is functioning. That information will be really robust in allowing us to take the next steps that we need to announce information sharing further. I know across a number of agencies there's work going on making sure that we are technology enabled to allow that, but some of that work is still in progress.

And obviously you've mentioned in the response that there’s very much a cross-Government approach to it, which is great, but what discussions have you had with the Cabinet Secretary for health and the Cabinet Secretary for Education in that regard—with the Cabinet Secretary for health about how we can enhance primary care services through training and things like that to get more awareness through A&E staff and people working within those front-line services, and then equally the Cabinet Secretary for Education about the roles that schools can play in terms of this as well? So, what sort of discussions are you having at a Government level to try and address those? 

Thank you. Before I do answer those questions, Gareth, I think it would probably be worth me just mentioning this again for the record, because this is very important to safeguarding and how we learn lessons from safeguarding reviews—so, on 1 October we're introducing the single unified safeguarding procedure, which will mean that no longer will we have individual agencies investigating safeguarding reviews. We see too many of these, don't we, where we have joint reviews where each individual agency has to interview the same people involved over and over again to produce the same recommend sets of recommendations, and actually by going through that process what you're doing is putting the person involved at the centre of that review through the trauma again and again and again.

So, the single unified safeguarding review is going to eliminate that. There'll be one review, it will be multi-agency, and we'll learn very much so that any recommendations that come out of those reviews will be left in the Welsh repository, and they will be there and available for all agencies to look at and to draw information from to learn the lessons that we can avoid for the future. Because one of the things that that I'm fed up of hearing time and time again, and I'm sure you all are as well, is every time we have a safeguarding review we seem to have the same issues that keep coming up, and why can't we learn from the last one? And it's quite often because the information isn't shared properly. So, the single unified safeguarding review will hopefully start to eliminate that. There will be a ministerial oversight group on single unified safeguarding and that will be a group that will identify the learning from all of those reviews, and that is something that we very much hope will improve safeguarding processes in the future. That is the objective.

How would you measure that, then? At what point would you—? And what metrics would you use to measure that?

So, this is new, this is a first for the UK. I think we should shout very loudly about the fact that we're trailblazing this process for the rest of the UK. The new UK Government Ministers are expressing an interest in it, and I'm going to be meeting with Jess Phillips in a couple of weeks' time. She's the new safeguarding Minister for the UK. So, UK Government Ministers are very interested in the process that we are looking to employ here, and they will be looking very closely at how we monitor and measure it.

We will have a monitoring and review process in place. As I say, there will be a ministerial oversight group, which is where that review will be reported into, where monitoring will be reported into, and because it is so new, clearly, we will be having to potentially adjust it as we go. But we think that this is the right way forward in terms of that whole multi-agency approach to how we investigate and review safeguarding issues.

You then asked me about work with the various Cabinet Secretaries. Well, obviously, we do speak to each other. [Laughter.]

I'd hope so. [Laughter.]

We do, we do—sometimes. [Laughter.] We do speak to each other. We have a Cabinet meeting every week, and the current topics are discussed every week, and there is very much a push towards cross-departmental and portfolio working wherever that is appropriate. Because, as Ministers, we don't sit in silos. You will know from my ministerial portfolio that I sit within the Government department for health and social care, but social care sits very firmly in local government. I don't report in to the Minister for local government, but it's important that I have regular discussions with her, particularly around social care. In terms of health, obviously, the Cabinet Secretary for health, and the Minister for Mental Health and Well-being, the three of us will be meeting on a regular basis. Obviously, that's a new set-up now, a new Cabinet Secretary. So, that will form part of our discussions going forward, where there is the crossover.

With the previous Cabinet Secretary for health, we had significant discussions around the parity of esteem between health and social care workers, in particular. So, the health service healthcare assistants and local government social care workers, very much doing the same type of job, but very much on different terms and conditions, and very much seen differently by the public. So, a lot of the work that's being done through the Fair Work Forum with Social Care Wales is trying to address that—about the professionalisation of the social care workforce, to bring that parity of esteem in. So, please rest assured that those discussions with the Cabinet Secretary are taking place, and they will continue to take place, as they will where it is relevant to have those discussions with other Cabinet members.

With education, of course, what I would say with education is that there is very close alignment between safeguarding in schools and the rules around safeguarding. So, I have the overall responsibility for looking at safeguarding procedures, and what they should look like, but, of course, the Cabinet Secretary for Education is responsible for safeguarding in schools. And so, we will talk around those areas where we have common interests. Taryn, you've been involved, and officials have been involved, very closely with the officials in education. Do you want to say a little bit more about some of the work that we've been doing there?

Yes, just to touch on some of the specific programmes that are in place, and I believe it was with regards to health and education. So, we know that, in health, they've developed, in A&E departments and sexual health services, a health sexual exploitation risk questionnaire, to assist staff in identification and referral processes. We also know that the 'Ask and Act' training has been rolled out across the NHS, to support identification of domestic abuse, sexual violence and gender-based violence. Within health, there's recently been a strengthening safeguarding review that's been undertaken, and I know that the Cabinet Secretary and officials will be working on the next stages of that action plan. I'm sure that they would share their action plan when that's been processed and gone out for wider consultation with agencies.

Gareth, can I just jump in here a second, before we move on too far? The joint inspections of child protection arrangements that Taryn was speaking about, Estyn has told us that

'there is no current plan to continue these inspections due to the current financial challenges across public services in Wales.'

So, just for clarity, could you say whether or not that is actually happening?

The Minister for Children and Social Care has confirmed that funding.

It's been replaced, and that has been confirmed, so there's been no cut to the budget for joint inspections.

Brilliant. Thank you. Sorry, Gareth.

No, no, it's fine. I'm drawing to a close, but just to ask quickly about the statistic that 315 care leavers were classed as homeless, according to Welsh Government data. So, obviously, a lot of my questioning has been about discussions with various Cabinet Secretaries, but is there any discussion ongoing with the department for local government and planning about tackling some of those issues around the homelessness of care leavers?

Well, obviously, the White Paper on ending homelessness was published at the end of last year, and the analysis of those responses is now being undertaken. I think the proposals within that White Paper really are rooted in the parental responsibilities, and they hold huge potential to transform the experience of young people, particularly care leavers experiencing the risk of homelessness. But if I might, Chair, suggest that it might be worth the committee writing to the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government. Obviously, she was only appointed last week, so I haven't had the opportunity of a conversation with her yet about some of these areas, but this will be very much a piece of work that she will be taking forward, and it may be worth the committee writing to her about that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Cefin, did you want to come in?

Yes. Sorry, if I can just go back quickly to the previous question around information sharing, obviously it's key to have this child-centred approach to support and care. To what extent is GDPR an obstacle? Because, in my previous life, trying to share information between various organisations and third sector bodies and so on, it was a nightmare trying to share information. 

And it still is.

So, I'm just asking whether it's still an obstacle and how we can find a way around that. Because, clearly, if we can't share information, young people will fall through the cracks.

Absolutely, and that was a serious concern that we had as well, Cefin, and actually why the single unified safeguarding procedure wasn't introduced earlier. But I'll ask Alistair to say a bit about this, because there have been some very difficult conversations with the Information Commissioner around this, but we think we've cracked it.

We think we have, and we've put it on record now, but they did say it was best practice what we've eventually produced. It did take time, about six months, to go through that, because it is absolutely an important consideration, particularly when you're sharing very sensitive data. But we also have to remember that this is often involving child abuse and neglect, and those circumstances, so it is very important that that information is shared. So, we think now, or I know now, that we now have that protocol with the Information Commissioner; we will be launching on 1 October. But you're quite right, it is an important consideration, and it's very complex. We discovered, in the work that we did, that it is so sensitive and complex that we were actually groundbreaking in the work that we were doing, because this is a very new field as well, and we had to use some external legal experts to work with us on that because of the complexities. I think the Information Commissioner's Office was very grateful for that.

Can I just quickly ask what is your view on specialist social care teams for criminally exploited children?

Specialist social care teams?

Yes.

I think that's something—. We used to always have specialist social workers, didn't we, and I think we kind of moved away from specialism to generic. I mean, Taryn, is there a view within the profession at the moment around that?

Yes. I think it goes back to some of the earlier points, really, about making sure that we have a sufficient workforce and about creating the right environment for practice for that workforce, as a firm foundation. We do know that some areas that have high levels of child sexual exploitation reported and missing children have developed bespoke teams or practitioners who have received more specialist training in those areas.

Okay, thank you.

Perhaps I could just come in and say youth justice workers, obviously, in the youth offending teams, do develop those specialisms—

They do develop specialisms, yes.

—but crucially importantly, it's not on their own, they've got to share it with their colleagues in the social work teams and education as well.

Thank you. We'll bring in Julie Morgan now, please.

Yes, thanks very much. Just going back for a moment to the high number of young people who are care leavers who are homeless. Obviously, this does link to the corporate parenting responsibility of the local authorities, so I just wondered if you could tell the committee how that is being developed with the charter—

The corporate parenting charter, yes?

The corporate parenting charter, and whether local authorities are embracing it. 

Yes, indeed. I'm really very encouraged, actually, by where we are with the corporate parenting charter. We now have all health boards and trusts signed up to that now, and I believe, Alistair—I want to say this—we're down to just one local authority that has not yet committed. Am I right?

We've got 17 definitely all signed, sealed and delivered, four where it's gone through, signed up or in principle and just finalising it, and one that's about to go to the assurance process.

So, we now have 56. Well, actually, it'll be more than that now—it will be 60, and if the final local authority signs up, it will be 61 public and third sector organisations that have signed up. We're asking all of those organisations to work with us to promote it more widely. We certainly want to get into the private sector as well, and we want to see organisations like the police signing up to become corporate parents as well. They're key to this. It's quite often police that have to pick up missing children and so on, so we want them to be part of the corporate parenting charter as well, so that they know, effectively, how to deal with children who are in the system. We know that sometimes children are dealt with in not the most appropriate way, when they end up in custody for whatever reason.

And have you been able to share yet any sort of good examples of work as a corporate parent, because obviously that's crucial to this subject?

It is, and it's still quite early days, isn't it, and we're working with them. We're having a seminar—a summit—in December.

We are: a conference to share good practice and best practice in that field. And I think, just on the point around homelessness and care leavers, I went along to the consultation event and was chairing one of those, and one of the things we were hearing was, 'These are things that should be happening already. This is policy to practice.' This is about care leaver plans are put in place for 12 or 18 months—as a former head of service, I know you know that. There's something about, 'Why isn't that happening?' So, something about this isn't just about strengthening what we've got; it's making sure the things that should be happening between children's services and housing are happening.

And I would say, one of the things that I've been very keen to ensure that we see right across the 22 local authorities and health boards, following on from what Alistair was just saying, is consistency of practice. I think we see too much inconsistency. We see really good examples of really good practice in the way these issues are dealt with, and some very poor examples, and if one local authority and health board can do it really well, with good results, then others should be able to do it as well. So, that is very much part of my focus, to make sure that we see good practice being rolled out and delivered consistently.

Right. Thanks very much for that. We've talked a lot about inter-agency working and sharing of information, and obviously it's all key to any sort of development in this area. So, could you tell us in what specific ways the Welsh Government is ensuring effective co-ordination between police, health boards and local authorities or the relevant agencies?

Yes. I mean, I think that's really important and it very much follows up from Gareth's questions and others before, because this is about how we can have that co-ordination locally, regionally and nationally, but the important point is that there are statutory duties on local authorities and partners, including police, health boards, probation and youth offending teams. And that statutory duty, again, it's what should happen, isn't it, as you say. This is the statutory underpinning. The duty is to promote co-operation with each other, to protect children and adults at risk who are experiencing or are at risk of abuse, neglect or harm, and also ensure that they're actually delivering their functions under that legal duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and any services that are commissioned by those agencies have to abide by those statutory duties, and also local authorities have to be informed where they think there is a child or an adult who is at risk. So, this is the key—. Again, it has to be about how that multi-agency working, in co-ordination, actually delivers. It's fair, the statutory duty, the functions, and good practice, and it should be delivered.

Thank you. Have you any comments on how the safeguarding boards are playing a role in all this?

Safeguarding boards, obviously—I'm sure all the committee members know this, but, for the record—include health boards, they include NHS trusts, they include local authorities, education and social services, they include police and others. So, all of the agencies that need to be on safeguarding boards are participants in that. They have a legal duty to co-ordinate and oversee the multi-agency safeguarding practice in their regions. So, the structures are in place. It is something that we are monitoring, obviously, all the time. But all the people that need to be in the room to do this work effectively are in the room, and then we have the input through the National Independent Safeguarding Board as well, don't we?

We do, and I think the single unified safeguarding review as well, really importantly, will bring in the community safety partnerships as well as part of this. And, obviously, we'll be looking at the learning that we're getting from the SUSR to develop those relationships, to develop the roles of the regional safeguarding boards and the CSPs, so I think this is a real opportunity for us as we go forward.

Sorry, Julie, can I ask: do you know how often the safeguarding boards meet? Or if they meet at all?

Good question. [Inaudible.]

As of 18 months ago I'd been a member of a safeguarding board, I should know this. I'm not sure off the top of my head, but I believe that it's quarterly that safeguarding boards meet, but we can write to you to confirm the frequency because there might be regional variation.

Yes, please.

I think it's generally quarterly, but we can check that.

Thank you.

Right, then, to go on to the charity and the third sector. I think we all know what a vital role they play, particularly working with children directly. Do you think there's a case for the statutory authorities to do the statutory bit, and the relationship building to be developed much more with the third sector?

There's absolutely no doubt that third sector organisations, particularly organisations like the National Youth Advocacy Service, that are working very closely with children and young people, do amazing work supporting those people, particularly those young people who are reported missing or at risk of being exploited. And so it's really important that children have good, trusting and stable relationships with people in authority. So, it's about building those relationships with all aspects. I don't necessarily accept that we should separate that out in I think the way the questions suggests. If we just say that the third sector just deals with the pastoral stuff and the talking to young people, then in the first instance I would say that that takes away the choice of the young person, because I think the young person should have the choice of whether they use a third sector advocate or whether they speak to their social worker. They may have built a very, very good relationship with their social worker, and so want to have that kind of non-statutory discussion with their social worker. And actually, from a social worker's point of view, if they're not involved in some of the non-statutory stuff, it poses a bit of a risk to social work practice, because it can become too regimented, it can become too much just focused on, ‘Well, this is what the law says I have to do', when, actually, social work practice, as you will know, Julie, as a former social worker, is a lot more than just doing things by the book. So, I think there is a role for both, certainly for social workers, to do the non-statutory stuff as well as the statutory work. But it very much needs to be on the non-statutory side, and certainly advocacy and support, in that respect, is something that needs to be led by the young person themselves, about who is the adult that they feel comfortable about having those conversations with.

Then I wondered—but I think this is to Jane probably—whether you’ve had any discussion with UK Government Ministers about recognising seeing children as victims in need of support, rather than perpetrators of crime, because that’s a key issue, isn’t it?

Yes, and I think I mentioned earlier on that I met with James Timpson yesterday, which I think is an early start, particularly looking at—. And, in fact, we’re going to visit the young offenders institution at Parc prison in a couple of weeks’ time, and I think, Julie, you and I visited the YOI, and this very much links to our work on youth justice. But it’s very early days in terms of working—. There are many Ministers—you're meeting Jess Phillips shortly, but we need to engage the Home Office; Michael is also working with Home Office officials. Because we just to need to, I think, not only learn what they want to do, but influence the UK Government in what we are doing. We need to share with them our Wales safeguarding procedures. We need to share with them—. I think the single unified model is pioneering—.

World-leading. 

World-leading, which you were very involved, Julie, in developing. But also we’ve got our national anti-slavery Wales forum, which is Welsh Government-organised. So, we’re not just going there to wait to see what they think, the UK Government. It’s great that we’ve got a new UK Government who are wanting to develop ways in which they can tackle child criminal exploitation with us.

So, I think it’s going to be a partnership approach, but the key thing is for us to work with them in terms of our child first, children’s rights approach to youth justice—it’s the child first vision of youth justice. And there’s so much we can do. Legislation isn’t everything as well. As we know, it’s about practice. We have legislation, and it has to be implemented. So, it’s early days, but I think, particularly from my responsibilities with youth justice, it’s about that prevention we’ve been talking about, it’s about pre-court diversion, and how we can work with the UK Government, the Ministry of Justice, as well as the Home Office, to deliver our vision for youth justice. 

And if youth justice is devolved, which I hope very much it will be devolved, have you got any particular sort of changes, or particular initiatives that you think we’d be able to develop here as a result of that?

Well, we are exploring the devolution of youth justice—very much a commitment of the Welsh Government in our programme for government, current programme for government, and manifesto. So, we are now hoping to take that a step forward, with the new UK Government. I think the case has been made so many times, and I think yourself and Dawn, and all of us, have met with those working in the youth justice system, as indeed the committee has, to see that—. We’re responsible for all of the key services, actually, not only in terms of prevention, diversion of the criminal justice system, but also the support for young people in terms of housing, homelessness, the corporate parent responsibilities, the transformation of children’s services, and the sort of schemes that—. I’ve mentioned the Bwlch project which I visited, but they’re all over Wales, these wonderful schemes. But they’re mostly all run through devolved services. To have it split across two Governments doesn’t make sense. It’s very operational, quite apart from the sort of—. It’s recognising that the devolution of youth justice would make sense to deliver for young people.

But, obviously, we’re looking forward to working with the UK Government on this. I have to say, also, it’s really important that we’ve been discussing this with criminal justice trade unions, and also, with children and young people themselves, to see that this is a way in which we can enable children and young people to live crime-free lives, and that we intervene with our services—mostly devolved—when things become difficult and tough in their lives.

Yes, and I was on the Welsh Affairs Committee in Westminster 20 years ago, and the recommendation was that youth justice—

Should be devolved.

—should be devolved, yes. So, it's got a long history, certainly. But have you had any indication from the Ministers involved in Westminster that they're thinking in these terms?

Well, I think we can say that I think we were pleased to see that youth justice and probation were recommended as the next-step candidates for devolution in the Gordon Brown review, and then that was reflected in the manifesto for the new UK Government. So, it is now about taking the next steps to achieve that, and that's where already good, robust relations are there with our new colleagues in the UK Government. And also, I have to say we've been very fortunate to have a specialist adviser with Dame Vera Baird KC, who actually has been doing the work over the last year. We commissioned her to be an adviser, to work on particularly youth justice and probation. So, she has been very involved in the youth justice, with a whole group of people who are experts in the field—the centre for criminal and social justice. So, I hope that there might be some reflection on the importance of this in this inquiry. I mean, this is powers for a purpose. This is about, actually, that it makes sense.

Yes. And then the last question I had is: what's your assessment of the recommendations in the Jay review of criminally exploited children, which Action for Children commissioned?

Yes. Well, I think you're going to raise this, probably, when you meet with Jess Phillips.

Yes. As I've said previously, I am going to be meeting the UK safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, in a couple of weeks' time, so I will be raising this with her, because in particular I do want to talk to her about some of the good practice that we're implementing here around safeguarding, and actually the Jay review did touch on the Welsh process for safeguarding and highlighted it as good practice. So, this is something, really, that I want to discuss with her in terms of whether the recommendations of the Jay review are something that we can adopt as well, and similarly some of the things that we're doing here around safeguarding is something that the UK Government can look at as good practice, best practice, and seek to implement as well. So, I'll have more information on that following the meeting with her in—. It's in October some time, isn't it?

Yes, it's the twenty-third.

But I'm happy to report back to the committee on that once that's happened.

And just perhaps quickly from me, finally, it's really important that some of the question we talked about earlier—. You asked us earlier on about whether we need a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. They looked at all of this. They looked at the current legislative framework around child criminal exploitation, which is deemed to be unsatisfactory, but also a very open discussion, I think, from seeing the report, that there are challenges about how we would take this forward, so between the links with child criminal exploitation and other forms of child exploitation we've been talking about, such as child sexual exploitation. So, I think it's a very good review that was undertaken, of course, with Action for Children, and undertaken with a lot of children and young people engaging, and our children's commissioner, actually, for Wales, giving evidence. So, I think it would be useful to refer to that.

I do think, Chair, that it's really important, where we have—. We have a very open border, a very porous border, with England, and there is a lot of cross-border activity, particularly around safeguarding and looked-after children and so on. Where we can align our safeguarding practices with England, I think we should take the opportunity to seek to do that. I think that would help in terms of the practice, and it would help in terms of everybody understanding that when a child moves across borders that we're all singing from the same song sheet. Because at the end of the day, what we should all be wanting is to make sure that these children are safeguarded, and safeguarded effectively, and it shouldn't really matter that one's in England and one's in Wales. 

Absolutely. 

I just have one final question for you. You've talked a lot about the single unified safeguarding review being groundbreaking, but that's for cases where things have gone wrong. What can you do to break down information barriers before things go wrong?

I think it's important to say that the SUSR, yes, is about reviews when things have gone wrong, but more importantly, they're about how we prevent things from going wrong in the future. Without repeating everything that we've said before, it is about all of those agencies working together and working effectively and sharing information with each other. As I say, it's sad when these things have to happen. We have to have these reviews. If we have to have these reviews, it's because something has gone wrong. But the purpose of it is to help prevent those in the future. 

Perhaps I could add to that, because that's a really important point. The point you made about cross-border is crucial, particularly in terms of criminal exploitation. But also, I'll just say that we are doing other work, and I think it's helpful to perhaps say that the anti-slavery Wales forum are doing work particularly around all forms of exploitation, but they're also developing online learning on modern slavery for practitioners, and that online learning includes learning on child criminal exploitation. Also, of course, your officials and yourself, Minister, are reviewing the all-Wales practice guide on safeguarding children in relation to child criminal exploitation and sexual exploitation. So, this is about prevention, and the youth justice framework is crucial. It's about us working together to ensure that this is a proactive, positive approach and policy.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, Minister and your officials for coming to committee today. We really appreciate your time. You'll be sent a transcript for checking in due course. Thank you so much for your time this morning. We'll now take a short break until 11:15.

Welcome back. We move on to agenda item 3. I'd like to welcome Heledd Fychan MS and Lee Waters MS, who will be joining us from the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport and International Relations Committee for our scrutiny of this Bill. 

I'm very pleased to welcome Mark Drakeford MS, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language; Bethan Webb, deputy director 'Cymraeg 2050', Welsh Government; and Iwan Roberts, senior lawyer, Welsh Government.

Before we start the session, can I please ask that we check that the translation is working? It's channel 1 for translation and channel 0 for amplication. Is everybody ready? I'll now start with the questions.

Given that the Bill is both a Welsh language Bill and an education Bill, how involved have the Cabinet Secretary for Education and her department been in the development of the Bill and how involved will they be in its delivery in practice?

Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you this morning. It’s probably important just to remind Members that when the Bill was in its formative stages, the Minister responsible was Jeremy Miles and he was Minister both for education and for the Welsh language, so, in that sense, in the period in which the Bill was being worked on most—and it was part of the co-operation agreement; Cefin was the designated Member with responsibility for the Bill—Jeremy was responsible for both aspects.

The First Minister has asked me to take the Bill through the Senedd as Minister with responsibility for the Welsh language, but of course, at both official level and at ministerial level, it’s a joint effort. In fact, the last Minister I spoke to as we were on our way down here was the Cabinet Secretary for Education, so, you can be sure that we will continue that close engagement as the Bill proceeds now through the Senedd.

How significant is the use of the term 'Welsh language education' rather than 'Welsh-medium education' when discussing the provisions of the Bill? To what extent does this reflect that this involves English-medium schools as well as Welsh-medium schools? Is this the biggest challenge in delivering the objectives of the Bill and the wider 'Cymraeg 2050' agenda?

Thank you, Chair. The point I should probably start with is that, of course, the Bill is very important for Welsh-medium education, that great success story of Wales in the last 30 years—the fact that we have a sector that is both growing and produces such high-quality outcomes for its students. The Bill continues to envisage a growth in the proportion of young people who choose, their parents choose, to have their compulsory education through the medium of Welsh—that's at the heart of the Bill quite certainly.

But the Bill, as you implied in your question, goes beyond Welsh-medium education to encompass Welsh language education. I'm sure that there are Members around the table here who've been engaged in the debates over the last decade as to why our success in Welsh-medium education has not been replicated in the way in which Welsh is taught to students who go to English-medium schools, and despite the fact that they have compulsory lessons in Welsh, they don’t emerge in sufficient numbers at the age of 16 as confident and competent speakers of the language.

We have a target—an ambitious target—of a million Welsh speakers by 2050. If we are to achieve that target, then the contribution that the education system must make to that target is at the centre of that effort. And that means it cannot rely entirely on young people who receive their education through the medium of Welsh; it must encompass all children in our schools, and that’s at the heart of this Bill. It’s how can we make sure that while we continue the success of Welsh-medium education, we do a better job of producing those young people who can be competent, confident users of the language who attend our English or dual-language schools.

Thank you. I think Cefin wants to come in.

Did you want to come in, Heledd?

Well, Chair, I'll turn to English for this bit of it. So, the work between the Office for National Statistics and our own knowledge and analytical services has been set in train. I was very grateful to Sir Ian Diamond, as the chair of ONS. He recognised very readily how important it is for public policy making and public understanding in Wales to have a set of figures that everybody understands. And the fact that they were so different and not only were they different, but for a while they were heading in the opposite directions as well, this is tricky territory, therefore, for policy making, any real understanding of what is happening. At the heart of all of that, though, is a really important principle. It does lead to some tricky consequences. But the principle is of self-assessment. You know, if Welsh belongs to everybody, then, it is the individual's own assessment of the extent to which they believe themselves to be users of the Welsh language that we have to rely on, and that principle is at the heart of this Bill as well.

Our hope is that, by the use of the common European framework, over time, it will become easier for people, as they become familiar with the framework, to gauge where they themselves are on that spectrum. At the moment, there's nothing to guide anybody, and, as we know, it can lead to distortions at either end of the spectrum: people who have a fairly basic ability to do everyday things in Welsh counting themselves as Welsh speakers and other people who are very fluent and competent speakers deciding that, 'Oh, that category doesn't include me.' So, using self-assessment is open to those distortions, but it is that very important principle that you must be enabled to decide for yourself, rather than having that assessment made for you by somebody else, and then you have to try and deal with the consequences of that. And the way that the Bill aims to deal with the consequences is by putting that common European framework at the heart of how we define someone's competence in the language. 

On the point of should we include targets for the use of Welsh, as well as for the number of people who speak the language, I think that takes us into even more tricky territory of definitions and being able to get the data that you would use to be able to measure that. But the Bill does take us in that direction, and I'll ask Bethan to explain how, not at the very start, or not with a target on the face of the Bill, the process that the Bill sets in motion will lead to a more reliable ability to be able to measure the use of the language. 

Thank you. We'll now move on to questions from Cefin Campbell.

Thank you. One of our committee members has had internet problems, so I'll be asking Tom's questions: can you expand on the statement in the explanatory memorandum to the Bill that the challenge in terms of monitoring the Welsh language education provided in schools is incompatible with the enthusiasm felt for Welsh education across local authorities?

Thank you, Chair. Well, what I think is meant by that in the EM is this: we are in the very fortunate position in Wales that there is a real enthusiasm in our local authorities for the ambition that we have as a Government, a real enthusiasm for the language and for the promotion of the language. In translating that sense of goodwill and ambition into activity on the ground, they can struggle because there is no common way of measuring how much education in the Welsh language is being carried out in their schools. Some schools measure it in one way, other schools measure it in another way, and that's what we were trying to convey in that statement in the explanatory memorandum, and that's what the Bill seeks to address, to be able to give local authorities stronger tools for them to know what is being achieved in their schools and, therefore, to know where more help is needed or where there are things going on that can be celebrated and then shared with others, and to do it in a way with greater consistency so that the translation of the ambition into facts on the ground can be more easily achieved.

Thank you. Part of the rationale for the changes to school language categories through non-statutory guidance in 2021 was to recognise schools' Welsh-medium activities outside of the curriculum, which the Welsh Government at the time said

'do not get the recognition they deserve for the important contribution they make in terms of language acquisition.'

By reverting to determining a school’s language category in relation to provision during curriculum time only, does the Bill go against the rationale given for the changes in 2021?

Well, it's very important for me to say, Chair, that nothing in this Bill in any way undermines the importance of the work that is done to encourage the use of Welsh beyond the statutory curriculum. We've already talked a bit already today about how that can be a struggle, and it's a struggle in other places too. I know, in the Basque Country, where, as I've said, they've succeeded more than we have, in a way, to use their education system to create Basque speakers, they also face the dilemma of whether young people who have acquired the language then go on to use it in their daily lives. So, there's nothing in this Bill for a moment that cuts across what was said a couple of years ago about the importance of those extra-curricular activities, and, of course, the Bill does specifically require the plans that are created at school level not simply to achieve the 10 per cent in terms of Welsh language, but to promote an ethos around the language and the sense of a Welsh culture alongside that.

However, what we're trying to do in this part of the Bill is to help local authorities, as you asked in your first question, to be able to measure what is going on in their schools now in order to be able to move further down that journey. Now, the only really reliable way you can do that is to capture what goes on during the compulsory school day, because that is the one thing that is common to everybody. Different schools will have different approaches to extra-curricular activities. They're voluntary; some children will take them up, and other children will be doing other things, so you wouldn't be capturing comparable forms of data, and the effort in this part of the Bill is to improve comparability. So, that's why we decided, not in any way to devalue the importance of those extra-curricular activities, to capture, for data purposes, the things that go on inside the compulsory school day.

Thank you. In what kind of circumstances do you envisage local authorities granting primarily English language, partly Welsh schools an exemption from the duty to provide an amount of Welsh language education in accordance with their category? Are you expecting that some schools will struggle to deliver the prescribed 10 per cent, particularly given they're already implementing substantial reforms such as the Curriculum for Wales and the new Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018?

Thank you, Chair. I want to make one general point, if I could, in answering this question, and it's a contested area—not everybody around the table will share exactly the same views on it. As I've said a couple of times, I think one of the great advantages we have in Wales is that we have succeeded in making the language something that the vast bulk of our fellow citizens regard positively, regard as something important. Even if they don’t speak it themselves, it’s a very important part of what they regard as being distinctively Welsh.

I think that is something we have to guard carefully, and I think it can be vulnerable if people feel that they’re being asked to do things, or achieve things, that they don’t think are reasonable. So, the reason we have built this into the Bill is to make sure that those schools that will face some challenges in getting to the 10 per cent don’t feel that they are under unreasonable pressure to get to that, that we build in time for them to achieve what we want them to achieve. And, as you know, the Bill offers them two opportunities to do that. It’s to make sure that we go on preserving the ground we’ve gained in terms of positive goodwill for the language, and also to attend to the sheer practical nature of some of the challenges that will be there.

We know that as you get closer to the English border, then just the number of teachers in a school who are able to speak Welsh reduces. And, for some of those schools, it will just be a practical challenge to be able to reach the 10 per cent that we’ve set out in the Bill. We want to give those schools every encouragement, every support, and every possibility to get to where we want them to be, and we think it is better that we allow some flexibility around that, so that those schools continue to be schools that want to be on this journey, and don’t feel that this has become a sort of burden on them, where we’re asking them to do things that they can’t reasonably be expected to achieve.

So, those are the sorts of staffing issues that we know will be there as part of the challenge, but also—and this is harder to pin down in words, but I think is very important—that we do it in a way that continues to make this whole ambition one that is positively regarded and shared by all of the schools that we have in Wales.

I can see Lee wanted to come in here. 

Thank you. I just want to extend that theme, really, and how the Welsh language education delivery plan can play a role in making sure that there is that consultation around public acceptability as schools move along the continuum between one language category and another. Because I think part of the challenge of the process that currently exists, and the one set out in the Bill, is that it can be seen as quite a technical exercise; it can happen all of a sudden to a community, and they don’t feel that they have a say in it, they feel disempowered, it happens to them, and before we know it, the nature of a school is being changed. I’ve certainly had a number of examples in my constituency where that can cause real fracture in a community. And, from what I can understand of the delivery plans as set out in the explanatory memorandum, it does seem a little silent on that issue of community consultation.

Lee, thank you. I’ll probably ask Bethan to say something in a minute, but your question has pinpointed something that I haven’t had a chance to say anything about yet, and, Chair, if you know that there are questions still to come that will cover this, I’ll wait until then. But just to say very briefly that the Bill sets out this tripartite structure: a new national framework at the level of the Senedd, the WESPs that will be delivered by local authorities, and the local delivery plans at the school level. I’ll ask Bethan if there’s anything she has to say about the extent to which those school delivery plans are formed through consultation with the wider school community.

So, as the Minister said, the local authority will be consulting on their local plans every five years, setting out their ambition for all school categories, and how they intend to move along all those school categories. And then, now, the school itself will own its delivery plan that the local authority works on them with. So, they will have the ownership, and the consultation will happen between the headteacher, the school governors and that school community, so that they all own the journey, and that they all own and understand the language journey that they’re on.

Thank you. Schools will be able to apply for a temporary exemption to the minimum provision in their first delivery plan, and also apply for a further exemption in their second delivery plan, with the second such occasion being brought to the attention of the Welsh Government. Will the two exemption periods be the maximum, or will schools be able to apply for further exemptions?

No, the Bill provides for two extensions and no further extension. By the time we get to the end of the second extension—. There is an indicative timeline in the explanatory memorandum, which, if Members haven't all had a chance to see, we can circulate again. I've got a slightly more extended version of that table, which may be helpful for Members to see. But you will see that by the time we get to the end of that second extension period, we're in 2036. Well, by now we are perilously close to 2050, aren't we? So, I don't think that the central purpose of the Bill would be assisted by allowing indefinite extensions. There are two extensions. I think that's very reasonable. It's designed, as I say, to make sure that those schools continue to want to be on the journey, but we'll get to a point where I think you have to say, 'You've had as long as we're able to give you.'

Okay. Thank you. I'll bring Gareth Davies in now.

Diolch yn fawr, Gadeirydd. I can hear myself talking—I'll take those off. That's not a good thing, is it? [Laughter.]

There have been suggestions during previous scrutiny and reviews that the Welsh Government doesn't have the necessary power and control over the planning of Welsh language education at a local level. I mean, you have touched on this in some other answers. How does the Bill and the 'clear line of accountability' referred to, on a national and then a local level—?

Thank you for the question. That was the point I was very briefly referring to earlier. It does set out a much clearer structure through which there's a line of sight between the ambitions that the Senedd sets in this area and the way that those ambitions are translated into activity on the ground. It sets that out much more clearly than we have done up until now, because it does have this national framework. So, the Welsh Government, with the endorsement of the Senedd, will set out what our ambitions are over the 10-year and five-year periods that the Bill depends upon. They then inform the WESPs, which are the local authorities' plans, but now the local authorities' plans will be shaped by having to answer the question, 'How do these plans meet the ambitions that the Senedd has set out?' So, there is a clear link between the WESPs and the national ambition. And then the schools have to show in their delivery plans how they will translate the local authority's strategic plans into activity on the ground. So, I hope, and certainly the intention is, that it gives everybody a clear line of sight between the ambition, which is set here, and the delivery of the ambition, which happens in the classroom.

And why does the Bill retain the term 'Welsh in education strategic plan'? Does that reflect the change in direction that this Bill is trying to achieve? Why is it not called, you know, a 'Welsh education implementation plan'?

Well, it doesn't reflect a change in ambition. The ambition is the one I've just tried to set out. We tested this as part of the White Paper consultation process. Now, here is something that some of us who were involved in this at the very beginning would not necessarily have anticipated, but local authorities have embraced the WESP process in a way that we didn't necessarily imagine they would at the beginning. Those of us who were involved in those early discussions know that there was a lot of anxiety and a bit of, 'Not sure if we think this is the right way to do it' amongst local authorities, when we introduced the WESP system, but now I think they really have embraced it. And it was their advice that they didn't want another change in terminology. They were used to it. It did what they wanted it to do. They didn't want to change it. Our view was that we should go along with that, because it does in a way reflect their commitment to those plans.

Yes, I suppose if it's done in an understandable way that everybody can be on board with, the terminology is probably quite small in that regard.

The White Paper included a proposal for Estyn to undertake a rapid review of a local authority's WESP and to make recommendations. Is this in the Bill? And if not, why did the Welsh Government decide to leave it out?

Because the exploration that went on around the White Paper really revealed the fact that the Welsh Ministers have this power already. So, it's a general principle—Iwan will be much more eloquent on this than me—a general principle of good law making that you don't just restate powers that you already have. The Welsh Government has these powers already; we don't need to restate them. It doesn't mean that we don't intend to use them in the way that we set out in the White Paper. But, the use of the powers is not the issue, it's whether you need to take powers you've already got again in this Bill. And, on the whole, the advice from lawyers and our parliamentary draughtspeople was that that's not a sensible way of doing things. You can do it already.

I can't really add much to what the Minister said on that point, but on your first question and to go to Lee Waters's question about consultation, just to remind you that consultation is obligatory in this Bill in terms of all of those stages that the Minister has talked about—the national framework, the local authority plan and governing bodies' plans.

And just finally, if I may, just to cover workforce, there have obviously been issues in recruiting Welsh-medium teachers, particularly in secondary schools. So, I'm wondering, obviously, what plans there will be within the Bill to skill up Welsh-medium education facilitators, but then also in a way that can achieve the Bill's aims and ambitions. 

Well, first of all, to emphasise the point that was made in the question, there is a challenge in recruiting the number of people we need with the linguistic ability to teach through the medium of Welsh and to teach Welsh in other schools. My colleague the education Minister has a whole series of measures that have been put in place to try to encourage and reward people who come forward to be trained in this way. I don't have the exact figure for the education field, because I don't know it quite as well, but in the health field I know that you're always told as a Minister that 80 per cent of the people who will be working in the health service in 10 years' time are already working in it today. So, while recruitment is very important and you need a pipeline of new people, you shouldn't lose sight of the fact that you've got 80 per cent of the people there already, and you need to make sure that those people are skilled.

So, lots of this Bill is about how we can do better to help people who are already working in the field, people who have a certain level of ability in the language now, who would be willing to do more, but who need help in order to be able to develop their skills and to know how to apply those skills in the classroom as part of the effort of the Bill. And the final part of the Bill, the institute, the athrofa, is very much focused on how we can do better with the people who are already in the workforce. The efforts that are being made to recruit people are the efforts that are already there and are the responsibility of the education Minister, but the athrofa and the extra efforts that the Bill envisages being made to do what Gareth Davies has asked, to make the maximum use of the skills and commitment of people already in the classroom, that's where this Bill comes in.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I'd like to bring Cefin in now, please.

I'd now like to bring in Lee, please.

I've got a couple of questions, Chair, if you'll humour me. Just to come back to the point the officials were making on the consultation, I think it might be useful to just reflect on the guidance that’s set out for schools. On the question of exemptions, I see that special schools are not considered as part of the Bill. What about secondary schools that have special units attached to those schools? Because it’s often a difficulty that children who are in Welsh-medium schools who have special needs—. It’s an additional difficulty if they are learning through an additional language. Often, the schools aren’t skilled or equipped to be able to provide both. What thinking is there around how that might be addressed and helped? And then I’d like to come back with one further question, if I may.

I'll just begin by saying that I think the points that Lee has raised about consultation are important ones that the committee would find useful. We can put a note together drawing together the requirements that the Bill sets out for consultation, and how that will lead to any changes in the guidance that is there already. I absolutely recognise the example that Lee pointed to earlier of where a change in the nature of a school then turns into something controversial and leads to divisions amongst people in an area where we’re very keen to continue to keep people with us on the journey. So, we can certainly do that.

To confirm, the point Lee Waters made about special schools is correct: special schools are not going to be part of the compulsory part of the Bill. That doesn't mean that there aren’t many special schools that are very committed indeed both to the teaching of the language and certainly to those other requirements to create a Welsh ethos in the school. It can be a very important part of the way in which those schools construct the sense of identity for young people attending them. As to special units in secondary schools, I’ll see if Bethan has a better answer than I would be able to give you.

The delivery would be in line with that school category. So, if it was a category 1 school, then the support would be given in line with whatever level of teaching would be within that specialist unit in the school, so they wouldn’t be excluded. Maybe you could focus on the oracy skills, because I know there are several examples where children with additional learning needs were told maybe not to access Welsh-medium education, but they become bilingual speakers. They may have difficulty in terms of written production but they also have that in English. But they have bilingual skills and the parents are very proud of it. So, I think it’s a personal choice for the parents, but the support would be in those schools in the same way.

In terms of the exemption for special schools, there is an addition in this Bill as well so that if schools like Hafod Lon or Pendalar wanted to express that they were Welsh-medium special schools, then we could facilitate that in the Bill as well for the first time.

Thank you. I appreciate the answer. I do think that units might be a complication and it may be worth having just some additional reflection with the sector just to make sure that the tyres are being properly kicked on that.

I have a further question in terms of skills and in terms of the targets for the English-medium category with some Welsh—sorry, forgive me; I forget the exact terminology you used in the Bill. It’s clear from the recruitment figures that the pipeline simply isn’t there, that the expectations and hopes we've all had are not being met in terms of recruitment of the new workforce. The last I remember, the target for upskilling the existing teachers was having some difficulties as well with them being able to confidently use Welsh in practice. So, we know there is a difficulty there in terms of having the skilled workforce we need to give these targets meaning.

My concern is of an unintended consequence here—that pushing schools in that English-medium category to increase the level of Welsh provision without the properly skilled workforce is going to result in a very poor experience for pupils, which will have the consequence of turning them against the language. If their experience of learning Welsh is bad, then they are going to have hostility towards the language. That’s certainly the experience I’ve had with lots of school council discussions in schools in the Llanelli constituency; there’s a real negative feeling amongst sixth formers about their experience of learning Welsh, which is really distressing to hear. I think schools are struggling with this, and by putting those targets in place without the workforce to support it, I think there’s a real danger that we create an unwitting negative effect here, which could then undermine the whole effort.

We’re very alert to exactly that. The purpose of the Bill is to address the feelings that we know have been there from young people who’ve gone through compulsory Welsh in an English-medium school who feel at the end of it that they’ve not got anything worthwhile out of it all. That’s right at the centre of what this Bill is trying to put right. But it also why we have two periods of exemption from the 10 per cent target for schools where that isn’t achievable. I absolutely don’t want it to be achieved in a way that appears to meet the target but results in a very poor experience for children. It’s a very important point that Lee makes, but it’s not one that we’ve been unaware of in the construction of the Bill. Those exemptions, those two periods where a school can be working towards being able to deliver the 10 per cent in a way that is meaningful, in a way that does result in young people who’ve gone through that experience coming out of it in ways that allow them to be confident and competent users of the language—. If we can’t achieve that, then the Bill really will not have achieved what it set out to do at all. So, I hope we’ve built in some safeguards to prevent the outcome that Lee Waters has pointed to, but the risk is one that the Bill was constructed to try to grapple with from the beginning.

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

It was on the additional learning needs. The point I wanted to make was that you would have children with additional leaning needs who weren’t in units and who weren’t in special schools, and how you would ensure that they were part of it. I think you did partly respond to that. But I think it is difficult to get that provision in Welsh at the moment, and I wondered if you had any comments on that.

Perhaps if I could assist there, just to give assurance to the committee. In terms of the 10 per cent minimum, or whatever percentage it would be, that doesn’t mean that every single pupil has to have 10 per cent. That does give a bit of leeway for the kind of pupils you’re describing there, or the special unit within a bigger school. It’s about what the school does overall, rather than necessarily to each individual. But then you go back to what the overall outcome the Welsh Government want here, which is that every child comes out of the school system with a particular level of Welsh language—everybody. That’s the outcome we’re looking for. 

I support that. We certainly want children with ALN to have the opportunity. I was thinking about—

There's a bit of flexibility, I suppose, within the system, so that the percentages—. There's a bit of leeway there, I suppose, within the system to facilitate and take into account the particular needs of particular children.

Heledd, did you want to come in?

Thank you. I'd now like to bring in Lesley Griffiths.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. I'm going to look at the parts of the Bill with proposals around the national institute for learning Welsh. The explanatory memorandum states:

'there is currently no single body providing strategic leadership for lifelong Welsh language learning'.

Would you not say that was a role for the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research? How do you think the institute will work with the commission in relation to that and are you fearful that there could be duplication of work?

On that last point, of course, Lesley Griffiths is quite right to point to the risks that that could happen. The difference between the two, though, I think is clear enough. The commission for tertiary education is just that: it is tertiary, it is post-compulsory school age education. What the athrofa will have will have a genuine lifelong span. So, it will take in both the compulsory age of education and, in a way that is complementary and works with the commission, the things that it can offer in the post-compulsory school age as well, to have that sense of continuity between a three-year-old and a 103-year-old wanting to improve their ability in the language. But that's the difference, Lesley, I think, that the commission is focused exclusively on tertiary education, whereas the athrofa will have that wider span.

Just on that point that you've made about post compulsory and compulsory, do you think the explanatory memorandum does provide sufficient clarity and assurances about the role of the new institute in relation to that?

Well, I am very keen to learn from the committee's work on the Bill. There will be further iterations of the explanatory memorandum as the Bill makes its way through the Senedd. It takes us back, in a way, to the very first questions from Cefin about whether the language used in the Bill is the language that precisely enough captures what we're trying to achieve. If there are things that the committee feels, as part of the evidence, Chair, you will take, where we could offer greater clarity in the explanatory memorandum, then I will look very carefully at the advice that you give us.

Going back to duplication of work, the Welsh Government notes that there's a lack of central strategic vision for lifelong Welsh language learning, which leads to duplication of provision and resources. Do you think that would improve under the proposed institute? And do you have examples you can give us as to why you've come to that point of view?

Chair, I realise, in listening to Lesley's question, that I don't think I've referred to the code once in giving evidence to you. The code, in a way, is the golden thread of this Bill. The code that it will establish is how we will link that experience that a person would have at any point in that age spectrum and in the spectrum of compulsory and post-compulsory education. So, I think part of the answer—well, no, a significant part of the answer—to Lesley's question will lie in the way that the code is constructed and the way in which it will provide that thread.

The evidence that we have of the need to provide greater central strategic vision comes from a range of reviews; indeed, it comes from a number of committees of the Senedd who've commented on this over the years. I think it was referred to in an earlier question as to whether or not there has been sufficient clarity at the national level of expectations in this field. So, I think there's quite a body of evidence that says to us that we need to be able to clarify that—and we do that through the strategy and the framework and the code—and then to make sure that, at the delivery end, there is a body whose primary focus is on doing the things that we've talked about so far today: supporting the workforce, improving its skills, giving advice to parts of the system where we can see that the system is maybe struggling to achieve all the things that we want it to achieve and does so in an authoritative way. That's what the institute is designed to do.

And just to say, it builds on, of course—you know, this is not day zero in any of this; all the things we're trying to do build on the achievements of this sector over the years. So, it will build on the work of the national centre, but the national centre is a commissioned body and every seven years we have to go out to tender again to run it again. I've never, myself, been comfortable with that because of the risk that you lose the experience and the expertise built up over the seven-year period. The athrofa will avoid that, it will be an institute that will parhau—continue—it will last for the lifetime of the Bill and therefore will provide a greater stability of advice to the sector as well. Bethan might want to say more about the code.

Yes. The first thing that we'll do if the Bill passes is consult on the code across all sectors and all ages so that there's real ownership, and that will be the first part of the journey in terms of people starting to understand what the code is. So, the athrofa will own [correction: implement] the code, will be the mother and father of the code, as it were, and we'll update it, we'll work internationally to make sure that we have the best practice, and then that it works for all our areas of learning in WalesFootnoteLink. Post-16, of course, Medr and Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol lead on the expansion of Welsh-medium and bilingual education and the planning of. So, the athrofa will be a centre of excellence, a powerhouse to ensure that we have the best research, the best pedagogical practice, the best understanding of what translanguaging is. We could be a lead in best practice, as the Minister has already alluded to, in terms of immersion education worldwide. We used to have a centre of excellence in the 1990s, but, for some reason, that disappeared. And, in terms of Wales, Wales is the only place where the Welsh language exists in terms of use on a daily basis. So, if we don't have a centre of excellence in Wales, there won't be a centre of excellence and you need that to support any language development. 

In terms of the evidence and the ask, the National Centre for Learning Welsh—. Increasingly over the years, and especially post COVID, loads of category 1, so English-medium, secondary schools, have gone to them to ask for help in terms of resources and all those things. Obviously, the curriculum post-16 doesn't match the one in schools at the moment. So, by having one system, then the expertise post-16 and all the resources can be used and adapted for use on a secondary level. There'll be more work and research to do on the primary level, of course. The National Centre for Learning Welsh has already started piloting their approaches on a voluntary basis in some secondary schools in key stage 3, and it's been a really positive approach and it's been well-received by teachers. More focus on oracy and that transaction—the language transaction—is definitely helping in terms of the enthusiasm of learners as well.  

I can see we're running over time. Is the Cabinet Secretary okay to stay a little bit longer so we can finish our questioning? 

Surely, yes. 

Thank you. Lesley. 

In that case, I'll just ask one final question, if that's okay. You've had quite a few questions around development and workforce planning, and I just wonder—. Look again, look at—. The explanatory memorandum notes that the institute will be expected to develop and implement a plan for the development and training of the education workforce. I was just wondering what you think will be done differently, if you could explain a bit more about the functions of the institute, about how you think this will improve workforce planning. 

Well, I think it will be because of the concentrated expertise that it will bring to that work. As Bethan has said, we've lacked an institute that people can turn to that will have that concentrated sense of focus on this particular challenge. We know that the education Minister's efforts to recruit staff in education go beyond the Welsh language. You know, we're short of physics teachers, we're short of music teachers. She's got to attend to the challenges that exist across the whole of the curriculum. What we're doing here is to create a body that will be able to bring to bear the weight of its own expertise in being able to help us to both make the best possible use of the people already available in the workforce and to find new and better ways of attracting people into the workforce for the future. And I think, by bringing that focus to bear on it and concentrating that expertise over the long haul, not just a seven-year horizon in which, by the time you get to year 5, you're worrying about having to tender again for the work you're doing, it will have an impact that we haven't been able to make in this field so far. 

Thank you, Lesley. I'll now quickly bring in Julie. 

Well, I'll just ask two quick questions and I'll put them together. One is about children's rights. I don't think there's any reference in the child rights impact assessment about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example. So, what consideration has been given to children's rights? And the second question was: how do you intend to reach more maybe isolated communities? Because I think the message you've given us today is that the Welsh language is for everybody, so I was thinking of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, black and minority ethnic communities, disadvantaged, maybe, communities. Because I think the key success of all of this is to reach everybody.

Thank you, Julie. On the first point, I'll see, maybe—. Shall we just send you a note on that?

Yes, that's fine.

There is stuff in the impact assessment that does refer to the UNCRC articles, but maybe I can just make sure that the committee has that in a way that's more accessible.

On your second and final point, for me, this is a real test of this Bill. If we don't succeed in making access to the Welsh language something that is felt in all parts of our community then we really will not have succeeded. But I have a lot of confidence about that, because, when you and I were members of South Glamorgan education authority a long, long time ago, Welsh in the city of Cardiff really was something that was used by a particular slice of the city's population. And today that is very different—not different enough; there is definitely more to be done with some of the groups that Julie Morgan referred to. But if we'd said to people back then that, by today, we would have Welsh-medium education in the Hamadryad school in the south of Cardiff, in Nant Caerau on the Ely estate and other examples in the city, where Welsh-medium education was being absolutely embraced by populations where it wasn't part of what they thought of at all back then, I think people would have said that we were being very ambitious indeed. We've gained a huge amount of ground over that 30-year period in making sure that the language genuinely is iaith i bawb, a language for everybody, and I hope—it's a real test of the Bill for me—that it allows us now to push even further and make sure that Welsh is available and embraced by those other populations for whom it hasn't yet been as available and as part of their experience as we would wish.

And if I could just add that section 39 of the Bill tries specifically to address that point about promoting equal opportunity.

Diolch.

Okay. I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary and his officials for appearing before committee today and for staying that little bit longer. You will be sent a transcript for checking in due course. Thank you.

Thank you. Diolch.

I will now move on to item 4, which is papers to note. Full details of the papers are set out on the agenda and in the paper pack. Are Members content to note the papers together? Yes. 

As agreed earlier, we will now move into private session for the rest of today's meeting. Moving on to item 5, I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix), that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? We will now proceed in private.