, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Thank you very much for that question, because this is something where our commitments to the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan’ and 'LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales'—Hannah will respond—are absolutely at the forefront, not just of our portfolio responsibilities…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
I can assure you we have a very robust relationship with the third sector. They are independent, they are the third sector, they both provide services, but they also campaign. Having come from the third sector myself before becoming an Assembly and then…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
[Inaudible.]—the main third sector infrastructure, WCVA and the county voluntary councils. It's all in the budget expenditure lines in the tables here, so you can see that main funding. I can't tell you what all the other funding levels from their local…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Thank you very much, Altaf. This is such an important area of work, isn't it, supporting our third sector and supporting our volunteers in Wales. We hugely value their work. What is really important is that we have a third sector partnership scheme, and I…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
It'll happen.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Period dignity, yes.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
I think Hannah—.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Deputy Minister, do you want to—?
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
I'll bring in the Deputy Minister in a minute on some of those points, but I think our commitment to gender equality is absolutely clear, because there's no question that women have been disproportionately impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, and…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Well, that is a key part of our evaluation, which is obviously ongoing, and I am pleased to report that we're going to have an interim report on evaluation, and we've been discussing ways in which we can share that. So, it's not waiting til the end—it's…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Tackling child poverty is an absolute priority. My oral statement will be available to you later on today, and tomorrow when we have an oral statement [correction: The strategy will be available to you later on today, and tomorrow when we have an oral…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Yes, we will, and they're committed to doing this as well. They're also subject to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015—the milestones, the indicators—and they have to report on them. Also, in addition to what Claire has said, the public…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Diolch yn fawr, Jane. I think our Welsh benefits charter gives us a real opportunity here, because all local authorities have signed up to it; they've all signed up to the fact that they want to ensure we have a robust, coherent Welsh benefits system where…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Diolch yn fawr, Jane. That's a really important question. I think I mentioned earlier on the fact that we're trying to train and support everyone who has anything to do with people, and especially the poorest families, so that they also can signpost, but also…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
One of the things we hoped to do, but we've got this £1.3 billion hole in our budget for next year, is that we hoped to have had a higher budget in this area; we had a higher indicative budget. So, we hoped for an uplift, actually. We haven't had that uplift…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
It is a demand-led budget, so we will continue to meet that demand.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
We've protected the discretionary assistance fund, and it is a lifeline. Just for the record, between April last year and December, 67,667 people have been supported with £23.4 million in grants. And over £12 million are cash payments, which, again, is…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
I mean, the single advice fund was a great step forward in terms of making sure that we could support our advice givers across Wales, so protecting the £11 million grant funding. And as you can imagine, we've had to look at every budget head in terms of our…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Yes. I mean, Claire has been mostly involved in this. Actually, I'm doing an oral statement in a couple of weeks. We want to give this proper attention in itself. It is a key plank of the child poverty strategy, so it's emerged as a result of all the work…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
The fact that local government, well, the partnership council, signed up to this, they've endorsed it, every leader—and we're meeting a few over the coming weeks—every leader has endorsed it; we had the Welsh Local Government Association there today, they're…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Diolch yn fawr, Sioned. Well, I think the first step has always been a coherent Welsh benefits system and, actually, you'll see those are my first words in the charter today. It is the first step to have a coherent Welsh benefits system, which all local…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
I don't know whether it's—[Inaudible.]. I think I've—. Okay.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Well, can I say, the cost-of-living advisory committee played a hugely important role? It was an expert group. We commissioned it. We appointed it to assist us when the cost of living was clearly having a huge adverse impact on the lives of people and…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
—about food funding and those kinds of food poverty. Well, it isn't just about tackling food poverty, it's about building skills through education, and that's something that I—. We did protect that budget that we had. We call it 'emergency food aid', but…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Draft budget 2024-25: Ministerial evidence session
Well, I think there's an awful lot we could talk about this afternoon, I'm sure—
