29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Thank you. I've heard of—. 'Nattis' it's called, isn't it, I think? I've heard of that provision, and there's obviously quite a lot of it, from what I've heard. And it obviously answers a need. So, we have looked at international provision when we're thinking…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Yes.
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
I don't know, the 81 per cent figure, where that actually came from. I don't know whether that was mentioned at the beginning of the questions, where the 81 per cent comes from. So, I'm not able to verify it or not. But I would entirely accept that from the…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Thank you. Again, children with complex needs and with disabilities—it's absolutely crucial that they get the same opportunities as other children do, and we've got to make it as easy as possible for them to access the provision that we fund. We make funding…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
We have launched a race equality action plan, as you know, as a Government, and this is the first time, really, that such an ambitious programme has been launched. It's also being consulted upon at the moment. The underrepresentation of black, Asian and…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Well, I think we would love to have a universal childcare system for all, and it would be absolutely great if we could reach that, but we're certainly quite a long way away from that at the moment. As we've said several times, we're in discussion about the…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Oh, yes. We're working extremely hard on this. Perhaps I can bring Nicola in, because Nicola is working on this at the moment. I don't know whether, Nicola, you'd like to come in on this, or Claire—what you're doing about this at the moment.
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
How we're actually going to do it at the moment we are discussing. We did do a report to look at where people in education and training were, at the moment, getting childcare, if they were able to access childcare, and there are quite a few places where they…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Thank you.
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Thank you. Basically, Altaf, what you wanted to know was how much it was going to cost to extend the childcare. Well, for the childcare offer, you will know that we have committed to extend it—in the programme for government, this is—to education and…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
At the moment, we're working with them and we're encouraging them, and we hope that the impetus that we're going to put into the childcare offer, and the impetus we're going to put into Flying Start will bring with it an impetus across the whole of the…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
I think schools will benefit from a much greater deal of encouragement to open up. Obviously, that's something that the education Minister is very keen to develop—to have more community-focused schools—and I just think we have to put a great focus on it. It…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
That is a key issue, and certainly I think it's important to remember that we have been in a pandemic, and there have been issues with concerns that schools have about sharing premises when a totally different group of children may come into the premises. We…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Well, obviously, these are all very important issues that we will have to look at, and also the link between the two-year-old's provision and the three-year-old's provision is obviously something that has got to be considered. So, I think you've highlighted…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Well, I'm awfully sorry, I'm not really in a position to say a lot more, because I don't want to say what we're going to do before we've had the discussions with my Plaid opposite number. So, I wouldn't like to shoot the gun, so to speak—jump the gun—and talk…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Thank you. As you say, we launched the £4 million childcare provider grant in the summer of 2020 in response to calls for direct financial help from the sector. Some of the settings were able to access direct financial support from the wider Welsh Government…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Yes. Diolch. The landscape is complicated and I absolutely accept that, and also I think it's important to know that parents have different needs, and different needs for different times of their life, so it's important that we're able to have one point where…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Yes, certainly. I don't know whether Claire or Nicola have got those figures to hand or whether we—. No, we'll send them to you.
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Well, I think it's—. Those that attend fully get the most benefit, and so those that don't attend fully obviously aren't getting the most benefit, so every effort must be made to help and encourage. I think that's why I mentioned earlier on that there are…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Thank you again, Sioned, for that question. And just to say quickly in response to the previous question, the evaluation I was quoting was an independent evaluation. So, to go on to Flying Start, I think Flying Start is one of our greatest achievements…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Diolch, Sioned, and thank you very much for those questions. Yes, I believe the childcare support that has been given through the childcare offer has been extremely successful in terms of supporting working parents. The childcare offer was obviously developed…
29 November 2021 , Equality and Social Justice Committee
Childcare and parental employment—scrutiny session
Yes, thank you very much, Jenny. I'm very pleased to be here at this committee, and I'm very pleased to have Claire Bennett with me, and Nicola Edwards.
7 October 2021 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
General scrutiny session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, Deputy Minister for Social Services and Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Well, obviously, justice is not devolved, and youth justice isn't devolved. But we do have, obviously, a very close relationship with those people working within the youth justice sector, and we do work closely with the Ministry of Justice to deliver the…
7 October 2021 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
General scrutiny session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, Deputy Minister for Social Services and Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
There have been concerns about how the pandemic has affected speech, language and communication, because, obviously, that does depend so much on communication and direct communication with small children. And the other point is that it's so important that if…
7 October 2021 , Children, Young People, and Education Committee
General scrutiny session with the Minister for Health and Social Services, Deputy Minister for Social Services and Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
I think the important thing about childcare is that it is cross-Government working. When you think about the different areas that childcare touches, it's obviously concerned with education, it's concerned with social services, it's employment, it's the…
