, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
All education settings in Wales have a legal duty to ensure that children have access to a safe learning environment. Safeguarding of learners is of paramount importance, and our statutory guidance, 'Keeping learners safe', sets out actions and expectations…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
I thank the Member for the opportunity to echo his congratulations to the Urdd for their incredible work over a century in providing youth services to our young people here in Wales. I'm sure I will share with him some happy memories of how important the Urdd…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Pembrokeshire, like all local authorities, has been busy preparing the new Welsh in education strategic plan, setting out how they propose to grow their Welsh-medium provision by 10 to 14 per cent over the next 10 years. I look forward to receiving their…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Thank you very much. Thank you.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
The young person's guarantee, if you like, is an umbrella structure that pulls together aspects of Government policy in Vaughan Gething's portfolio and also in mine, principally. So, there is a—[Inaudible.]—allocation, I think, in his budget for the NEET…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, clearly, that will be a factor of the implementation plan for the transition to the new commission. I hope the legislation gets a fair passage. But you're right; there is a point in that transition that will now be a longer point, given the information…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Yes—yes, it does. I think what we've learnt from everything we've seen in terms of the impact of the pandemic is consistent with what the Audit Wales report tells us. And the funding that we've made available for renew and reform has reflected the particular…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Yes. Those allocations haven't yet been done, but at this point in the cycle, they often haven't been done. So, as soon as they're done, we'll publish them and we'll write to you with them.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, the final allocations to sixth forms and the FE colleges will—. The allocation to that hasn't yet been completed, but we will obviously provide for that. The demographic picture more generally, for example, in FE—. Some of the increase in the budget…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, so the forecasts that we have for EMA and, in fact, the Welsh Government learning grant are based on a combination, really, of two things: one is projections of student numbers and one is last year's data, basically, so it has a kind of levelling effect…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
In the HE budget? Yes, it does. I think it depends on what you compare it with, and if you compare it with the revised baseline budget, which is the like-for-like budget, then the good settlements that we've been able to provide for HE over recent years have…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Morning.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, the profile is exactly as we expected. So, in the first year, 2020-21, we contributed £6.5 million for initial staffing and so on. And the second year, this current financial year, is where that front-loading is taking place. So, around £26 million has…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Yes, certainly.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, it isn't in the current budget, as I just outlined earlier on. And the reason for that is exactly what you've said—it's moving from being a pilot to something that is being mainstreamed, and in a way that responds to the review of it. So, we are…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, in responding to Reid, we've opened an office in London, we've created an innovation fund, via HEFCW, as well as investment for QR research—at a higher level than Reid called for, as it happens. We've created bursaries through HEFCW, which are worth…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, it's more than the original modelling. It's around £75 million that has moved from student support in general to HEFCW specifically. That's all been reinvested in the higher education sector, if you will. So, in 2020-21, there was the transfer of £25…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, just to say, I will give a few examples of what has been funded in 2021-22. The level of support that we have provided in Wales to the higher education sector as a result of COVID is significant. If you compare it, for example, with what has happened…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Well, it does maintain the level, as you said, because it depends—. It's an echo of what we said at the beginning. So, if you're comparing with the supplementary budgets, significant additional in-year sums have gone into that budget, and that hasn't happened…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
Yes. It not just continues, but it's to be expanded. So, over each of these three years, it will now be at £130 million, which is a £20 million increase for each of those years.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
This is a major priority, because all of the issues that we're discussing in terms of expanding provision in general and encouraging more parents to choose Welsh-medium education for their children, and post-16 education—. All of these things ultimately…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
I spent an hour yesterday talking to one of your sister committees in relation to this in detail. There is a range of ways in which that will happen. There's significant additional funding that I was able to make available in this financial year, for example…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
As you know, it's an eligibility criterion that applies across a range of Government policies, really, both as eligibility, but also as a proxy for other expenditure. So, changing the basis on which free school meals are provided does have quite a significant…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
This is definitely an active policy decision. There are choices to be made here and we've made a very clear choice to extend the funding available to PDG by £20 million, which takes it up to £130 million every year. That is separate and additional to PDG…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2022-23—evidence session 2
It's in the budget that we've provided. It's the budget expenditure lines that I've just listed there. It's a £25.5 million commitment. It's in the papers we've provided, but if it'd be helpful, my officials can work with the clerks to identify that.
