23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Well, if things go wrong, then you'll have to make a greater effort because you won't have captured the contribution that we think is there to be captured. Now, in those circumstances, I don't think that you can say confidently that the way a Government would…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Well, the three scenarios, Chair: scenario 1 is business as usual, and our assessment is, and the reason why we have a Bill is, that if we just let things continue as they are, then we would not be extracting the maximum impact we can from the education…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Yes, it is. It’s people's confidence to use the language they already have in the context of the classroom. Last year’s figures from the annual survey of the workforce said that there was over 6 per cent of teachers already in Wales—over 1,500—who reported…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Well, the workforce pressure at the school level, Chair—we assume, as I said, that all the help that is currently available within the system will continue. And there are a whole series of programmes that the Welsh Government already provides, primarily…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
£23,500 a year, and it's what Estyn itself tells us that they would need. Peter Fox asked a very good question about the middle tier, as it's sometimes called, and, of course, the Government is concluding its review of those middle-tier services. So, the RIA…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
So, Chair, there is a cost for Estyn, which is identified in the RIA. These are costs that Estyn itself produced. It assumes that they will have to review, in a thoroughgoing way, one of the WESPs each year, and that they will be able to continue to, in a…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Well, Chair, the Bill does introduce a new system in which there will, for the first time, be a national framework, which will set targets. The WESPs will have to respond to those targets and show how they are to be delivered. And schools will, for the first…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
—Fitzalan High School in my constituency serves seven different primary schools. They have lots of things in common because of the nature of the communities that they serve. Therefore, the sorts of challenges that you may need to address in a school-level…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
I think that is potentially an advantage financially. To give an example that I'm more familiar with—
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Well, the Bill does provide for schools to come together in that way. I myself believe that the case for doing that is pretty strong, particularly, maybe, in the south-east of Wales, where this Bill is concerned. We don't cost it for the Bill, because that is…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
I think the calculation that the Welsh Government made in making that choice was less about cost and more about effectiveness of the policy. So, yes, there would have been other ways in which the policy could have been taken forward, including non-legislative…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Indeed.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
These are opportunity costs.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
I think the thing that maybe I was most struck by was just the sheer variety of experience at that individual school level. Schools reported very different things, in all sorts of different ways. Now, I don't say that was a surprise, but I think it was even…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Yes. We commissioned Arad Research to carry out this work for the Welsh Government because of their expertise and their independence. The information that could be derived from the 23 schools did cover a very wide range of the waterfront of schools in Wales…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
—insight into, not just figures, but how the system works and how it looks to people who are at the chalk face of it all.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Wel, mae e yn rhoi blas o beth mae pobl yn ei feddwl, yr heriau maen nhw'n eu hwynebu, beth maen nhw'n ei feddwl fydd yn mynd i ddod atyn nhw yn y dyfodol. Wrth gwrs, maen nhw yn gallu rhoi i chi rhai ffigurau am beth sy'n mynd ymlaen yn yr ysgol benodol yna…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
In that element of the research and the evidence for the Bill, there were 23 schools: 11 primary schools, 11 secondary schools, one all-through school; there were six Welsh-medium schools, seven dual language schools, and 10 English-medium schools. To be…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Yes.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Yes, absolutely.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
The Bill assumes that that level of investment continues into the future. Given that those are decisions that will be made by future Governments, in that sense, they will be additional, but then, they—. The Bill assumes that those investments will need to…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
It's £3.8 million, I beg your pardon—£3.8 million. And the figures that you see in the RIA of investment that is required to continue through all the period include that figure.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Those costs are reflected in the RIA, but it is assumed—it's £3.3 million for the sabbatical.
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
No, it isn't a midpoint in a range. It is taking the specific costs and giving you the actual figures that we think best reflect the current state of play. Now, to give you just one example, we provide a cost that we say a local authority will incur in…
23 Hydref 2024 , Finance Committee
Goblygiadau Ariannol y Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru): Sesiwn dystiolaeth
Well, essentially Ministers do rely on the advice that you're given, because we have an analytical knowledge services unit in the Welsh Government who do this all the time, and whose job is to make an assessment of the best method that can be used to give the…
