, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Residential Outdoor Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Thank you. The Bill means that the Welsh Government will fund local authorities for residential outdoor education. What mechanism do you expect them to use: add it to the block grant or do it on claims?
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Residential Outdoor Education (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Diolch, Gadeirydd. The cost of the Bill is showing at between £14 million and £20 million a year, which is a range better than an awful lot of Government Bills that have come before us in the past. The Welsh Government says that this is not affordable and…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting
Content.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Yes, as gentle as this. [Laughter.]
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Okay, thank you very much.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Thank you. Are you certain—? Perhaps that's a bit too strong a word. Are you confident—that might be a better word—that agencies clearly indicate their fees on invoices, as stipulated under the agency framework?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
I'll start off with an ideological view. I don't believe that supply teachers should be employed via agencies, I think they should be employed directly via the local authorities, either in a consortium or individually, but that's a political view, so I don't…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Moving on to agency fees, what's the Welsh Government's understanding of agencies' justification of their fees and whether it is comfortable with such a wide variation in fees?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Yes. I don't think we can take this much further, but I think that further information on this, on numbers, might be helpful. As my friend Natasha Asghar said, we're known as 'the spreadsheet committee', so, if you can provide additional numbers, it would be…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
And on this section, whether the Government has updated figures for 2022-23, showing the spend and number of cover days worked through the agency framework by job role. I don't expect you to answer that in full, but, if you have got that information, can you…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Diolch, Cadeirydd. How concerned is the Welsh Government about the risk of schools employing unqualified staff for cover, both short term and long term, rather than employing teachers, in the context of budget pressures?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
Well, let's say that the supply rate is £150 a day. Let us say that they go to an agency, which takes £20 off it. If the school employs them directly, the teacher gets the £150, rather than getting £130 and the agency getting £20.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
But if they directly employ a supply teacher, it's not going to cost them any more than paying an agency, it's just that the teacher gets more.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Evidence Session with the Welsh Government: Covering Teachers' Absence
But, surely, one of the ways they come off the framework is by direct employment, and they directly employ teachers they know, which means the teacher gets all the money, rather than some of it going to the agency. Isn't that better, rather than worse?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Papers to note
Can I just agree with Natasha? The one thing we do know is that it has to be in the accounts somewhere in terms of income. The other question is this: we were told by officials that it didn't matter because we could get paid market value for it, and we would…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Papers to note
I'd like to do it before the report is drafted. I heard what Adam said—I was using my knowledge of Welsh, and I think I got most of it. But it's just unbelievable that they don't collect this information. So, we need to see the forms, because our…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Papers to note
Yes, and we can ask for the application form.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Papers to note
So, you have that as a problem. And where people live, I think there's a feeling—one I get—is that there are certain areas of relatively affluent parts of Wales where people are much more likely to get appointed, and I think that we would like to have a true…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Papers to note
In the north and in Caernarfon, everyone speaks Welsh.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Papers to note
Can we have a copy of the application form sent to us? Let's go back to first principles. I've spent a large part, and not necessarily pleasant, of Monday and Sunday going through deputy headteacher applications. On the form: 'Do you speak Welsh—yes or no?'…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest
I'll share I'm a school governor, but I don't think that's registrable.
, Plenary
Short Debate: Faster access to hearing services in Wales
Thank you, Janet, for giving me a minute in this debate. I am president of the Swansea Hard of Hearing Group. People's hearing deteriorates with age. Age-related hearing loss, also called presbycusis—I hope I got that right—is the gradual loss of hearing in…
, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Housing supply
The Welsh Government has not built any houses. Private developers, both large and small, individuals, councils and housing associations have built houses. There are the following types of tenure: owner-occupied, being bought via a mortgage, privately rented…
, Plenary
90-second Statements
The fifth of February was World Cancer Research Day. I would like to use this statement to highlight leukaemia, a devastating blood cancer that claims, sadly, 250 Welsh lives a year. The most recent Public Health Wales Observatory data showed that Swansea Bay…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
Diolch. The money is very welcome, but it will go nowhere near answering the additional costs in social services departments across Wales. I do not believe that, in England, it will actually stop additional section 114 notices, which is the technical term for…
