, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
I think, Chair, this is a presentational question, rather than a substantive question, so if I just explain what that means, really. In the last Senedd, obviously, we had a commitment to spend £100 million for school standards over the course of the Senedd…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, we have Owain's team. Owain, you can perhaps—[Inaudible.]—specific to that.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, on the second point—that's the easiest point to answer quickly—the answer to that is 'yes', the £18 million is all new money, if you like. In terms of the position going forward, we're doubling our direct investment in ALN with an extra £14 million, to…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Yes. It's a technical reason, actually. So, the budget appears over-budget, if I can put it like that, because we know that there'll be future transfers made in the next supplementary budget, which is coming out in mid February, and they will basically cover…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, in addition to what I've—. I've just described quite significant sums of money to you there in terms of professional learning, and that will be available for the whole range of professional learning for teachers. There's a whole new emphasis, as you…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, on the curriculum specifically, we put £8.3 million extra into last year's budget, and we're maintaining that funding for this coming financial year. And, on top of that, we just recognise how important learner progression is as part of that set of…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, school leaders work very constructively, in my experience, with local education authorities in the questions around budgets, and there are pressures that everyone is trying to navigate. As I say, for this year and with those reserves, that will provide…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, the answer to your question is 'yes'. The finance Minister and I meet regularly, obviously, to discuss this and we met together with the finance sub-group of the WLGA in the autumn of last year to talk specifically about the question of school funding…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, on that point specifically, you'll recall that we had a ventilation fund in the autumn term, which schools and local education authority partners have been deploying to make the sorts of changes needed to improve ventilation—[Inaudible.] For example…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, we did do that last year, as you say. We supported schools in relation to those fees and provided quite significant extra funding into schools to address the new pressures they faced in terms of staffing and other resourcing as a consequence of having…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Some of the answer to that is in the points we've just been discussing, really, about the overall availability of the funding. So, there were large sums of money in both those financial years that were non-recurring. So, we spent that. Some of it, for…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Okay.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
—so that I can close a blind, which is about to mean that I can't see anything?
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Chair, could I ask for your indulgence for one second—
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Okay. So, the standard contribution that the Welsh Government makes to most kinds of projects in this space against the—[Inaudible.]—mainstream local government-maintained school is 65 per cent of the budget, when the rest is met by our partners. But, on the…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
I'm just conscious I didn't touch on the last point, which is the, 'What's new and what's not new?', basically. Forgive me. So, clearly, as in any year, there are some commitments next year that are continuations of existing approaches. And in the COVID…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
There are two parts, Chair, to that question. So, the first question is: what is the most instructive, comparatively, budget to compare with, really? And I just listed to you a number of ways in which, in the last financial year, there was additional funding…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Okay. Can you hear me now?
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
[Inaudible.]
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
I was just giving an example. I don't want to highlight this as being the key thing in the budget, as it were, but, for the first term of this academic year—so last term—and we've extended it for this term—we've placed 400 newly qualified teachers in schools…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, you're going to struggle to find an education Minister who is going to sit here and tell you that he or she couldn't usefully make creative and productive use of additional funding. So, there's that general caveat. And, I dare say, perhaps the most…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
In terms of the effect on the budget of the overall pandemic, Wales in 2020-21 and in this financial year has received, obviously, additional allocations from the UK Government to deal with the many, many challenges that COVID has brought right across the…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to discuss this draft budget with the committee this morning.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23: Welsh Language
Thank you. Goodbye.
, Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee
Scrutiny of Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23: Welsh Language
There are two parts to that, of course. The first is what the Government in Westminster has announced in terms of funding for S4C in the first period, and that settlement is positive in that regard. We work with the BBC and S4C and other media outlets in…
