The proceedings are
reported in the language in which they were spoken in the
committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included.
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Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:31.
The meeting began at 09:31.
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Cyflwyniad,
Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan Buddiannau
Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
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[1]
Lynne Neagle: Good morning, everyone. Can I welcome
everybody to this morning’s meeting of the Children, Young
People and Education Committee?
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Comisiynydd Plant Cymru: Adroddiad Blynyddol
2015-16
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales:
Annual Report 2015-16
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[2]
Lynne Neagle: I’m very pleased to welcome back to our
committee, Sally Holland, Children’s Commissioner for Wales;
Hywel Dafydd, policy and public affairs manager; and Sara Jermin,
head of performance and communications. Of course, we are here this
morning to scrutinise the commissioner’s annual report, which
was published yesterday. Would you like to make any opening
remarks?
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[3]
Dr Holland: Just a few, thank you very much. Bore da, and
thank you for the invitation to discuss my annual report and
accounts with you. This report reflects my first year as
Children’s Commissioner for Wales, because I started my post
on 20 April last year, and it looks at the work of my office from
last April up until the end of March this year. As you’ll be
able to read in the report, I spent a lot of this year meeting and
listening to thousands of children and young people in every corner
of Wales and living in all sorts of circumstances. I’ve also
listened to hundreds of parents and professionals about what I need
to prioritise to ensure that my organisation is working efficiently
and effectively so that we can deliver on the priorities that
children and young people have helped me set out.
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[4]
The ‘Beth Nesa?/What Next?’ consultation was our
biggest ever consultation, undertaken with children and young
people by our office. Over 7,000 respondents highlighted that very
many children and young people in Wales lead safe, happy and active
lives and feel listened to and respected by the adults around them.
However, there are large groups of children who miss out in a
variety of ways, and so, as children’s commissioner, I have
to be particularly concerned and interested in those barriers and
bumps along the way that children encounter in their lives.
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[5]
I think, as children’s commissioner, my role in helping Wales
to remove as many of those barriers as possible is to firstly
identify those barriers and help others identify them. I consult
with children and young people to help identify those barriers. I
also identify those barriers through my casework and my large-scale
participation work with children and young people. The second part
of my role is to, where possible, come up with constructive,
evidence-based changes required to remove those barriers for
children and young people in Wales, and, again, working alongside
children and young people wherever possible. The third element is
where I need to press for legislative or policy changes where
required, or for legislation and guidance to be adhered to, because
sometimes it’s already there, but it’s not being
adhered to, in a consistent way, if it’s already in place.
Fourthly, I need to hold to account those who are responsible for
delivering services to children and young people and upholding
their rights and, where necessary, I will use my statutory powers
to do so.
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[6]
Really, much of the work that my team and I have achieved in the
last year is laid out in this report, and I’m really proud of
the quality of the materials that we’ve produced for and with
children and young people, including the My Planner app for care
leavers, which has already been used thousands of times; the LGBT+
young people’s media guide, which we developed with young
people; our report on school journeys; and the results of our
‘Beth Nesa?’ consultation. I’m pleased to be able
to report again this year that we’ve helped hundreds of
children through our national independent advice and support
service and that thousands of children have heard about
children’s rights, sometimes for the first time, through our
participation work. The hard work of my policy and public affairs
teams has led to several concrete changes in policy and legislation
this year. I’m honoured to have had the opportunity to speak
up for Wales’s children in the National Assembly for Wales,
at Westminster and twice at the United Nations in Geneva.
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[7]
But there’s still a lot more to do. In February, I set out my
strategic goals for the next three years, and this report is framed
around those goals. I outline those in detail in this report, but
they centre on what I would call the four Ps of children’s
rights. Those four Ps are: provision—what children require to
live safe and happy lives; protection; participation; and promotion
of their rights so that they know that they’ve got them.
Every year, I will report my progress according to my strategic
goals.
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[8]
Overall, I’ve got a vision for a Wales where all children and
young people have an equal chance to be the best that they can be.
I think, this year, we began in earnest to deliver on that vision,
and we completed some significant evidence-based work, the
highlights of which are included in this report. I’m really
proud of the accomplishments of my staff, but I cannot
underestimate the expectations that thousands of children and young
people have shared with us this year—their concerns and
ambitions. I want our work to achieve significant change.
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[9]
This year, in 2016, I established a renewed governance structure to
help me make sure that I would achieve change as commissioner, to
help hold me to account. Part of that has been developing an
advisory panel of children and young people, and we had our second
day-long lively meeting on Saturday. One of the young
people’s panel’s tasks is going to be to hold me and my
team to account on the delivery of our work programme, and we
started to work with them on that in our second meeting on
Saturday. Next year, you’ll hear directly from those children
and young people—what they think of the work that I’ve
done—and I’m looking forward to discussing with the
Chair and others how I can give the young people’s panel an
opportunity to engage with this committee and other national
institutions in the future. But today, of course, it’s your
role to scrutinise me on this work, and I look forward to your
questions. Diolch yn fawr.
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[10]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you for those opening remarks.
We’ll go straight into questions now then. If I can just
start and ask you some questions about your approach to casework.
You’ve highlighted the fact in your report that only 5 per
cent of casework inquiries came from children and young people
themselves, which is a slight drop. Why do you think that is? Can I
also ask you, in previous years, we’ve had in the annual
report a very helpful breakdown of what children were raising with
your office, which I think we all found very beneficial, but
that’s not broken down in this year’s report?
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[11]
Dr Holland: Okay. So, about the 5 per cent, I don’t
think that’s a downward trend—it was 7 per cent for the
last two years. I think statistically it’s probably not a
downward trend, but I will keep an eye on that. Personally, I think
I would absolutely expect only a small minority of our first calls
on a particular children’s issue to come directly from the
child or young person themselves. I would expect, very often, a
parent, carer or professional to broker the first call in to our
office. Very often, the cases that come to us are very
complex—the children are facing very complex barriers in
their lives. Actually, I think it’s encouraging that they
have adults around them to help broker that first call.
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[12]
But I do need to remind you that all of those over 500 cases
involved an individual child, and, very often—wherever
possible, in fact—my caseworkers will try to speak to the
child directly as part of their engagement with the case. So, that
5 per cent represents who makes the first call in to the
office—it doesn’t represent how many children we
would’ve spoken to as part of the engagement.
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[13]
We haven’t broken down the types of cases this year, and
I’m really happy to provide you with those data. I do have
them, and I’ll send them to you in a note.
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[14]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you.
Can I just follow up on that by asking, of the 500 plus cases that
you’ve dealt with, are you able to give us a flavour of how
many of them you were actually active in pursuing, how many of them
were referred on elsewhere, and whether some were just given
information?
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[15]
Dr Holland: Absolutely, yes. Previously, we have reported cases
as being either one-off or longer-term cases, you will remember,
and I’m sure that’s where your question comes from.
Personally, I feel that’s a slightly unhelpful dichotomy, to
say that they’re one-offs or cases, because we work much more
on a continuum than that, really. So, what we’ve previously
categorised as one-off cases have often involved several phone
calls, including speaking to the child, consultation with our
policy team, a written note back to the person who phoned in et
cetera. Sometimes, it is just signposting, and it’s all dealt
with in a 20-minute call. And, of course, a proportion of our cases
go on to be weeks and weeks of in-depth work. I can give you a bit
more of a breakdown. Of the 520, 329 were resolved relatively
quickly, in the ways that I’ve described, and 191 were taken
on as longer term, more complex cases.
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[16]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you.
Okay, we’ll move on now, then, to look at the wider impact of
your work. Michelle.
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[17]
Michelle Brown: Thank you.
Thanks for coming in. I wanted to ask you about the outcomes of
your work in a practical context. Do you measure the outcomes, and
which outcomes do you measure?
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[18]
Dr Holland: Thank you very much. Of course, it’s an
important question for me and my office. Are we still on casework
here, or do you mean the work of the office more widely?
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[19]
Michelle Brown:
Casework and the work of the office more
widely—right across the piece.
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[20]
Dr Holland: Okay. So, to talk about casework first, we’ve
brought in—during the time I’ve been here, this has
been completed—a new case management system, which is
allowing us to very clearly map the outcomes of our cases. So, we
do that through a case management system and we follow up cases
wherever possible. Obviously, if people have phoned up for a
one-off piece of advice, it can be a bit heavy-handed to phone them
up again, but where we’ve been involved on a more long-term
basis, we will do a follow-up and an evaluation with them about how
helpful they found the service.
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[21]
In terms of our wider work, we’ve
been working hard on putting a new project management system in
place right across the organisation, which means that we’ve
been working really hard on making sure that all of the work we do,
whether it’s policy-influencing work or project work around
certain themes that we’re trying to influence or gain data
on, is put within our strategic goals. So, we’re very clear
right from the beginning now, using project initiation documents,
for example, to think hard about what we want to achieve at the end
of that piece of work and how it fits into our overall strategic
plan. We then map that regularly, and that’s monitored by our
project team and by the management group, and we monitor the
outcomes at the end. So, we’re looking for clear outcomes, a
clear change, in children’s rights at the end of every piece
of work that we do, and we monitor that. That’s been put in
place more firmly from April this year, so you’ll have clear
reports on that in next year’s annual report.
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[22]
Michelle Brown:
Is that a work in progress, then? My next
question was going to be: what are your outcomes so far?
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[23]
Dr Holland: Absolutely. I’ll answer both of those
questions. I have, as part of my office restructure, which we may
come on to discuss as well, put in place a new post of performance
and communications, and Sara here has been appointed to that
post—and I will see if she wants to add anything to my answer
in a minute—and she’s been helping me put that in
place. We piloted this project management system through our
residential care project this year, but we’ve put it
in place right across the organisation since then. So, it is a work
in progress, but it’s now becoming quite an established piece
of work within our office.
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09:45
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[24]
In terms of outcomes this year, we’ve got outcomes from
individual cases and we’ve got outcomes from the policy work.
Do you want me to give you examples of both?
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[25]
Michelle Brown: Yes, please.
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[26]
Dr Holland: Okay. So, let me give you three different
examples of outcomes from casework and show you how individual
cases might relate to wider policy changes et cetera in some ways.
So, we turn first to—I don’t know if you’ve got
the report in front of you?
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[27]
Michelle Brown: I don’t have a copy.
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[28]
Ms Jermin: I can give you my copy. Which page is this
on?
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[29]
Dr Holland: Page 53, or 52 if you’re reading in Welsh.
There’s a case there where we helped an individual child in a
situation about which the Assembly will be scrutinising legislation
this term—additional learning needs—and it was about
co-ordination of professionals working together. We were able to
achieve individual change for that child, but also it provides for
us a clear case study, a critical case study, of how services
don’t always work together, and will feed into our thinking
and views on the additional learning needs Bill.
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[30]
On page 35, or 34 if you’re reading in Welsh, here’s an
example of one of the most complex cases we worked with. It was
more than a year’s work and that was a case of multiple
abuse, where children and families didn’t feel that
they’d been heard enough through the process. So, again, we
were able to achieve change for the children and families who came
to us, in that they felt listened to, they felt valued and they
felt that their experiences were being validated, really, by our
office, or through our office by the organisation that should have
been validating them. We actually were able to hold a learning
event under the child practice review system and get the relevant
safeguarding board to change its framework and protocol for
managing cases of multiple abuse. So, that’s an example of
how it might just be one call into the office one day that led to a
year’s complex work and actually some longer-term changes,
hopefully, that will affect other families and children as
well.
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[31]
One last case, on page 37—there are more than this in the
report, but I’ll restrict myself to three. Page 36 in Welsh.
It’s the second case there, the home-school transport one.
Again, we were able to achieve change to the chaperones policy,
which affected the individual family who contacted us, but it
actually changed the policy for that local authority on chaperones
on primary school transport. So, that’s an example of how our
casework would lead to policy changes. But another important way
that we try and influence change is through our policy-influencing
work. So, just to give you—
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[32]
Hefin David: Can I ask a question before you move on?
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[33]
Dr Holland: Is this too long an answer? Would you like me
to—?
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[34]
Lynne Neagle: Can you just maybe give us a couple of brief examples
of what outcomes you’ve delivered from the policy work? Then
I’ll bring Hefin in.
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[35]
Dr Holland: Very brief, yes. We worked with the English
commissioner to significantly change draft guidance on privacy in
the youth courts. We significantly changed some of the guidance and
codes of practice on advocacy and we got, through my round table on
child sexual exploitation, we got the Government to produce a
national action plan. Was that brief enough? Hopefully not too
brief.
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[36]
Lynne Neagle: Hefin, on the case there.
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[37]
Hefin David: I don’t want to hold you back from moving on,
but I just wanted to interrogate the outcomes question before you
moved on to that. The example you gave on page 53—you gave
two other examples, but on page 53 there’s a recommendation
that comes out of that, which is that
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[38]
‘the Welsh Government should
introduce new legislation and a robust Code of
Practice’.
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[39]
Can I just ask: why does that need
legislation? Isn’t it just a better structuring and a
stronger code of practice? Why is
legislation required there?
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[40]
Dr Holland: In the case of that one child, the current good
practice wasn’t being adhered to, so you’re quite right
in that case. That recommendation relates to all of our thoughts on
additional learning needs, not just to that one case, so it’s
not just a recommendation for that one case. And our recommendation
after years of supporting hundreds of cases related to additional
learning needs is that the system needs to change, and we need more
robust legislation, which, of course, the Government accepts and it
will be introducing that legislation.
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[41]
Hefin David: And what would that be? What would those
legislative changes be?
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[42]
Dr Holland: It would be what I hope will be a strengthened
additional learning needs Bill this autumn, which would be a
simpler system for having your learning needs addressed. It would
be—. I’ve got a list here—
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[43]
Lynne Neagle: We’re going to come on to ALN, if
that’s okay.
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[44]
Dr Holland: Do you want me to come back to it later?
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[45]
Lynne Neagle: We’ll come back to that. Okay—
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[46]
Dr Holland: I just wondered whether it would be possible to give
Sara a chance to explain a bit more about our performance and how
we’re measuring it, because that was specifically what
Michelle was asking about. Is that all right?
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[47]
Lynne Neagle: Yes. Sara.
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[48]
Ms Jermin: Just an opening remark, really, I think it’s
important to remember that, as an institution, we don’t
deliver a service. So, often, it’s not within our gift to
deliver tangible positive changes to children’s
lives—that obviously rests with Government and local
authorities—but clearly there’s a role for our
institution to hold those to account to make sure that they do
deliver on those positive changes for children and young people. I
think it’s important to remember that.
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[49]
In terms of our strengthened governance
structure, obviously as an institution that receives public money,
we want to make sure that we deliver our work and have impact from
every piece of work that we undertake. And the strengthened
governance structure that we have put in place since April will
measure the effectiveness across the organisation, so we’re
not just looking at our work in relation to policy.
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[50]
There will be a new system in place that
will become a public document—so you’ll be able to look
at that when you come to scrutinise the annual report next
year—which will look at four elements of our organisation.
That includes the financial performance of the organisation, how we
invest in our people, how we engage effectively with children and
young people, and our processes as well. Sally has touched on the
project management process and how we deliver on that. So,
hopefully, that suite of information that will be made public will
give you a flavour of how we perform across the organisation and
the impact that we have across the organisation, not just with
policy. I’m conscious of the time.
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[51]
Lynne Neagle: Will that then include a breakdown of every area in
which you’ve actually secured change from Welsh Government,
which is obviously our main concern as a committee?
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[52]
Ms Jermin: Absolutely.
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[53]
Lynne Neagle: So, you’ll be breaking that down, so the
instance that Sally gave about a change in the code, that will all
be in there.
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[54]
Ms Jermin: Absolutely, yes. So, we’ll be explicit in terms
of our influencing work and what changes have resulted from that
influencing work, and be explicit with that information through the
balance scorecard that we’re developing.
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[55]
Lynne Neagle: Okay, thank you. Darren.
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[56]
Darren Millar: Thank you, Chair. Can I just say, ‘thank
you’ to you, commissioner, and your staff for the support
that you’ve given me with my casework in recent years?
It’s been very helpful indeed in helping to resolve some
local cases.
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[57]
I want to turn to the financial aspects
of the report, if I can. You’ve alluded to the fact that you
had a restructure earlier in the year, and that that’s had an
impact, really, on your work and, indeed, on your finances. I can
see that there’s been an impact: a big reduction in your
balances in the year, and that you’ve obviously spent quite a
bit more over the 12-month period. Is that one-off expenditure or
can we expect to see that repeated in the future?
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[58]
Dr Holland: So, it is one-off and you’re right in all you
said that there’s been a restructure and a reduction in the
balance. A lot of those costs are the inevitable costs that come
from a restructure, in terms of paying people the redundancy
payments that are their due and to which they are entitled. There
were also some additional costs—. It was very important to me
that I started off with a very clear evidence base, so there were
some additional costs in relation to delivering our large-scale
consultation. And a third main area of spend in relation to those
costs was our new activity information service, which is an
intelligent IT system that is helping us to do the sort of work
that Sara was describing—to join up and safely share,
as an organisation, all of the work that we do, and assess and
analyse it. So, that was a one-off investment that was agreed
before I started, but which I wholeheartedly support.
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[59]
Just briefly on the restructure, if that’s okay. As a former
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, you’ll be aware that
the Public Accounts Committee itself recommended that an incoming
commissioner might want to look at the structure of the
organisation and see how it would work. Of course, the independent
Shooter review also made that recommendation. As part of my first
year, as you all know by now, I held this widespread consultation,
which helped me to come up with my three-year plan, and then I had
to think hard, bearing in mind those recommendations from the pack
and from the Shooter review, what kind of structure would help me
deliver that plan. I did take some quite difficult decisions to
make some changes to the organisation, the staff structure and the
office structure. I must emphasise that all decisions were made in
clear consultation with my audit and risk assurance committee, who
I worked with right along the way, to make sure, to sense-check and
to seek their views in terms of both audit and risk assurance of
the decisions that I was making. I was also able to consult with
the auditor general’s office along the way, in terms of
things like restructured payments. Clearly, there are costs
involved in a restructure, but I do believe that I have now in
place a leaner organisation, where I really think I’ve been
able to put the maximum resources into delivering my remit.
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[60]
Darren Millar: One of the decisions you took as part of the
restructure, of course, was to bail out, if you like, of the Colwyn
Bay office in north Wales. Can you tell us a little bit about the
rationale behind that and what impact that’s having on people
being able to access your services in north Wales?
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[61]
Dr Holland: That’s an important question and,
obviously, one very relevant to yourself because it’s within
your constituency. A very difficult decision to make—one that
was really waiting for me as new commissioner because the lease was
due to end this August. So, a decision had to be made about whether
to seek to renew it, to move the office elsewhere, or to
concentrate in one office in Swansea. As a management team, we did
a very careful analysis of the risks and benefits of six different
options, which included moving it elsewhere, keeping it where it
was, sharing with another office, home working, or moving all of
our work to one base, but from which we would continue to deliver
an all-Wales service.
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[62]
Finance has played a big part in this. I will save £300,000
over the course of my term from the office costs alone. However, it
wasn’t the only thing behind it. I think there’s
something about the synergy and creativity that comes from having
my team all in one place, rather than having a small number of
staff elsewhere who need support and supervision, of course,
that’s already been apparent since I’ve got all my
staff together.
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[63]
I was most concerned—and this is obviously behind your
question—that any decision to close that office would not
lead to any detriment to our ability to deliver an all-Wales
service. I was confident that it wouldn’t when I looked at
where our delivery was coming from, and much of our all-Wales
delivery was being delivered from our south Wales office already,
because I only had a very small team in north Wales, of whom two
out of the three and a half were information and advice workers who
worked on a rota basis all around Wales, with their two colleagues
in south Wales. What I’ve done, as a safeguard to make sure,
is that I’m carefully auditing our all-Wales delivery. So,
we’ve been keeping a careful note of—. Since 1 April,
we’ve been measuring the demographics of all of our
engagement work, and the demographics include where children live.
I can confidently say, having looked at the first six months of
figures, that there’s been no detriment to our engagement
with children and young people. In fact, I checked the figures this
morning, and we’ve engaged with over 700 children and young
people since 1 August—
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[64]
Ms Jermin: Yes, since the closure of the north Wales
office.
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10:00
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[65]
Dr Holland: —since the closure of the north Wales
office on 1 August—of whom the majority were in north Wales,
in fact, because we had a couple of big events up there.
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[66]
Darren Millar: Okay. Just one final question on these, if I
can, Chair? There’s one particular line that looks a bit odd
in the accounts in relation to depreciation or some sort of write
off. There’s a big jump in the costs from £24,000 last
year to £110,000 this year. What’s the reason behind
that?
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[67]
Dr Holland: Can you give me the page?
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[68]
Darren Millar: Sorry, it’s page 153. So, ‘other
administration costs’ at the top of the page, and then if you
go down to the bottom, you’ve got a figure of £89,000
for 2015-16. It’s point 4.3, yes?
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[69]
Dr Holland: Yes, so it’s two up, to £89,000,
from the bottom, isn’t it, as a provision? Yes,
unfortunately, the title of 4.3 isn’t translated—but
it’s not ready money, is it, it’s provision?
That’s a direct translation. It’s provision. That
£89,000 is a provision that was made in this year’s
budget in relation to ongoing discussions that I was having with a
member of staff in relation to the restructure, and I knew it
wouldn’t be completed before 31 March, so I had to make that
provision.
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[70]
Darren Millar: So, that’s the potential liability in
respect of one member of staff.
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[71]
Dr Holland: Yes. It was a provision made—
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[72]
Darren Millar: It’s quite a large sum.
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[73]
Dr Holland: —which was checked and approved by the
auditor general and advised—[Interruption.]
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[74]
Lynne Neagle: Don’t interrupt, please.
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[75]
Dr Holland: That’s how we were advised to account for
it.
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[76]
Darren Millar: Okay.
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[77]
Lynne Neagle: I’ll bring you in in a sec.
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[78]
Mohammad Asghar: Same point, Chair.
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[79]
Lynne Neagle: Go on, then.
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[80]
Mohammad Asghar: Four point three actually hasn’t been
translated into English—that’s what was said. The same
point is what it actually means. It’s not in English
there.
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[81]
Darren Millar: It would have been helpful, perhaps, just to
have a further note in the accounts just to—
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[82]
Ms Jermin: To explain that.
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[83]
Dr Holland: I think that’s a very fair point.
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[84]
Darren Millar: I had assumed it was depreciation.
|
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[85]
Dr Holland: I have to be careful about confidentiality of
individuals, but I think that’s a very fair point.
|
|
[86]
Darren Millar: I understand that.
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[87]
Ms Jermin: We can provide a further note on that if
required.
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[88]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. That would be helpful, if you
could.
|
|
[89]
Darren Millar: Can I just ask one final question? You
mentioned that you were breaking down by demographics and location
where the children are that you’re supporting. Is that going
to be a feature in the report, picking up on the Chair’s
comments at the start?
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[90]
Dr Holland: Yes.
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[91]
Darren Millar: Okay. Thanks.
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[92]
Dr Holland: And I can provide those figures at any time for
you from our whizzy new system. So, if you want any at mid-year,
for example, I can give them to you.
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[93]
Darren Millar: Thank you.
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[94]
Lynne Neagle: You referred, commissioner, in your answer
earlier to the independent review. Are you able to update us on any
discussions you’ve had with the new children’s Minister
about the review? As you know, there was a very clear
recommendation that responsibility for your appointment, et cetera,
should be transferred to the Assembly. The previous Minister ruled
that out. Are you able to update us on any discussions you’ve
had with the new Minister?
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[95]
Dr Holland: Yes. I actually wrote myself a note on
it—I’m just looking for it. Okay. Yes, some of you will
be aware, I’ve discussed with the committee—the
previous committee, sorry—my response to the Shooter review
and what I’ve done within my office, but the Chair’s
referring to the recommendation for Government that accountability
for my role is transferred to the National Assembly from
Government, which was also clearly one of the concluding
observations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the
Child report. So, therefore, it’s one that I endorse.
I’ve actually had discussions with the children’s
Minister about this and, indeed, with the First Minister this week.
My understanding is that there are no plans to change the
accountability at the moment. For me, it’s important because
it’s part of the framework of responsibility for
children’s rights through the ratification of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child— part of the
overall framework of how we implement children’s rights, not
so much as an individual issue, but how we perceive the role of the
commissioner overall as part of the framework of children’s
rights. But, my update is that I believe there are no plans to
change.
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[96]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Thank you very much. We’re going
to move on now to some questions on aspects of policy. I’ve
got Hefin on child and adolescent mental health services.
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|
[97]
Hefin David: That was related to what we were talking about
before. The questions I had were based on two of your four Ps:
provision and poverty. Provision—picking up on the CAMHS
issue—on page 51, it says,
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|
[98]
‘I particularly welcome the new ambitious waiting list
targets for CAMHS from April 2016. However, it is clear that the
targets will not be met in 2016-17.’
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[99]
To what extent is that a fact of too ambitious targets, or not
having the provision and resources to achieve that?
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[100] Dr
Holland: Okay. It is a really ambitious target. It’s the
most ambitious one in the UK. I believe that the team setting the
targets, the team leading the Together for Children and Young
People programme, considered whether to set less ambitious
targets—that’s how they reported it to me—but
they felt it was important to aim high. This is how they feel
children should be being seen: within 48 hours if it’s an
emergency, within 28 days for routine treatment. It’s a bit
longer for children with—for neuro-developmental
diagnoses.
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|
[101] What’s
happened since then—it’s really quite an inconsistent
picture, I would say, across Wales. So, some areas have managed to
reduce waiting lists substantially, and some have not. I
don’t know if you’d like me to give you some examples
of some of those inconsistencies.
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[102] Hefin
David: Yes.
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[103] Dr
Holland: So, Powys is a bit of a one-off. It’s been very
low and it remains almost negligible in terms of waiting lists.
Obviously, the population level is lower in Powys. Cardiff and Vale University Local Health
Board has gone down a little this year compared to last
year, from 624 children waiting for treatment—or to be seen,
rather, on the waiting list—down to 585. So, it’s gone
down a little. Betsi Cadwaladr has achieved a dramatic decrease
this year. When I say ‘this year’, I’m talking
about comparing the figures this July, which are the latest ones
that are available, to last July. They’ve gone down from 550
a year ago to 82 this year. So, that’s the most dramatic
decrease we’ve seen across Wales. Abertawe Bro Morgannwg has
seen an increase, up to 630 children waiting to be seen by CAMHS
services, 219 of whom are waiting over 14 weeks. So, we’re
seeing a real inconsistency in progress across Wales, and, for
some, there are clearly still, for many, highly unacceptable levels
of waiting lists. This is, of course, one part of the mental health
system, but a very important part of it. The figures are
incomparable to adult mental health services, where the numbers
waiting are much, much lower in each local health board. So,
there’s been inconsistent progress. I know a lot of effort is
going into trying to deal with recruiting enough staff and finding
different ways to manage waiting lists, but the progress has been
slow in some areas, and inconsistent across Wales.
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[104] Hefin
David: Where there have been successes, have you taken the
reasoning for that and recommended it to other areas?
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[105] Dr
Holland: I think that would be—. I’m sure that the
Together for Children and Young People programme is trying to do
that, and to look at the different progress, and I think
that’s an important thing to do. Local areas have come up
with their own different ways to try to manage the waiting lists.
There’s certainly been an attempt throughout Wales to recruit
more staff with the new funding, and I think the ability to do that
has differed across Wales, but a shortage of staff, I believe, has
held back some of the ambitions of some local health boards.
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|
[106]
Lynne Neagle: You’ve been very clear that the waiting times
are—you’ve just said it again now—unacceptably
high. When we had the Minister in recently, he wasn’t able to
give any firm commitments as to when we expect to meet those
targets. Can you just tell us what you’re doing to make
Government actually deliver on this? Because this is such a
long-running problem. So maybe we could just focus on what you are
doing to ensure that Government does actually do that.
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[107] Dr
Holland: Well, over the last year, I’ve brought up the
issue very clearly with the First Minister and with the then health
Minister. I haven’t had the opportunity to meet the new
health Minister, but it’s on my calendar and I will be doing
so soon. I’ll be making the point very strongly. I’ll
be meeting as part of the expert advisory group of the Together for
Children and Young People programme in December, and again
we’ll be asking why this is happening and what are the plans
are for change, and whether we can expect any change in the near
future. I think my role is to bring it to people’s
attention at the highest level I can, but it’s the role of
Government to deliver the change.
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[108] Lynne
Neagle: Okay. Thank you. Llyr.
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|
[109]
Llyr
Gruffydd: Diolch yn fawr. Rwy’n nodi yn yr adroddiad bod yna faes
arall lle nad ŷch chi’n hapus gyda’r lefel o weithredu gan y
Llywodraeth sef o gwmpas pobl sydd yn dewis addysgu eu plant adref.
Rŷch chi’n argymell y dylai’r Llywodraeth
gryfhau’r gofynion i rieni gofrestru er mwyn addysgu eu plant
gartref. Beth ŷch chi’n meddwl yw’r oblygiadau o beidio
â
chryfhau’r
disgwyliadau presennol?
|
Llyr Gruffydd: Thank you very much. I note in the report that there
is another area where you’re not happy with the level of
action from the Government, namely people who elect to home-educate
their children. You recommend that the Government should strengthen
the registration requirements for home education. What do you think
are the implications of not strengthening the current
expectations?
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|
[110] Dr
Holland: As some of you will be aware, this is an issue
I’ve spoken out about many times over the last year, and
it’s an issue I feel really strongly about. I feel quite
strongly that we’re not giving children who are home educated
enough access to their rights at the moment: their rights to an
education, their rights to be listened to in terms of saying their
views about their education—children in schools have a
statutory right to have their say through school councils, children
living at home do not—and, in some cases—a minority of
cases, I think, in terms of home-educated children—their
rights to protection as well.
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|
[111] My concern, if
nothing is done, is that there are more children under the radar
than the one sad case that we’ve heard about most recently,
Dylan Seabridge. I am told by directors of education and people
working on the front line in the health services, for example, that
they believe there are children living in their area who are not
accessing any services, so not education or health services. I
think that’s really quite unacceptable for children in Wales
who are entitled to their rights to be healthy and safe and to have
an education.
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[112] At the moment,
the indication from Government is that they’ll be publishing
non-statutory guidance. My office has clearly—I, through my
office, have clearly—indicated that I don’t think
that’s going to be strong enough, that we need statutory
guidance. Children who are educated at home and their parents also
need, I think, a right to support from local authorities, and, if
we know about them, then we will know that the local authority will
be able to give them support, as they’re expected to do now,
but they can’t do it for those they don’t know about.
So, what I’m calling for, which I think is not a big ask of
parents, is that they should inform their local authority that
they’re educating their children at home. They should be
required to do that. They can elect to do that at the moment, and
many do and many engage very positively with their local authority,
but they’re not required to do that, and I don’t think
that’s a big ask of parents. They’re still allowed to
pursue the educational programme they wish for their children.
I’m not suggesting that that be changed. And I think it
should be a requirement that the child should be seen by somebody
from outside the family—an educational professional visiting
from time to time—to be asked about their education
experience and how they feel about it, because they have that say,
they have that right, independently of their parents.
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|
[113] So, that’s
what I’m calling for. If the Government does go ahead and
only publishes non-statutory guidance, I will express my
disappointment, because I don’t think that will be enough.
I’ve talked to both the children’s Minister and the
First Minister about this and asked for stronger statutory guidance
requiring parents to register the fact that they’re home
educating their children and I will with the education Minister
when I have the opportunity to meet her shortly.
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|
[114] Lynne
Neagle: Can I just ask in relation to that—you referred
in your opening remarks to your statutory powers, can you give us
a—? Would this be an area that you would consider using those
statutory powers in?
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[115] Dr
Holland: Yes.
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[116] Lynne
Neagle: And that would—. Can you just explain how that
would actually deliver change, then?
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[117] Dr
Holland: If I was to produce a report through my statutory
powers, for example, they’re not strong enough for me to
force change, but the Government would be required to explain what
they’re doing about it and how what they’re doing
fulfils the children’s rights Measure, which in my view it
does not at the moment.
|
|
10:15
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|
[118] Lynne
Neagle: Okay. Thank you. Hefin on ALN.
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|
[119] Hefin
David: Yes. I’m just going back to the question I asked
earlier regarding, specifically, the need for legislation to
introduce statutory duties on LHBs and NHS trusts to provide
support for additional learning needs and for that issue of the
case example you had there, but you said there were more
examples.
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|
[120] Dr
Holland: Yes. I think we say in the report we’ve had 51
cases relating to additional learning needs over the last year. My
office has been very actively engaged in both responding to the
draft Bill and the draft code of practice and helping develop the
draft code of practice with Welsh Government, because my office has
a lot of expertise in this area.
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|
[121] There are four
key issues that my office is consistently calling for that I hope
to see in a strengthened ALN Bill when it comes in in the autumn.
The first one is that I think that people who are exercising
functions under this Act—so, the people delivering the
services—should have a duty to pay due regard to the UNCRC,
as we have in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014,
and the United Nations convention on the rights of disabled
persons, because, of course, it covers two sets of rights. So,
that’s something that I think would really strengthen the
Bill.
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|
[122] The second area
of concern, really, is about how much health boards and NHS trusts
are required to get involved in providing services for these
children who have additional need. So, I’m calling for
statutory duties upon local health boards and NHS trusts. I think
this was mirrored by the previous committee’s report as well.
In the first draft Bill that we saw, that was pretty weak, and
I’d like to see that strengthened in the Bill when it comes
in in the autumn.
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|
[123] The third thing
we’ve called for has been strengthened compliance, sanction
and enforcement powers given to the educational tribunal for Wales.
We think it needs more teeth.
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|
[124] The next thing
is—sorry, there are five, not four. The fourth one is for
resources for additional learning needs to be ring-fenced,
distributed properly, and for there to be enough money, actually,
for it to be properly funded, because there will be extended
entitlement if the Bill looks—as it did in the draft—at
covering a wider age range.
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|
[125] We’ve
called for advocacy entitlement under the Bill to complement those
laid down by the social services and well-being Act to avoid any
potential disparity of provision for different groups of children
and young people.
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|
[126] So, we’ve
made these clear calls in our work with the Government so far.
We’ve engaged closely with the Government to try and ensure
that when the code of practice and Bill come forward for scrutiny,
they will be stronger. But, of course, we will again give it our
robust, independent scrutiny.
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[127] Hefin
David: Okay. Is it for a Bill to ring-fence resources?
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[128] Dr
Holland: I think that would be the policy associated
with—. Would that be right?
|
|
[129] Mr
Dafydd: Yes.
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|
[130] Hefin
David: Okay, that’s fine. You also mentioned earlier a
simplified system for addressing learning needs.
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|
[131] Dr
Holland: Yes, that was already in the draft Bill and we
welcomed that.
|
|
[132] Hefin
David: Okay.
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|
[133] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Oscar on this.
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|
[134] Mohammad
Asghar: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, Sally, for this
report. The fact is, you know, in certain schools in the Newport
area, they speak more than 20 languages in primary schools. What
measures are you taking to ensure the increased engagement from
children and young people in the democratic process? For example,
how are you mobilising your team to ensure that they’re
responding to casework issues? And, finally, what is the strategic
plan for the next year on identifying the priorities for outreach
in your department, especially those areas with ethnic minorities,
or Gypsy/ Travellers—children from various
backgrounds—how are you going to handle that?
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[135] Lynne
Neagle: Could we maybe have a note on that, because I’m
keen that we focus on ALN at the moment? I’m sure there are
ALN issues related to what Oscar’s just raised.
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|
[136] Dr
Holland: I’ve got lots I could say about all of that, but
if you’d prefer me to put it in a note I can do that,
Chair.
|
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[137] Mohammad
Asghar: That’s all right.
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[138] Lynne
Neagle: Would that be okay?
|
|
[139] Ms
Jermin: All our work is equality-impact assessed, which would
address those very issues so we’re happy to share that
information with you.
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[140] Lynne
Neagle: Lovely, thank you.
|
|
[141] Dr
Holland: We’ve plenty to say about all of that.
|
|
[142] Lynne
Neagle: We’ve got to get though these policy areas. Just
one—
|
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[143] Dr
Holland: Sorry—just to say I’d be very happy to
meet with the Member outside of the committee if you would like to
talk about it more informally.
|
|
[144]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Just one final point on the ALN Bill. The
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Diabetes UK have
called for a statutory duty to be included in the Bill for schools
to deliver to children with medical needs—things like
diabetes, epilepsy et cetera. The Government’s current
position is that that should be done by voluntary guidance.
What’s your view? Do you think that should be included in the
legislation?
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|
[145]
Dr Holland: It sounds fairly sensible, but I think I’d like
to have a look at their call before I respond to it in detail.
I’ve heard about this call but I haven’t read about it
in detail, so I don’t want to state something without looking
at the evidence carefully. I’m sure they’d be happy to
provide me with that evidence, and then I’d be happy to look
at that in terms of our response to the Bill.
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|
[146]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you; that’s very helpful.
John.
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[147]
John Griffiths:
Thanks, Chair. On child poverty, you
rightly point out that, in Wales, it’s the highest in the UK,
and obviously it’s an absolute priority to deal with the
issues. You’ve talked about Flying Start and Families First
failing to make an impact on overall child poverty. Is that a valid
statement to make? Because it’s very difficult to prove cause
and effect, isn’t it, and many other factors affect child
poverty in Wales. So, could you justify that statement?
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|
[148]
Dr Holland: You’re absolutely right—it’s very
hard to prove cause and effect, and it’s been a very
difficult issue to tackle in Wales. I suppose the main evidence for
saying that would be the difficulty in reducing the overall rate of
child poverty. Of course, we don’t know if they would have
gone up even higher without it, so I do take your point. I think
when we talk about Flying Start in particular, one of my concerns
is the significant proportion of children living in poverty who
aren’t able to access Flying Start because they don’t
live in Flying Start areas. We know that that’s a large
number of children living in poverty. I think the Government has to
get a balance between geographically targeted programmes, which do
have a strong evidence base in terms of take-up and
non-stigmatisation, but also providing individual access to such
programmes for those living in smaller pockets of poverty or in
isolation in otherwise wealthier areas. So, I think that’s
one of my main concerns about the delivery of Flying
Start—not so much the model of the programme itself, but its
reach.
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[149]
John Griffiths:
Scale and reach. Okay. You mentioned the
UK Government, and obviously a lot of the levers—tax and
welfare—are within the remit of UK Government, although
things are set, perhaps, to change a little. You’re clear,
though, when you say Welsh Government and local government have
levers and you’d like Welsh Government to have a child
poverty delivery plan with targets and milestones. Would those
targets and milestones relate to the sorts of issues you’ve
raised around in-work poverty, for example? So, you know, things
around low wages, childcare, housing and heating costs—would
that be the subject matter of the milestones and the
targets?
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[150]
Dr Holland: That would be part of the levers but also the
targets. What I would like to see is an overall Welsh Government
programme for children and young people built on a framework around
the concluding observations of the UNCRC, of which the first
priority they gave was to child poverty. So, any children and young
people’s programme by Welsh Government would have to have
clear targets for poverty. I’d really like to know exactly
what the expectations are of all the effort that’s going in,
and there is a lot of effort going in to tackle child poverty. What
is it, eventually, and what are they looking to achieve? I think
it’s important that children see that, and the whole
programme of Government efforts in terms of children.
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[151] In terms of levers, I think the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation have done a very useful—. As you know,
they’ve done years of work on this, and they’ve
recently published a really authoritative strategy, really, for UK
Government and devolved Governments on what they think are the most
evidence-based strategies for reducing poverty. Out of the five key
things they say that should be done, two of them are really in the
hands of the UK Government and, obviously, tax and benefits are key
parts of those. But the other three are actually within the
responsibilities of Welsh Government—three out of the
five. They are: improving
education standards and raising skills, strengthening families and
communities, and promoting long-term economic growth benefiting
everyone. I think that they are about preventing poverty, but
another key role of the Welsh Government is to mitigate the impact
of poverty. You quite rightly mentioned what some of those are. It
might be help with decent housing, fuel costs and childcare
provision. I do welcome the new childcare plans in that I think
they’ll really help the majority of children living in
poverty who have working parents, who often really struggle to pay
for childcare. I do have some concerns about the fact that
it’s not a universal offer, and that children of non-working
parents may lose out, especially those who are not in Flying Start
areas, and be left even further behind at school-starting age than
they are already.
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[152] John
Griffiths: Just very briefly, Chair, on local
government—
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|
[153]
Lynne Neagle: Very briefly.
|
|
[154] John
Griffiths: There’s a leadership role for Welsh
Government. You’re clear about that—the Welsh
Government needs to have this strategy—but do you work
directly with local authorities in terms of the levers that they
have? We know that there’s a lot of variability in local
authority performance and, obviously, we need to lift up those that
are relatively poor performing.
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|
[155] Dr
Holland: Do I work with them, did you say, sorry?
|
|
[156] John
Griffiths: Directly. Do you work directly with the local
authorities?
|
|
[157] Dr
Holland: Yes, absolutely I do. I’ve engaged several times
over the last year with the WLGA and their children’s leads
committee, for example. One example of where I see some really
direct experience of poverty is amongst young people who are
leaving care. I talked, I think, just two weeks ago in this
committee about the kind of income that some of them have and how
they’re trying to live, so I won’t repeat that now. I
plan, over the next year, to engage directly and physically. So, to
visit every local authority to ask the most senior people in that
authority how they will be helping those young people succeed in
their ambitions in life, including not living a life of poverty. I
think it’s important for me to do that, because there are
levers that local government have as well as national government. I
should be scrutinising both levels of government.
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|
[158] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Michelle, on protection.
|
|
[159] Michelle
Brown: Sally very kindly already covered—
|
|
[160] Lynne
Neagle: So you’re okay. Okay, then. Julie.
|
|
[161] Julie
Morgan: On participation?
|
|
[162] Lynne
Neagle: Yes.
|
|
[163] Julie
Morgan: In your report, you recommend that there should be a
youth assembly. What plans do you have to influence that process,
and how do you see it happening?
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|
[164] Dr
Holland: As I say in the report, the National Assembly has no
legal obligation to respond to my recommendations, but I’ve
said that it’s something that I wish to see. The Welsh
Government have made it clear that they would see a youth assembly
being something that would be situated within the National Assembly
rather than commissioned directly, or set up directly by the Welsh
Government. I think that’s correct. I think the legislature
is where a youth parliament should be. I’m very keen for us
to have one in Wales. Children, at the moment, are often well
enabled to participate at a local level but then have nowhere to
take those national issues that often frustrate them or interest
them, whether it’s student grants, housing or education
curriculum issues, for example. So, I think there is a real demand
from children for influence and debate on national issues, which a
national space would give them. I’ve engaged with groups of
young people who are campaigning directly for this, and listened to
them and discussed with them about different potential models of a
youth assembly, and supported them in going forward. I do think
it’s important that this is a young-person-led campaign. So,
I’ve supported them to go forward with that. I have held
discussions with the new Presiding Officer over the summer, which
were very constructive, about the youth parliament. I would like to
see—. She’s very interested in what models young people
themselves bring forward. I believe that they’re doing so
this month to her and to the Welsh Assembly.
|
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10:30
|
|
[165] I believe that
their favoured model is one similar to the Scottish Youth
Parliament, which I’ve seen in action and I think is an
excellent model. I hope we will have one over the next year. I plan
to follow up my discussions with the Presiding Officer and really
offer any support I can, but I do feel encouraged, really, that
young people are actively involved in this and I don’t want
to interfere too much with the suggestions that have been put
forward.
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[166] Julie
Morgan: Absolutely. I accept that this is much more powerful if
it comes directly from young people, but do you feel that young
people have got the resources and the backing to do this?
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[167] Dr
Holland: I think it’s been difficult for some of the
young people that have been involved in campaigning, because many
of them are very active in all sorts of things, and have had exams,
or have gone off to college, and that kind of thing. But
they’ve done a tremendous job. There’s an active
campaign group working on this, and they have received some support
from adults—the children’s rights observatory in
Swansea University have provided support to them. I’ve been
engaging with children to discuss this issue over the last year on
many occasions. In fact, I’m going straight from this session
to a young people in citizenship and politics event just over the
Roald Dahl Plass. Again, I will ask young people what they think
about the idea. So, wherever I can, I’m asking young people,
‘What would it look like for you?’ and ‘Do you
think it’s a good idea?’
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[168]
Julie Morgan: I believe this is one of the recommendations of the
UNCRC.
|
|
[169]
Dr Holland: It is. It’s a clear recommendation. They did
express disappointment that Funky Dragon had gone, and recommended
that all of the devolved nations that didn’t have a
parliament—which was ourselves and Northern
Ireland—should reinstate one, or instate one for the first
time.
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[170]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Final question from Llyr.
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[171]
Llyr Gruffydd: Just following on, really, on young people’s
participation. Brexit is the defining issue of the moment, if not
of our generation, and clearly there’ll be impacts, and
concerns about potential impacts, on finance and policy et cetera.
Do you believe that the voice of young people is sufficiently being
heard within these deliberations around Brexit? I noted the First
Minister established an advisory panel. I’m not sure that
actually there was a young person, or a young people’s voice,
sat around that table. I don’t know whether you have a
view.
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[172]
Dr Holland: I think that it’s very important that young
people’s voices are heard directly in relation to Brexit and
also that the impact of a Wales post Brexit on children and young
people is a really central part of the analysis and the
negotiations of Government. I think you’re right. I
don’t think there is a young person’s voice on that
committee, and I think it would be a good idea to have
that.
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[173]
Mr Dafydd: And we’ll be meeting with the chair of the
panel to have that discussion soon.
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[174]
Llyr Gruffydd: Good.
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[175]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Thank you very much. That concludes our
session. On behalf of the committee, can I thank the
children’s commissioner and her team for attending today? We
do have a few questions that we didn’t come to, so if
it’s okay we will write to you with those, and we’ll
have the note on the accounts as well. Thank you very much for
attending. As you know, you’ll get a transcript of the
meeting for you to check for accuracy.
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[176]
The committee will now break until 10:40,
which is quite a short break. Thank you.
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[177]
Dr Holland: Thank you very much. Diolch.
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Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:34 a 10:43.
The meeting adjourned between 10:34 and 10:43.
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Ymchwiliad i Waith Ieuenctid: Sesiwn
Dystiolaeth 1—Cyngor Cymreig y Gwasanaethau Ieuenctid
Gwirfoddol
Inquiry into Youth Work: Evidence Session 1—Council for Wales
of Voluntary Youth Services
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[178]
Lynne Neagle: Can I welcome Members back for item 3, which is our
first formal evidence session for our inquiry on youth work?
I’m delighted that we’ve been joined by the Council for
Wales of Voluntary Youth Services, CWVYS. I’d like to welcome
Keith Towler, the chair, Catrin James, regional co-ordinator, and
Paul Glaze, chief executive. Thank you very much for joining us
this morning. Before we go into questions, can I just ask if there
are any declarations of interest, please? Llyr.
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[179]
Llyr
Gruffydd: Mae angen i fi ddatgan buddiant fel un o lywyddion anrhydeddus
Cyngor Cymreig y Gwasanaethau Ieuenctid Gwirfoddol.
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Llyr
Gruffydd: I need to declare an
interest as I am an honorary president of the Council for Wales of
Voluntary Youth Services
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[180]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. No other declarations of interest, then. If
witnesses are happy, we’ll go straight into questions, if
that’s okay. John.
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[181]
John Griffiths:
I wanted to ask, Chair, about the mapping
of youth services, really. To what extent are we in a position to
know what’s out there, who’s doing what, whether
there’s duplication, whether there are gaps? Obviously,
there’s always variability between one local authority area
and another, and I just wondered, across Wales, really, if we can
be confident that it is possible to know who’s doing what
and, as I said, whether there might be duplication or
gaps.
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10:45
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[182] Mr Glaze: I’m happy to take that one. In terms of CWVYS
as the representative body for the voluntary youth work sector,
we’ve got 90 members currently—we’re always
looking for more—and they’re split 50:50 between
large national organisations and smaller local groups, too. So, we
have a handle on the work that they’re doing, where
they’re located and how they work collaboratively with local
authorities, for example. Beyond that, we know there’s around
about 500 other groups that we know of who are working specifically
with young people across the board.
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[183] It does vary
across local authority areas, you’re right. But in terms of
mapping per se, it’s a kind of holy grail for us, I suppose,
from the voluntary sector’s perspective, because we know that
the sector comprises of around 0.25 million young people. There are
about 30,000 volunteers and about 3,000 paid staff. But the exact
figures in evidence we just don’t have, and that’s
something that we’ve always really needed and wanted to do.
We haven’t got the capacity or the resources, actually, to
finalise those figures. We do rely heavily on the Wales Council for
Voluntary Action’s almanac that they issue every year, and
that throws up some interesting statistics in terms of the number
of groups that are out there working with children and young
people, particularly within the age groups that we
represent—the under 25-year-olds.
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[184] Some mapping is
done in relation to specific Welsh Government projects, for example
youth engagement and progression framework. We wrote a report a
year or so ago on that, from the voluntary sector’s
perspective, and as a result of that Welsh Government commissioned
Cordis Bright to do some work on mapping of the local voluntary
service sector to work with local authorities. That was issued in
March or April of this year, and we’ve yet to see the result
of that. So, we’ll be interested to see that to see whether
it matches our understanding of how the sector works. Does that
give some indication?
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[185] John
Griffiths: Yes. So, I think what you’re saying, really,
is that some mapping work goes on but it’s difficult, really,
to be able to say with any certainty, in any local authority area,
exactly who’s doing what.
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[186] Mr Glaze:
It is, but I’ll also say, of course, that local authorities
are required to submit to audit in terms of the work that they do
for the money that they receive directly from Welsh Government. As
the voluntary sector, we don’t have that expectation or that
resource, really, in terms of being able to quantify specifically
per local authority area.
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[187] Lynne
Neagle: Okay. Darren on this.
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[188] Darren
Millar: Would it be helpful if there was a requirement for
local authorities to map what’s going on in their area, even
if it’s provision that they’re not making
themselves?
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[189] Mr Glaze:
Yes.
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[190] Darren
Millar: Okay.
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[191] Mr
Towler: Can I come in on that? I think the answer to that is
‘yes’, and I think one of the things that would be a
useful parallel is what happened in the play work field around
sufficiency of—. So, if we had 22 sets of looking at your
youth population, looking at their express needs, seeing what young
people are saying themselves, and then trying to map that against
what provision exists, I think that would be a really helpful thing
to do. What I don’t think the local authorities would be able
to do is actually, with some confidence, know what exactly was
going on in their area unless they start talking to local and
voluntary youth work providers. That could be a real vehicle for
beginning to map out what exists in local areas. The other point of
that is that it provides a fantastic opportunity for young people
to start talking about their local communities—what’s
there, what isn’t there, and what gaps exists. I think that
that would be a really positive thing to come from your work.
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[192] Darren
Millar: Okay. Thank you.
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[193] Lynne
Neagle: Thanks. Oscar.
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[194] Mohammad
Asghar: Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the team
here. Has the CWVYS sought guidance regarding increasing awareness
and training for staff working in youth services about the specific
needs of vulnerable groups? And would not widening of the youth
services provision in this regard mitigate the often limited scope
of youth services in targeting and improving young people’s
lives in Wales?
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[195] Mr Glaze:
Workforce development is obviously a really important issue for the
sector as a whole. In the past there have been facilities that were
put together by Welsh Government, where both sides of the
sector—both the statutory and voluntary sectors—would
meet together to decide workforce development priorities. As CWVYS
we’re very lucky in having a really good partnership
agreement with the YMCA and the Workers’ Educational
Association college in relation to youth work qualifications, and
that’s really useful. We would wish that to continue,
although that’s been cut back slightly because of funding.
Local authorities also receive money through the principal youth
officers’ group for training and development. It was in the
national youth work strategy—laid down in that—that at
least 25 per cent of that ought to be available to the voluntary
sector in terms of its ability to meet those workforce development
needs. They are both generic and specialist services, I would
suggest, in terms of the training that’s provided. So, to
answer your question about the needs of particularly vulnerable
young people, it would largely depend upon the take-up of the
voluntary sector groups within that local authority area and the
relationship that they have, or perhaps don’t have, with that
local authority in terms of tapping into that resource effectively.
I don’t know whether that answers your question.
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[196] Ms James:
Also, within CWVYS we have a training committee, where our members
discuss and share issues regarding training, and a number of our
national organisations have their own in-house training and
development for their staff, where they look at specialist
provision as well. But that’s done outside of Welsh
Government funding; it’s the responsibility of those
organisations. But within the training committee as a sector, the
voluntary youth work sector, we do share and assist each other with
our training and development.
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[197] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. To what extent are voluntary groups, then,
being driven to provide more targeted interventions with young
people now?
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[198] Mr Glaze:
There is an expectation of that, certainly. And local authorities
are tending to head down that targeted route. An example might be
Swansea, for example, which has gone down that route some time ago
actually. But we would say, and we’ve got the evidence to
prove this because our members tell us this, that they actually
deliver both targeted and open-access provision under one roof,
sometimes in quite a sophisticated way. They don’t have
separate doors, for example, for young carers or young people not
in education, employment and training. A strength of theirs is that
they can think on their feet and deal with those issues, but
they’re also able to deliver both open access, which is the
bedrock of youth work, along with the targeted provision too.
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[199] Funders, if
outwith local authorities—their criteria obviously need to be
met in order for funding to be drawn down. But they do tend to be
very targeted. That can work well for some of the specialised
services that we’ve got within the sector, but equally, if
they have the mix of open access and a targeted facility, that can
be accommodated under one roof. And that’s a real strength,
we would argue, of the sector, because of that added value that the
groups that we represent can actually provide.
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[200] Lynne
Neagle: Keith.
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[201] Mr
Towler: I think your question, Chair, is a really useful one,
because it gets to the heart of what it is, I think, our membership
is interested in, which is that good voluntary youth work is based
on that trusted voluntary relationship that young people have with
youth workers in their local community. I think what we’re
concerned about is that the focus on targeted routes to get money
and focus in for particular vulnerable groups is important, but it
can’t be delivered in the absence of that universal offer to
young people, and that, actually, building that trusted
relationship with young people is the bedrock upon which that
targeted work can take place. The trouble with funding streams that
look specifically at targeted pieces of work is that that
doesn’t do anything, really, to underpin how that universal
offer is maintained. And I think it comes back to John’s
question around mapping, because that’s what you begin to
see—the slow withdrawal, almost death by a thousand cuts, of
that universal offer, as that more targeted work increases. So, it
would always be easier to identify the targeted work in that
mapping exercise than it will be to quantify how the universal
open-access offer is delivered.
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[202] Mr Glaze:
If I can pick up on that, if I may. In order for organisations to
continue, obviously they need core funding to make that happen.
Predominantly, targeted work is very much project-based driven and
there’s no profit in that, of course, because they’re
non-profit groups. But you know what I mean—it will just pay
for that project as opposed to any kind of contribution to the
core. And without that core, obviously projects can’t be
delivered, so it’s a bit of a catch-22 for many organisations
we work with.
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[203] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Llyr on this, then Julie.
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[204] Llyr
Gruffydd: If we get the balance wrong between open access and
targeted—and I think there is a concern that the direction of
travel is towards getting that wrong—is there then a danger,
if it’s too target heavy, if you like, that youth work might
become a bit stigmatised, that it’s seen as something for the
poor and needy, and people might be concerned that they’re
going to be sent to the youth worker? [Laughter.] Do you
recognise that there is a danger in that respect?
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[205] Mr
Towler: I think there is, because it’s a—. I think
you’re absolutely right. I think what’s really
interesting is the extent to which the targeted services can see
the benefits of a youth work methodology within a targeted setting.
So, if you think about youth crime, you think about mental health
issues, you think about obesity and how we get to the core issue
here? Well, we use a youth work methodology, and, actually, these
youth workers have got a big contribution to make in helping us to
understand what is impacting on young people’s lives that
creates this issue, which we now call a targeted response, whether
it’s crime, physical or mental health. So, the youth work
methodology is recognised.
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[206] The targeted
work does take those youth workers down that particular route, and
I think, in a sense, you could be absolutely right. I guess the
majority of people of my age, and most people around this table,
will be able to recall their youth club. Well, that kind of thing
doesn’t really exist. The ability to go in somewhere, find
out what’s going on, not be ‘worked’ officially,
but to get the opportunity to socialise, to take part in non-formal
education, to get an opportunity to go up a mountain, go on a
residential experience—all the things that we would want
young people to have, that’s the bit that’s at risk.
So, I think you’re right—if youth work became too
targeted, too focused on just delivering for those who might be
described as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘in need’, we
lose a huge amount of our community infrastructure.
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[207] Mr Glaze:
I agree, and, if I may, as one member put it to me, ‘All
young people are allowed to have fun; it’s not just for a
select few’. And I think there’s a danger in that,
certainly. And it’s about the sum of its parts, and all those
young people—the mix—is absolutely critical as far as
we’re concerned.
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[208] Ms James:
And there’s research been done by the University of Bath
about the value of the informal networking that happens in open
access, helping young people to look at behaviour and attitude,
and, as open access, to build networks, to further themselves in
employability and socially.
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[209]
Lynne Neagle: Julie.
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[210]
Julie Morgan: So, are you saying, basically, that really targeted
work can’t really be delivered effectively unless there is
open access?
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[211]
Mr Glaze: Yes, particularly within the context of the voluntary
youth work sector. So, the local authorities, as I’m sure
you’re aware, have gone down a very targeted route, and
that’s up to them. The issue for those local authorities, in
the context of supporting voluntary sector organisations, is that
there’s a notion that perhaps the voluntary sector can take
up the open-access provision. And, so, there’s an almost
natural or forced division, but we don’t see it in those
terms; we see that the open access and the targeted work can and
does happen under one roof, within the context of the organisations
we work with. They’re very adaptable, they’re very
flexible, and they can provide those services, and we would argue
that that’s a real strength that they’re able to offer.
There’s another issue there, in terms of the potential
amounts that are available through local authorities, but
that’s a separate question, I guess.
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[212]
Julie Morgan: In terms of your saying that the open access is
declining—that’s the area that is going—are there
large parts of the country now where you have no access to an
open-access youth club?
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[213]
Mr Glaze: I can think of one particular local authority area
where we have a pretty strong member organisation, who are still a
local community-based organisation. They’ve got a really good
tradition of sourcing funding, but they’re the only provision
in the whole of that local authority area now. So, the
pressure’s on them to deliver. It sometimes comes from local
authority demands too; even though they’re not receiving
extra funding for extra young people coming through their door, for
example, they’re still holding their own. Their
sustainability is at risk, but they’re still providing both
open access and targeted work whenever possible. So, it’s
their flexibility, I think, which gives them that potential, but,
the longer that continues, their sustainability is open to
question.
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[214]
Mr Towler: One of the things that we did this year, looking at
the sustainability of CWVYS—it’s a member organisation
that is there to serve the needs of its members, provide
information and support as best it can, with a fantastic team that
do that work. But one of the things that struck me from—we
commissioned somebody independent to talk with members about their
ambition, particularly to look at where they saw themselves in a
couple of years’ time. Fifty per cent of them were hoping for
growth, but 50 per cent of them—the other 50 per
cent—were really forecasting stagnation. They were just
hoping to survive. Paul’s got more detail.
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[215]
There’s a real strong message, I
think, about how viable this sector is. That’s in sharp
contrast—when people talk about the value of the voluntary
youth work sector, very often statutory colleagues, and others,
will kind of look to the voluntary sector as the way in which we
can deliver this offer. I think what we’re trying to say is
that not all our membership, but a significant amount of our
membership, is struggling so much that it can’t see a life
for itself beyond the new financial year, and that’s a
reality for them.
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[216]
Mr Glaze: To pick up on Keith’s point about the 50 per
cent, that was standstill, or stagnation, for this current
financial year. For next year, 30 per cent were saying that they
don’t know whether they’ve got a future at all. So,
those are the hard facts and figures that we’re getting from
them.
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[217]
Mr Towler: So, the point is that, if people are looking to the
voluntary youth work sector as the mechanism by which we’re
going to deliver youth work, then we’re here to say that,
actually, that’s looking really fragile.
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[218] Lynne Neagle: And, in light of that fragility, are there any
particular groups of young people then who you feel are
particularly losing out by these reductions in services?
|
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11:00
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[219] Mr Glaze:
It’s across the board, really, because if we’ve
established the position where open-access provision is the key,
then potentially all young people across any kind of criteria or
background might suffer as a result.
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[220] Mr
Towler: And, we’re talking about 11 to 25-year-olds in
terms of that youth work offer. It’s worth thinking that
through a bit in terms of what the needs are, because that’s
a huge age range—11 to 25. But, if you think about the kind
of targeted pieces of work and the particular issues around
vulnerability—. Or, to take a random 100 young people from
any community and ask them about youth work, I wonder whether 20
per cent of those young people would be able to give you a
description of the youth work service in their area.
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[221]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Thank you.
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[222]
Mr Glaze: There’s a couple of examples of local
authorities that have joined their youth offending teams with youth
services too. They tend to be local authorities that perhaps
don’t spend as much within their revenue support grant, for
example. So, that’s an interesting move, and I don’t
know what message that sends out to young people or whether the
services are actually the same or better or worse, but it’s
the notion of different public services having to come together
because they’ve got the word ‘youth’ in
them.
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[223]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Thank you.
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[224]
Ms James: Can I speak in Welsh for a moment?
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[225]
Hefyd, mae pwynt i godi
amboutu’r ddarpariaeth cyfrwng Cymraeg ar draws Cymru hefyd a
bod yna wasanaethau amrywiol o fewn yr awdurdodau lleol ac nad oes
cynnig cyson rhwng pob awdurdod lleol. Mae hynny’n bwynt y
mae angen edrych arno’n genedlaethol.
|
I’d also
like to raise a point about the Welsh-medium provision across Wales
in that there are variable services within the local authorities
and no consistent offer in each local authority. That is a point
that we do need to look at nationally.
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[226]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you, Catrin. We’ll move on now then to
look at Welsh Government strategy and leadership.
Michelle.
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[227]
Michelle Brown:
Thank you, Chair. I’d like to
investigate your views on the charter and the operation of the
charter—whether you think it’s effective and whether
you think something should be put in place to give effect to the
charter.
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[228]
Mr Glaze: Certainly, from a strategic perspective, we’re
waiting for that kind of focus and strategic leadership, really.
The charter was issued in March of this year. In the absence of
what was the youth work reference group, which was the forum for
discussing those kind of pieces of work, we haven’t met since
April of this year. So, there’s a gap, as far as we perceive
it, in terms of that leadership and that focus as to where that
charter might take us. So, that’s a real issue for us in
terms of that leadership and that gap that exists because, of
course, not least, we’re half way through the financial year
now in terms of planning and the direction and delivery of
services.
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[229]
The charter, if I’m honest,
doesn’t say much new about youth services. At the moment, it
exists on a piece of paper; we’ve nothing to implement that.
That said, we were happy to be part of the process that got us to
that stage. I think we’ve spent a significant amount of time
supporting that reference group, which was always a good initiative
as far as we were concerned. The Minister used to turn up for four
or five hours and spend time with us for that and that was much
appreciated. But things seem to have hit the buffers, I would say.
The charter exists, but we don’t know how it’s likely
to be implemented and how it may or may not affect the delivery of
services in relation to open access and targeted for
example.
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[230]
Michelle Brown:
Do you have any suggestions about how
best to implement the charter and how to get the most out of
it?
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[231]
Mr Glaze: If the charter is going to be the way
forward—[Interruption.] No, it’s fine.
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[232]
Mr Towler: As Paul was talking there, there were two things that
struck me about how this can be implemented. The first is that
there’s no guidance for anybody about what the expectations
are from Welsh Government about how that offer to young people will
be delivered. There is no real expectation of it being delivered
and no way of monitoring whether young people are accessing the
offer. So, the first thing is: what’s the expectation
attached to that offer for people in the statutory and voluntary
sectors? There’s no guidance or leadership on
that.
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[233]
The second part, and I think this is
probably the most important part—and I was really impressed
with the Deputy Minister of the previous Welsh Government, who set
up the youth work ministerial group, because she was very clear in
her thinking about the youth work offer speaking to young people in
Wales—is that young people in Wales would recognise that this
offer existed and would look at it and say, ‘Okay, where am I
going to access this in my local community? If that’s there
for me, how am I going to get that?’ So, the second part of
this is: to what extent is this youth work offer known by young
people? I would say it is not known at all by young people.
Nothing has happened that has given young people an opportunity to
reflect on that offer and to think through how they could access
that offer in their local community. So, there are two things:
guidance for providers of services, and what this is saying to
young people directly.
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[234] Mr Glaze:
Because it’s pitched as a youth offer, and it hasn’t
been explained or given to young people in that context.
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[235] Mr
Towler: I think that’s a challenge for Welsh Government.
What Ministers now need to think through is, if they are still
committed to the offer, and if they are still committed to
universal open access and targeted provision, what the expectation
is on statutory and voluntary sector providers in the absence of
any guidance or statutory basis for the delivery of youth work.
These are pretty fundamental things, really.
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[236]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Llyr.
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|
[237]
Llyr
Gruffydd: Jest i ddilyn i fyny ar hynny, mae yna awgrym clir onid
oes—wel, mwy nag awgrym—fod diffyg arweinyddiaeth
strategol yn dod o’r Llywodraeth. Mae rhai pobl yn cyfeirio
at ddiffyg capasiti, diffyg ymgysylltu digonol â’r
sector, ac yn y blaen. Byddwn i’n licio clywed eich barn chi
ynglŷn â’r rôl y mae’r Llywodraeth yn
ei chwarae ar hyn o bryd, ond gan gydnabod hefyd, wrth gwrs, eich
bod chi’n awgrymu bod angen creu corff newydd—cyngor
penodol i Gymru—ar wasanaethau gwaith ieuenctid. Felly, beth
rwyf yn gofyn i chi ei wneud yw esbonio beth rŷch chi’n
meddwl yw’r diffygion ar hyn o bryd—lle mae’r
gwendidau o safbwynt rôl arweiniol, neu ddiffyg rôl
arweiniol, y Llywodraeth—a sut yr ydych yn credu y bydd creu
corff newydd yn ateb yr angen hwnnw.
|
Llyr Gruffydd: I
just want to follow that up. There’s a clear
suggestion—or more than a suggestion—that there is a
lack of strategic leadership coming from the Government. Some
people refer to a lack of capacity and a lack of sufficient
engagement with the sector and so forth. I would like to hear your
views about the role that the Government is currently playing, but
acknowledging, of course, that you suggest that there is a need to
create a new body—a specific Welsh council—on youth
work service. What I am basically doing is asking you to explain
what the weaknesses and the gaps are at present in terms of the
leadership role of the Government, or the lack of that role, and
how you believe that creating a new council or body would meet that
need.
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[238]
Mr Glaze: It’s been a consistent position of CWVYS for
the past four or five years that a national body would benefit the
whole of the youth service, but also benefit young people
primarily. That’s the reason why we came in on this. It was
about ensuring that there is a collaborative process between the
statutory and voluntary sectors as well. It would reduce
duplication. It would improve the effectiveness, we would suggest,
of youth services in Wales. It would allow it to have some status
and profile, which it currently doesn’t have. Things like
workforce development could be brought under one roof, for example,
and it could be harnessed in that sense, so that everybody was
working towards common aims.
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[239]
The suggestion that we based our models
on was informed by our discussions with our colleagues in
Scotland—YouthLink Scotland, for example. That’s one
organisation that represents both the statutory and the voluntary
services in Scotland. It represents 32 local authorities and over
100 voluntary sector organisations. I have been in Edinburgh
earlier this week, speaking to them and going green with envy with
their resource and the work that they do. But, that said, they do
some really good work. They also have the indefinable trust and
confidence of the people they work with in the Scottish Government.
They would be the first to say that it has taken a while to get to
that point, but, for us, I think that’s an ambition that we
should be aiming for.
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[240]
A typical example—it’s only
one of many—is where the Scottish Government pay
£500,000 to YouthLink Scotland to work on workforce
development issues. The civil servants say, ‘We trust you to
be able to inform and impart this funding across the whole of the
sector, and we don’t want to play a part in that because we
trust you.’ For us, the way that we have kind of expressed it
in visual terms is that we are operating at the base somewhere down
here, where we need to raise that trust and confidence in each
other to get to the point where others are across other areas of
the UK. We use that model because we believe that it is one that we
could replicate here. Central to that, I think, is that it meets
the needs of young people. Young people would be part of that
independent council, as far as we are concerned. Therefore, they
could hold that council to account, as young people. That’s
really important for us.
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[241] Mr Towler: I
think that there are a couple of other points. I mean, Paul is
absolutely right in terms of what we think the strengths would be
and where the gaps are. But, at the moment, we do not have a clear
vision about what it is we want the youth work sector to deliver
for young people. We have a sector, both statutory and voluntary,
with really committed, brilliant youth workers working within it. I
think that point is really well—. You know, you should
recognise that the skills and the experience that we have in the
statutory and voluntary youth work sector are very good indeed.
There is some exemplary work that is going on. But there’s
nothing that kind of binds this together. There’s a real
absence of the strength of what Paul describes as having witnessed
in the Scottish model. You don’t see statutory and voluntary
youth work sector organisations working towards the delivery of a
single aim for young people. You don’t see how,
currently, young people’s participation or voice is heard in
the commissioning or delivery of services at a local, regional or
national level. There’s nothing that monitors the delivery of
those services and is able to spot the gaps, look at what works
well and deliver that practice. But one of the key things
that’s missing currently from a lack of national leadership
is: no information, no communication at all with the sector.
Certainly, voluntary sector providers are virtually cut out of the
regional partnership arrangements that exist across Wales. They
don’t get a seat at the table. There’s no way in which
anything is binding that work together. That’s not just a
gap, it’s just a travesty. It’s a waste of the resource
that we have.
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[242]
Ms James: Mae’n ddefnydd aneffeithiol o egni’r
sector gwirfoddol lle mae’n rhaid inni gysylltu â 22
awdurdod lleol, i gyd â systemau gwahanol o ran pwrcasu
gwaith, gosod targedau a chynllunio ymlaen. Felly, pan mae
capasiti’n brin o fewn y sector gwirfoddol, boed yn lleol
neu’n genedlaethol neu’n rhanbarthol, mae’n
cymryd egni ein staff a’n gwirfoddolwyr i fynd at y 22
awdurdod lleol a’r prif swyddog ieuenctid i drafod anghenion
y bobl ifanc yn eu hawdurdodau
lleol. Felly, byddai strwythur
mwy cydlynol yn gymorth mawr
i’r sector i drafod y safonau a’r cyfeiriad cywir ar
gyfer pobl ifanc yng Nghymru er lles pobl ifanc yng Nghymru a chodi
dyheadau ein poblogaeth ifanc.
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Ms
James: It’s ineffective use of the energy of the
voluntary sector where we have to contact 22 local authorities,
which all have different systems in terms of purchasing work,
setting targets and forward planning. So, when the capacity is
scarce within the voluntary sector, whether it’s local,
regional or national, it takes energy among our staff and
volunteers to go to those 22 authorities and the chief youth
officer to discuss the needs of young people in those local
authorities. So, a more coherent structure would be a great help to
the sector to discuss the standards and the right direction for
young people in Wales, for the benefit of those people and to raise
aspirations among our younger population.
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[243]
Llyr
Gruffydd: A oes yna
gwestiwn ynglŷn ag atebolrwydd y corff yna wedyn? Ble
fyddai’r atebolrwydd yn ôl i’r sector a hefyd,
wrth gwrs, o safbwynt atebolrwydd i’r Llywodraeth, am wn i,
dros yr adnoddau?
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Llyr
Gruffydd: Is there a question about the accountability of that
body then? Where would the accountability back to the sector be,
and, of course, the accountability to the Government for
resources?
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[244] Mr Glaze:
We suggested a couple of models. One was for the Welsh Government
to have a role on an independent council that would be chaired by
an independent person, but it would also have parity of seats
around the table for both the voluntary and statutory sectors, and
young people too. That’s the suggestion that we would make.
The Welsh Government could either be part of that or it could
actually stand back and maybe work on the Higher Education Funding
Council for Wales model, where money is given to that body in order
to disperse it.
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[245] But I think the
other thing—. There are a couple of things, if I may, on
this. We already have a base from which to work. We have a set of
national occupational standards. We’re a profession. We also
have a clear workforce development base; we have the ‘Youth
Work in Wales: Principles and Purposes’ document, which sets
the tone for all training in Wales. So, for us, it’s about
building on that base, that quality and the adherence to those
standards that already exist.
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[246] Just to pick up
on Keith’s point about communication, on youth worker
registration, for example, which is coming into play next April,
we’ve got a really good working relationship with the
Education Workforce Council, but youth work, as a sector,
doesn’t have a seat around that table, which seems to us to
be a bit of a nonsense, really. In the absence of the conversations
that we have with Welsh Government, we have far better
communication with the Education Workforce Council on an issue
that’s going to affect the sector quite heavily, I would
suggest, next year. So, again, some of it’s about
clout—it’s about status and profile—but
it’s also having a collaborative way of working that meets
the needs of young people and is accountable on that basis.
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[247] Mr
Towler: Can I just add that, whatever the governance model
might be, it would be a hundred times better than what currently
exists? Because there is no accountability, really. There just
isn’t.
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[248]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Hefin.
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[249]
Hefin David: The role of this body would be collaborative
processes, workforce development, raising the status of youth work
and reducing duplication. So, there’s going to be a cost to
introducing such a body; have you costed it? Is it going to be made
up of new people or existing people getting together? Can you give
us some indication?
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[250]
Mr Glaze: Yes, sure. The initial response was based on the
former Minister asking whether we wanted a regional or a national
youth service. That was five years ago, when the Minister made that
point. We came up with four specific models that we thought might
be appropriate. It wasn’t turkeys voting for Christmas, it
was a case of ‘We would want a role within that new
body’, which could be made up of existing people; there
wouldn’t necessarily be an issue there.
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[251] In terms of cost, we haven’t costed it to the
penny, but we would suggest that some of the revenue support grant
that currently isn’t being spent by local authorities could
be used and folded in to pay for that body’s initial
set-up. It would also have a fundraising function of its
own. So, it would need to look at its own sustainability over a
period of time.
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11:15
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[252] Hefin
David: You mean that some of the revenue support grant that is
not being spent on youth service, but should be, is being spent,
but is being spent on other things.
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[253] Mr Glaze:
Yes, effectively. I’m sure you know the figures anyway, but
it’s £40 million for the budget for youth services in
Wales, of which £2.5 million goes to local authority
principal youth officers to deliver their services. CWVYS receives
£105,000 a year currently on a year-by-year basis. There are
national voluntary youth organisation grants that are worth
£679,000 per year for seven organisations only that we
represent. The remainder, which is about £37.5 million, goes
to local authorities under the revenue support grant, of which just
over half currently is being spent as we would suggest it ought to
be, because it’s allocated. But, of course, it’s not
hypothecated. So, we’re suggesting that out of that—the
funding that isn’t being spent—there’s plenty
within that that could service the needs of a national body.
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[254] Hefin
David: But it would be diverting resources from the front line,
possibly.
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[255] Mr Glaze:
Initially, but at the moment that’s not being spent anyway.
So, what we’re calling for is the hypothecation of that
funding, and therefore you would have sufficient within that.
Because at the moment, it’s not being spent, as far as we
would say, because it’s not hypothecated.
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[256] Hefin
David: Okay. I appreciate that. Why not, perhaps through local
service boards, give youth workers strong advice at local service
boards instead? Why is an all-Wales solution more effective than,
perhaps, a local-service-board-level solution?
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[257] Mr Glaze:
Our models were predicated on a national overview, but with
regional bases too. That, for us, was really important. We have a
regional base within CWVYS, as do the principal youth
officers’ group, as I’m sure you know, and that works
very well for both parties. So, we’ve already got those
structures in place. The issue, really, for the local service
boards is actually accessing seats around those tables. Also, the
capacity within the sector at the moment is insufficient to meet
those needs. I think there’s a genuine interest in wanting to
be there, but we just don’t have the capacity to meet those
needs. To put it into context—it’s anecdotal, but I
don’t know whether this helps, and it cuts across everything
that we’re talking about, I would suggest—youth workers
are saying to me, ‘I’m being expected to fundraise and
also to deliver the youth work too. I’m not a fundraiser,
I’m a youth worker; therefore, that cuts back my capacity to
do anything else that I could do at a representational seat’,
for example. So, that’s the kind of context within which
we’re working. Those are the kinds of pressures that
they’re under. Every issue that we seem to come across
suggests that a national overview would be far better than the
current situation that we find ourselves in, really.
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[258] Hefin
David: I’m just being a critical friend, here—
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[259] Mr Glaze:
Yes, of course.
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[260] Hefin
David: I’m not trying to say ‘Don’t do
it’. I just wonder, if you go from what you’ve
described in my mind as fragmented provision, leaping into the
national level without considering the kind of mezzo level might
actually be missing something.
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[261] Mr Glaze:
I appreciate that, and that, for us, is where the regional
structures would come into place and would meet the current
regional consortia, at the moment, that the Welsh Government are
currently operating. It’s absolutely critical for us. For
example, our experience of a regional structure is critical because
it gathers intelligence and it works with local organisations, and
nationals, in giving them the chance to look at national policies
and to have a view on those too. So, rather than being done to,
they’re part of that process and can be informed and have a
role to play. It’s a very important role. We wouldn’t
suggest, for a minute, that we want to overlay a national process
that ignores all of that, because, apart from anything else,
we’d be cutting our nose off to spite our face, because we
have to be in touch with those services that operate at the very
local level too.
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[262] Mr
Towler: One of the things that we’re looking at at the
moment for CWVYS—you know, just looking at the sustainability
of CWVYS and what CWVYS delivers to its members in the absence of
this debate that we are having—is how local and regionally
based voluntary youth work sector organisations get an opportunity
to access what you’re describing. I’m pretty convinced,
because members tell us this, that they just don’t have the
capacity to engage with local service boards, with safeguarding
boards, or whatever the kind of regional structures might be. One
of the things that the membership has asked of CWVYS is to consider
whether CWVYS could act in a brokerage role. So, you bring together
an opportunity, if there’s a regional funding pot to bid for,
about bringing together some locals that have increased capacity
when you bring it together. But, at the moment, local and regional
voluntary sector organisations don’t get a seat at the table.
There isn’t a mature commissioning arrangement in place that
comes back to the kind of status of the way that the sector is
perceived. It certainly doesn’t get an opportunity to comment
on the design and delivery of commissioned opportunities. So, the
idea that we could deliver effective youth work through the current
regional arrangements just doesn’t seem to me a realistic
one. I just don’t see how that would happen in the absence of
something that’s very clearly coming from the centre that
sets something about vision, parameters and delivery
expectation.
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[263] Hefin
David: That’s clear. You’ve said your capacity is
preventing you from engaging. It’s not the fact that
you’re prevented from engaging, it’s capacity
that—
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[264] Mr
Towler: It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, because how
would a voluntary youth work organisation even know that the
opportunity exists to bid? I know that sounds really—. But I
think that’s true. So many of our membership would say,
‘Well, we had no idea that was even available.’
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[265] Lynne
Neagle: Can I just ask—? Do you think it would help if
there was a statutory duty to provide youth provision in Wales?
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[266] Mr
Towler: Yes.
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[267] Mr Glaze:
Yes, definitely. I think because of the application of the
consistency of that, too, really. If all areas were required to
meet that statutory duty, then at least the consistency would be
there and the parity of delivery for young people, really.
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[268] Mr
Towler: And that sufficiency model that we spoke about at the
beginning of the session would be a really good way of assessing
local need.
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[269] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Julie.
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[270] Julie
Morgan: You’ve mentioned the fact that half of the
allocation of the revenue support grant is not spent on youth work.
Presumably it is spent on something else, but it’s not spent
on youth work, and there do seem to be huge variations in the
amount of money spent by each local authority. So, I don’t
know if you’ve got any explanation you can give for
that—why some local authorities are spending so much more
than others and how local authorities do top up some of the money
they give.
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[271] Mr Glaze:
I think the first thing to say is that because it’s
non-hypothecated, obviously, local authorities can spend it as they
wish, and one of the things that we have yet to find out is whether
money is actually being spent. The issue for us that it
doesn’t appear to be spent on youth services. There are some
local authorities, however, that—mathematically, I’m
not sure how they do—but there are a couple listed in the
last revenue support grant audit where I think 103 per cent was
being spent in certain areas. So, it’s important to pay
tribute to that, as well.
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[272] But the issue
has been put to us that local authorities are chasing other pots of
money in order to supplement what they’re not spending out of
the revenue support grant. But from our perspective, it’s a
case of saying, ‘Well, if all of that revenue support grant
was being used in the manner in which it was meant to be, then
there wouldn’t need to be any of that chasing of extra
funding, because it already exists. It’s already being made
available.’ So, I guess, for us, it’s a case of saying
or asking the question, ‘Why can’t it be hypothecated
so that local authorities can use that for youth services across
the board, therefore enhancing the consistency?’ Because the
variations that you’ve referred to are huge, you know. There
are wild variations in terms of allocation and spend.
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[273] Julie
Morgan: There is generally a reluctance to hypothecate funds
because—
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[274] Mr Glaze:
I appreciate that.
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[275] Julie
Morgan: —of the issue of local democracy. What is the
point of having local authorities unless all they’re able to
make decisions? So, you do recognise that.
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[276] Mr Glaze:
Absolutely, yes, and that’s the position that we find
ourselves in. But it’s the frustration of knowing that
that’s available. We also appreciate the local authority
context in which they would then say, ‘Well, if we had to do
this, then, of course, something else might suffer.’ But, of
course, we’re here to talk about youth services.
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[277] Mr
Towler: There are two things at play here, aren’t there?
One is about how the money is spent and used by local
authorities—and, clearly, that is an issue for them, and
local democracy is really important. But, I think the fact that
there is no statutory basis for the delivery of youth work places
statutory colleagues in a difficult position when they want to
justify holding on to expenditure for something that doesn’t
have a statutory function. It’s going to look at what it has
to deliver statutorily, and that is, without doubt, going to be the
case in austere and difficult times. As a result of that, youth
work falls lower and lower and lower down the pecking order. I
think, when you look at the bold figures and when the membership of
CWVYS looks at those figures, it just throws up enormous questions
for the voluntary youth work sector, because, of course,
we’re not sighted on how local authorities decide to use
their money. We’re just on the receiving end of those
decisions. So it’s not a criticism of those colleagues, I
think it’s just a kind of reflection of where we’re at,
and it’s an uncomfortable place for the sector to be.
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[278] Lynne
Neagle: Darren.
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[279] Darren
Millar: Thank you, Chair. Just on this issue of hypothecation,
isn’t the problem with forcing local authorities to spend up
to the amount in the revenue support grant that’s given to
them in respect of youth services that there may, actually, be very
good provision in those areas that is not commissioned by the local
authority already, and that there’s a risk that local
authorities will duplicate, or cause some successful youth
organisations to go to the wall by stealing, if you like, the young
people who are already actively engaged with them? So, rather than
hypothecation, isn’t it this need to focus on mapping
what’s there, first, before determining where money is spent
and how the bar is raised, as it were, in terms of the local
availability of services? You’re calling for hypothecation,
but not even you know what’s available on the ground at the
moment, do you?
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[280] Mr
Towler: We’ve no idea. It’s a mystery to us. I
think you’re absolutely right: what we need is good hard
data. We need something at the centre that actually is concerned
about this and wants to take a good look at it. I think what
we’ve said is, or what we see, is that the absence of that
work happening at the moment is massively detrimental to the
voluntary youth work sector—of that we’re absolutely
convinced. But we don’t know what a sufficient youth service
looks like. So, you’re right, but we need something to take
responsibility for making that happen.
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[281] Darren
Millar: But do you accept it’s premature to call for
hypothecation before you actually know what’s going to be
delivered?
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[282] Mr
Towler: No, I don’t accept that, because actually, if you
look at it through the prism of our membership, it’s
reasonably desperate at the moment. It’s a reasonable call.
[Interruption.]
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[283]
Lynne Neagle: Darren, let him finish.
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[284]
Darren Millar: But why would you want to force expenditure up to a
certain limit if there’s actually good provision on the
ground in some localities already? I think in my own constituency
there’s not a great deal spent on youth services, in Conwy in
particular as a local authority, yet the reality is there’s a
very rich level of activity in terms of youth provision from
voluntary sector providers. We’ve got very well-developed
local services. Now, as to the quality of those services, as to the
reach of those services, as to whether there’s sufficient
targeting in terms of those services, or co-ordination between the
voluntary sector providers, I think there are big questions about
that, but at the end of the day, if Conwy was forced to spend up to
a certain level, it may be wasted money, frankly, and not good
value for taxpayers. That’s the point I’m making. So,
isn’t the mapping something that’s got to come first,
finding out where the gaps are, and then plugging those gaps? And
that’s why we need this national body to take some sort of
overarching responsibility.
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[285]
Mr Towler: I wouldn’t argue with any of that. I would say
that there is some speed in making this happen when you think about
the 50 per cent of our membership that is in stagnation or is not
likely to survive beyond the next financial year. So, the urgency
of this is really quite significant, because even in a place like
Conwy, I’m assuming that some of those organisations will be
pretty much in that state. We’ve been talking about this, as
a country, around youth work for many years, so I think
there’s something about the speed with which some control
needs to be taken over protecting youth work services. However that
allocation is spent and used, we can argue about, but actually I
think there’s a real need to make sure that people understand
the urgency of this before the voluntary youth work sector begins
to disappear in front of us.
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[286] Darren Millar: Okay.
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[287]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. John.
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[288]
John Griffiths:
On the same point, really, Chair, Julie
mentioned this debate about hypothecation with local authorities,
and we’re all familiar with it, but one of the trends has
been, I think, to try and move local authorities to producing
certain outcomes. So, as long as they produce the outcomes,
that’s fine. So, in terms of what Darren raised, if they can
demonstrate a certain level of provision and the sustainability of
that level of provision, dealing with what you just said, Keith,
then is that fine without hypothecation? Is that
possible?
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[289]
Mr Glaze: I think the issue for us is about consistency and the
application of that across the board. The fact that there are such
wild variations suggests that, for example, it’s not too far
of a stretch of the imagination to say that somebody in
Conwy’s being well looked after as a young person, but in a
place that’s spending 38 per cent of its revenue support
grant, proportionally the voluntary sector has far less of an
opportunity to tap into what might be available.
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[290]
The one example I can give you is that
one principal youth officer was telling me that, within his region,
he would normally have supported six of our member organisations to
deliver work on behalf of the local authority. Because of the cuts
to the programmes and the money that he’s had, he knows that
at least four of those are likely to go to the wall, which means
that young people will have less of a choice and less provision in
that area. That local authority, already having taken the view to
go down a targeted route, it’s a double whammy for those
young people in that area. You could argue whether those voluntary
organisation should be that reliant on that source of funding,
which I think is a separate issue. The fact is that there are young
people at the end of that not receiving that service any longer.
So, it’s about the application, I think, really, and the
parity across local authority areas. That would be our
argument.
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[291]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Can I just ask—? You raised some concerns
in your paper about procurement, and particularly how the Welsh
Government’s procurement is
working, and that a lot of the procurement seems to be with
organisations in England. Would you like to expand on that and why
you think that’s happening?
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11:30
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[292] Mr Glaze:
Yes. To answer your last point first, we don’t know why
it’s happening, really. We’re concerned because we know
that there are several individuals and organisations within Wales
who are more than capable of delivering that work. What we
don’t know, I suppose, is whether those organisations and
individuals are actually applying to take that work on. As CWVYS,
we were part of a joint bid to run the quality mark for youth work
in Wales; we lost out on that, and that’s fine. We’ve
reflected on that in the response. It was a fair fight;
that’s okay. But, pretty much all the contracts that have
been released within the last 12 or 18 months by Welsh Government
have gone to contractors based in England. There is a definite link
to those people who’ve worked for or with the National Youth
Agency in England, too. And what that does is raise a certain level
of suspicion, but also, from a practical perspective, anybody,
naturally, coming into a different nation to deliver some work has
to understand the landscape and how that works before they can
actually do the work. So, we would suggest that parts of the
timescale within which they are commissioned to do the work is
actually wasted, really, because they have to do that leg work
before they can actually start to report.
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[293] There are a
couple of reports outstanding at the moment that we were expecting
to come out recently. One was by Cordis Bright for the youth
engagement and progression framework—a mapping exercise they
were doing across the whole of Wales. We’re yet to see that.
There was also a piece of work that was commissioned, actually
within Wales, to look at the voluntary sector and how it works with
local authorities, and we’re yet to see that one also. But
there is a general growing issue, and our trustees have asked us to
raise this at the highest possible level, in terms of the
procurement processes. They’re very concerned, I think.
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[294] Mr
Towler: I think there’s also a level of frustration
amongst membership organisations that’s expressed by the
trustees of CWVYS, where consultants are commissioned to come in
and do specific pieces of work and then their first port of call,
of course, is to contact member organisations of CWVYS to give them
the information that they then reflect back in reports. So, you can
understand the level of frustration from members and what the drain
on them is when they’re providing information that they
already know, and if somebody took the trouble to ask them, they
could do it themselves. So, you can see where the frustration
exists, I think.
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[295]
Ms James: Rwyf wedi bod ynghlwm â pheth o’r
gwaith sydd wedi bod yn digwydd o ran ‘Dyfodol
Llwyddiannus’, adroddiad Donaldson, ac mae’n ddiddorol
yn fanna lle maen nhw wedi rhoi perchnogaeth o’r cwricwlwm yn
ôl i ysgolion ac athrawon a dweud, ‘Wel, dywedwch chi
wrthym ni sut ŷch chi’n mynd i weithredu hwn.’ Oni
fyddai’n braf i gael rhywbeth tebyg ar gyfer y sector gwaith
ieuenctid, lle gallem ni ddefnyddio’n creadigrwydd ar y cyd
â’r sector statudol i gyd-gynllunio’r atebion
sydd eu hangen ar y sector, ac nid dibynnu ar bwrcasu trwy’r
amser? Wedyn, byddai gennym ni’r berchnogaeth a’r
atebolrwydd, ac nid oes dim byd yn well na chi eich hun yn
hunanasesu ac yn bod yn ffrind critigol i weld lle rŷch
chi’n mynd yn anghywir.
|
Ms
James: I have been involved with some of the work that has
happened with regard to ‘Successful Futures’, the
Donaldson report, and it’s interesting there that
they’ve given ownership of the curriculum back to schools and
teachers and said, ‘Well, you tell us how you’re going
to implement this.’ Wouldn’t it be nice to have a
similar thing for the youth sector, where we could use our
creativity jointly with the statutory sector to jointly plan the
solutions that the sector needs, and not rely on purchasing all the
time? Then, we would have ownership and accountability, and there
is nothing better than undertaking your own self-assessment and
being your own critical friend to see where you’re going
wrong.
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|
[296]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Can I just ask about European funding,
then? Obviously, we’ve got the prospect now of having a big
gap in our funds; how easy is it to quantify how much European
funding is actually in the system? Have you made any preliminary
assessment of how youth services are going to be affected by
Brexit?
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|
[297]
Mr Glaze: It’s a real concern for a lot of the
organisations we work with. Perhaps if I talk about Erasmus+
funding, for example. There are several of our member organisations
that have taken advantage of that programme, and it’s not
necessarily about the cash involved, it’s also about the
opportunities that it throws up for training and workforce
development opportunities across the whole of Europe. Equally,
we’ve got one specific member organisation of ours whose work
is about European voluntary services. So, it will accept young
people from across Europe and also will support young people from
Wales to go to Europe. So, they’re very concerned about that
in particular. From an international volunteering perspective,
that’s the only one that delivers that in Wales. So,
they’re very concerned.
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|
[298] We’ve got some really good examples of
organisations that have developed programmes, such as Boys’
and Girls’ Clubs of Wales with their Not the Usual Suspects,
their democratic engagement processes; UNA Exchange, which delivers
its Step by Step project; and also ASH Wales was successful in
getting €250,000 to deliver their anti-smoking work across the
whole of Europe as well. So, we’ve had some really good
success stories. We’re told by the British Council and Ecorys
UK that Wales is currently running at about 5 per cent of its
allocation, which is roughly what they expected. As you know,
there’s €1 billion available for the UK as a whole until
2020, and the increase in EU funding for Erasmus means that the
budget is £14.7 billion across the whole of Europe as
well. I hope that answers your question, but also I think people
are very fearful about what’s likely to happen as a result of
that, and where they might be able to find that funding.
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|
[299] The other issue
is about European structural funds, if I may. There is an issue
there, isn’t there, in terms of local authorities bidding for
that funding. Again, anecdotally, members are telling us that they
feel locked out of that particular opportunity. Having said that,
the sector also is aware that both programmes are going to finish
in 2020, so it’s about the planning and how you overcome that
for the future.
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|
[300] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Llyr.
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|
[301]
Llyr Gruffydd: Just on Erasmus, my understanding is that you
don’t have to be a member of the European Union to access it;
there’s a process where you can actually buy into
it.
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|
[302]
Mr Glaze: You can.
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|
[303]
Llyr Gruffydd: So, I think one of the messages we may wish to
consider to Welsh Government, coming out of this, is that they
actually proactively pursue that as one consideration in their
negotiations with the UK Government.
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|
[304]
Mr Glaze: To embellish that, really, as CWVYS we’re
members of the British Council consultative committee. We also sit
on the grants panel. We’ve got a really good relationship
with ERYICA, which is the European Youth Information and
Counselling Agency, and we’re also the sole partner for
Eurodesk UK. So, we’re well embedded in terms of the
information services that are available, and we are obviously
priming our members to get more involved in those kinds of
processes. It’s interesting
that, in the last year or so, people have been talking about the
youth work euro as opposed to the youth work pound, which is an
interesting shift in emphasis.
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|
[305]
Lynne Neagle: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from
Members? No? Okay. Can I thank the representatives of CWVYS for
coming this morning to give us evidence? It’s been really
informative, and thank you too for the paper that you provided. As
is normal practice, you’ll receive a transcript of the
meeting to check for accuracy. Thank you very much.
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|
[306]
Mr Glaze: Thank you.
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|
[307]
Mr Towler: Thanks a lot.
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11:37
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|
Ymchwiliad i
Waith Ieuenctid: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 2—Grŵp Prif Swyddogion Ieuenctid Cymru a
Chymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru
Inquiry into Youth Work:
Evidence Session 2—Wales Principal Youth Officers’
Group and Welsh Local Government Association
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|
[308]
Lynne Neagle: Okay, we’ll move on now then to item 4, which
is our second evidence session in our youth work inquiry. I’m
delighted to welcome the Wales principal youth officers’
group and the Welsh Local Government Association here today.
We’ve got Dr Chris Llewelyn, director of lifelong learning,
leisure and Welsh language at the WLGA—welcome; Barbara Howe,
youth service manager, Torfaen County Borough Council; Jason
Haeney, who is the principal youth and community officer at Neath
Port Talbot County Borough Council; and Tim Opie who is lifelong
learning policy officer, youth. So, welcome to you all and thank
you for coming this morning, and thank you too for your paper. If
you’re happy, we’ll go straight into questions from
Members, and I’ve got John Griffiths first.
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|
[309]
John Griffiths:
I’m interested to know, really, to
what extent local authorities in Wales are in a position to know
what’s being delivered in the way of youth services in their
areas, not just by themselves directly but as a whole. What mapping
takes place? How comprehensive and effective is it?
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|
[310]
Dr Llewelyn: Shall I kick off? As you know, John, I’m from
the WLGA, so I can give you an overview, as it were, but I think my
colleagues are probably better positioned and better informed to
give a more operational view of things.
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|
[311]
In terms of the information that we use
nationally, through the revenue outturn data that authorities
provide, we get a rough picture of how much is spent on youth
services, and then the Welsh Government—or rather
StatsWales—produces a bulletin that provides more detail in
terms of provision at a national level and at an individual
authority level as well. But there is something of a delay
in terms of that information being available.
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|
[312] And, then, the
other thing that has to be borne in mind as well is that
authorities are structured in different ways. They deliver services
in different ways, and I think, increasingly, in recent years, as
authorities respond to cuts in funding and look at alternative
models of delivering services, it becomes more difficult, I think,
to make comparisons between services. But, as an organisation, we
don’t routinely collect that kind of information.
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|
[313] John
Griffiths: So, the short answer is then that there isn’t
a comprehensive mapping exercise that shows who’s delivering
what, whether there’s duplication, whether there are
gaps.
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|
[314] Mr Opie:
Can I come in? I’m just thinking, previously, we had the
children and young people’s partnerships, which carried out a
lot of the youth support services element of that. Young
people’s partnerships would have carried out that work. They
had a mandate and they had resource to do so. I think, today, that
formal process isn’t in place, but at local level I know the
principal youth officer or strategic leads for the youth service
are carrying out that function. They do have very good contacts
with their voluntary sector partners at local level. A few years
ago, as well, after the demise of the youth support services, Estyn
were delivering lines of enquiry to local authorities through the
principal youth officer as to them being that fulcrum for pulling
that information together. But, of course, there wasn’t that
formal mandate for them to do so, but, nonetheless, I think that
does go on at local level, and they do have very good knowledge of
voluntary sector services. But, at national level, that’s not
aggregated.
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|
[315] Mr
Haeney: Within Neath Port Talbot, we’ve got a youth
support services liaison officer, whose job is to look at the
mapping exercise across the local authority. He also works with the
family information service on websites and how we present that
information back then to the public. We also run multi-agency
groups, but they’re normally targeted at maybe NEETS
multi-agency groups, or work-based learning providers, so
there’s definite room for improvement, but the youth
providers network in Neath Port Talbot was a very good forum of
getting people around the table, but, without that, that’s
why we changed the role to a support services liaison officer to
carry out the mapping exercise.
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|
[316] John
Griffiths: Just very quickly, Chair, no doubt then it’s
variable across local authority areas, but would you say in your
area then that there has been, and there is, a comprehensive
mapping of youth services? Would you be able to say that?
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|
[317] Mr
Haeney: I think there’s definitely room for improvement.
I don’t think it’s as good, personally, as the youth
providers network was. It’s basically, I think, that
there’s fewer people, trying to do more, within Neath Port
Talbot, for example, and I think when the young people’s
partnerships were involved, I think that was a specific job that
they could carry out better.
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|
[318] John
Griffiths: Okay.
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|
[319] Lynne
Neagle: Do you want to add anything, Barbara?
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|
[320] Ms Howe:
I can only speak locally, as can Jason, and we co-ordinate the
support services network that provides all—. We advise all
the local voluntary youth support services to showcase and share
good practice, and they’ve become members of the network. We
also have the family information service, and that’s really
how we—. And we do a local mapping in the youth service. We
work very closely with CWVYS and I regularly meet with Paul. So, in
terms of actually bringing together formal information, really
it’s done by the family information service in our area as
well.
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|
[321] John
Griffiths: Would that service, then—that would provide a
comprehensive map of what’s being delivered in terms of youth
services in your area, would it? Where there’s
again—you know, so you could look at it and see whether
there’s duplication, whether there are gaps.
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|
[322] Ms Howe:
That’s the intention.
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|
[323] John
Griffiths: That’s the intention.
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|
[324] Ms Howe:
Yes, but I think it’s—. Whereas—I agree with
Tim—the young people’s partnership, they used to do a
comprehensive, formal mapping exercise, it is really now diluted
down to individual services, both in the public sector and the
voluntary sector. And, if you have officers whose job it is
designated to do that, then it’s done really well, and the
information is given accurately.
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|
11:45
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|
[325]
John Griffiths:
Okay.
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|
[326]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you.
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|
[327] Mr Opie:
Sorry, can I just add that, under the youth engagement and
progression framework, there is a requirement for local authorities
to work with voluntary sector partners and other providers around
education, employment and training, under the common application
process, or the CAP? So, there is some mapping that’s done
there, but it’s not as comprehensive as I think you’re
looking for around youth services, generally, in a local area.
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[328] Dr
Llewelyn: Chair, would it be useful if we were to pursue this
with authorities, and then feed back to the committee, to establish
what the position is?
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[329]
Lynne Neagle: Yes, I think that would be very valuable, thank you.
I’ve got Oscar next, then you, Darren.
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|
[330]
Mohammad Asghar:
Thank you very much indeed, Chair. My
question is to Jason and Barbara, really. Would you agree that the
engagement strategy with the voluntary sector needs strengthening?
How do you see the Welsh Government’s role in this, and does
more need to be done at ministerial level to bring about cohesion
between the statutory and voluntary sectors?
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|
[331]
Lynne Neagle: Oscar, we’re going to go on shortly to Welsh
Government. Was your question on what you’d heard,
Darren?
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|
[332]
Darren Millar: Yes, it was. It was just responding to Jason, if
that’s okay. I’ve just had a quick look on your
website. You referred to the fact that you’d developed a
website, which demonstrated what was available locally in Neath
Port Talbot, and it is a good, comprehensive website, but only
about the services provided by the local authority. There’s
no information on there about other youth organisations and the
opportunities that young people might have to access other good
youth provision. Why is that?
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|
[333]
Mr Haeney: That’s the Neath Port Talbot youth service
website, I think—
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|
[334]
Darren Millar: I understand that, but you gave the impression, in
response to John Griffiths, that it was more of a, ‘This is
what we’ve mapped’.
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|
[335]
Mr Haeney: Sorry, the family information service website is the
one that’s the comprehensive mapping of provision within
Neath Port Talbot. Neath Port Talbot youth services website, in
particular—if I’m honest with you, I think we’re
going down the route where it’s going to become redundant. We
find that young people are not really using the website. I think
that social media is the way that we are interacting with young
people now, so that’s what we find is the best
way.
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|
[336]
Darren Millar: Right. So, if I click into your family bit—the
family information service—it will be in there, will
it?
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|
[337]
Mr Haeney: Yes.
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|
[338]
Darren Millar: Okay. I’ll do that. Thank you.
|
|
[339]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Before we go on to Welsh Government,
we’ve heard from lots of stakeholders that the universal
youth work offer is the bedrock of the youth service, but that that
is coming under pressure. To what extent are you finding, as local
authorities, that you’re being driven to offer more targeted
services? Who would like to start?
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|
[340]
Dr Llewelyn: Well, shall I kick off? I think it’s inevitable
that—I think there are two things that come to bear. One is
the funding position, because, in recent years, budgets have been
cut—the revenue support grant’s cut by something like
1.5 per cent in this current year, and 3.5 per cent last year, and,
I think, 4 per cent the year before. So, inevitably, local
authorities are faced with trying to make ends meet, as it were.
The focus is on delivering statutory services, but also, as I
mentioned earlier, looking at more creative ways of spending their
funding, and, in a sense, making sure that they meet the statutory
obligations as far as is possible.
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|
[341]
And the other thing then that’s
happening as well, I think, is with the strategic direction, if you
like, from the Welsh Government, the focus on NEETs, and other
policy initiatives. I think there is, it’s probably fair to
say, a slight shift of focus away from the universal service
towards targeting as well. So, inevitably then, I think,
authorities at an individual authority level are having to respond
to that.
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[342]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Barbara.
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|
[343] Ms Howe: At the
heart of the profession is the voluntary engagement, and
that’s where we have to start, I think, with any discussion
around this. Because young people are not mandated, and they
don’t have to attend any of our provision. And that’s
central to the profession. More and more, we find that we are
performing more targeted work, just due to general capacity.
That’s going to squeeze the universal access to young people.
Having said that—I can only speak for my service—but,
even in the targeted work, we still have that voluntary
engagement with young people, and young people can still walk away
from us, even if they’re referred to some provision. Some of
our sessions in schools, for example—ultimately, it is
education’s responsibility to ensure that those children and
young people receive a rounded, holistic education. But the
engagement, for me, the voluntary engagement, is absolutely central
to the relationship, and the meaningful relationship, between the
youth worker and the young person. There are very few services that
actually target young people from 11 to 25, and those young people
can come back, they can enter our service when they’re 11,
and then, at pinch points in their life, they tend to pop up and
reappear, and they can still access that same youth worker, because
it’s about the relationship as opposed to the targeted
intervention.
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[344] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Anybody want to add to that?
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|
[345] Mr
Haeney: I’d echo what Barbara was saying; I think
it’s the same within Neath Port Talbot. Targeted work, it is
an essential part of our work—it’s linked closely to a
lot of our grants—but the universal service is one of the
only services that I know of that is open to anybody; they
don’t have to have any criteria attached to them and
it’s in the communities. And I think that, within Neath Port
Talbot, I’m quite lucky—we’ve got the support of
the local councillors; they want to keep the universal provisions
open. I can’t say that’s the same across Wales. I think
we’re in a quite unique position.
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|
[346] Lynne
Neagle: Okay, thank you. You all right, or do you want to add
something?
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[347] Mr Opie:
If I may. I was just looking at some of the lines of questioning
around youth work being available to all young people. Youth work
has never worked with all young people, but that availability is
crucial. There was a report carried out by a Westminster education
committee about five or six years ago, which—and I
don’t want to go into the detail of this, but it’s very
useful in looking at the benefits of universal provision to young
people, particularly who are vulnerable, because it removes the
stigma and offers them routes into other targeted support. But
it’s also important, I think, that those young people are
exposed to other young people of different aspirations and
backgrounds.
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[348] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Hefin.
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[349] Hefin
David: Just reading the written evidence, I’m not sure if
I picked up in the previous evidence we got from CWVYS an implicit
criticism of creative ways of reconfiguring provision through, for
example, merging with youth offending services as a way of
providing a service. I got the impression that they were quite
critical of that because, you know, youth offending and youth
services should be actually distinct.
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[350] Mr Opie:
I think there’s an argument for that. However, there are a
number of different models across Wales emerging through innovative
responses to the current funding climate, and I’ve spoken to
those local authorities that have adopted that model, and they are
feeding back to me that it’s a very successful model, because
the youth offending service workers and the youth workers are
working with the same group of young people, but they’re able
to contribute different skill sets to those young people and share
their skill sets as well. So—[Interruption.] Go
on.
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|
[351] Dr
Llewelyn: Can I come in here? I’ve not heard the
criticism, and it may be the case that they aren’t critical,
but, in the current climate and the context, I think it is a bit
harsh, you know, because by far the greatest criticism of local
government is about not being imaginative and creative and looking
at alternative models. And, inevitably, I think, in times of
financial pressure, authorities are trying to respond as
effectively as they can to the differing circumstances. If they do
look at alternative models of delivery, inevitably, I think, some
are going to be more successful than others, because it’s not
always an easy task to come up with a successful solution when
faced with adversity. I suppose the trick is, you know, when things
do go well, to learn from them, and then, if there are models that
maybe aren’t as effective as they might be, to look at what
the issues are and then respond as well. But we see it across all
local authority service areas, and especially the discretionary
areas—you know, we see it in culture and leisure in
particular—having to look at squeezing as much value as
possible from the investment that’s taking place.
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|
[352] Lynne
Neagle: Thank you. Julie, on this.
|
|
[353] Julie
Morgan: Can I just ask on this, in terms—? I wanted to go
to the youth offending teams. Would they then include qualified
youth workers? I entirely support the idea that local authorities
have got to look at innovative ways, but I’m concerned about
youth work as a profession and how that is continuing.
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|
[354] Mr Opie:
Traditionally, youth offending teams have had at least one youth
worker attached to them and, in my experience, having spoken to YOT
managers in the past, some have said they’d have a team of
youth workers. But I think, as I say, it’s two different
disciplines, because young people are often, sort of, sentenced to
receive youth offending service work, but the youth workers Barbara
mentioned, the voluntary engagement, and those different skill sets
I think complement each other very well in those models that are
operating at the moment.
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[355]
Julie Morgan: So, you can get over the compulsory element and the
voluntary element in the same setting.
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[356]
Ms Howe: Shall I give you an example of what is actually
happening in Torfaen? The reoffending rates were increasing in
Torfaen for young people. Whilst we worked together on the
preventative side, actually trying to prevent young people going
into the system—they reduced, but the reoffending rates were
increasing. Following some discussions with both the youth service
and the YOS, what we found was that, by those young people coming
into a youth service setting, accessing initiatives around
meaningful relationships, accessing initiatives around basic skills
around cooking, around budget management, around actually engaging
with other people, the impact that your behaviour has on others has
led to—. It started off as a tiny project, but it’s led
to a much larger project now. We open the cafes and things like
that to the YOS, which works in partnership with us. And the young
people—I’m not saying the offending rates are going
down because of the youth services, but I’m saying that
we’re all part of the jigsaw. What we’re finding is
that their behaviours and their awareness of meaningful
relationships have grown. And because of the voluntary
relationship, they actually don’t have to be there with us.
We’re written in as part of their orders now, but they
don’t have to be there. Ironically, the fact that they can
walk away means they don’t. They stay with us. It absolutely
is paying off. Two very different approaches. They’re on
orders, they have to attend YOS sessions. With us, they
don’t, but they do. We take them to doctor sessions and
everything like that.
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[357]
Lynne Neagle: Okay, thank you. We’ll move on now then to
Welsh Government strategy and leadership. Oscar, would you like to
ask your question again?
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|
[358]
Mohammad Asghar:
It’s all right, thanks.
|
|
[359]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Llyr.
|
|
[360]
Llyr Gruffydd: Thank you, Chair. For me, the crux of this inquiry
really is who’s driving the youth service in Wales.
There’s huge criticism in the evidence that we’ve
received, the written evidence, of the role of the Welsh Government
in failing to provide the leadership, articulating the strategic
vision for youth service in Wales, and then bringing all the
partners together to coherently deliver that vision. You, in your
evidence, say that it’s regrettable that it’s rare that
the Welsh Government engages with important youth-work
stakeholders. You say that there’s been a systematic
downgrading of youth work within Welsh Government. I presume, from
that, that you’re not content with the situation as it is.
What, therefore, would you like to see happen? We’ve heard
from CWVYS, for example, a suggestion of the creation of a national
council for youth work services in Wales. Is that something that
you’d support or do you have any other suggestions as to how
we can address this fundamental weakness, really, in the current
set-up?
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|
[361] Dr Llewelyn: Shall I go first? Certainly, within local government
there is an acceptance that the role of the central
Government—the Welsh Government in this instance—is to
set the strategy and direction of travel, and then the role of
local government is to deliver on that strategic vision and
direction and take account of local circumstances. Our view, Chair,
and right across all services, is that local government is best
placed to interpret the national strategic direction, in
accordance with the circumstances they face. I think the criticism
from the sector in this instance is that the engagement with local
government could be better in terms of interpreting, and providing
support for local government in interpreting, the direction and
what the strategic vision is.
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|
12:00
|
|
[362] We had a
conference yesterday with Graham Donaldson of the curriculum review
and other Welsh Government officials as well. It was a very useful
event. I think on both sides it was found to be fruitful.
That’s an example of where, you know, a strategic direction
is set by the Government, but then there is clearly a role for
local government and the youth service in interpreting that vision.
If one looks at Donaldson’s work and the four purposes that
are set out, they align very much to the role of youth work and the
youth service, in terms of enabling children and young people to
fulfil the potential that they’ve got, to get them to develop
and contribute meaningfully to the communities in which they live
and the broader aims of society, and to become economically active
to create a prosperous and strong economy, and so on. And yet, I
think maybe that, in that document, there isn’t a direct
reference to the youth service, and it’s probably fair to say
that, hitherto, the engagement with the youth service hasn’t
been brilliant. But it was discussed in yesterday’s
conference, and the reaction was very positive. There was a
commitment that the principal youth officers’ group will be
asked to attend some of the network meetings of pioneer schools,
and we will have more discussion about how that engagement can take
place going forward. But I think that that’s the kind of
engagement that’s needed and, on occasion, doesn’t
happen. I don’t know if colleagues want to add to that.
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|
[363] Mr
Haeney: I would probably say the same. I think sometimes we
feel that we could be consulted a bit more. I think the message
that we are getting is that we need to be knocking on the door a
bit more. So, on both sides, I think there is room for improvement.
There have been some examples of work that has been presented to us
that we really haven’t seen before and that the sector are
unhappy about. You know, we are just going to have to continue
working and building bridges with the Welsh Government, I
think.
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|
[364] Mr Opie:
I think the sector, generally, has suffered in relation to status
and profile, but we were talking yesterday about green shoots. I
think one of those green shoots is the Education Workforce Council.
As you are possibly aware, from April 2017, youth workers will be
required to register alongside teachers and further education
professionals. We are working with Welsh Government through their
youth work team and other civil servants who are leading on the
legislation, as well as with the Education Workforce Council. So, I
think that there are certainly opportunities. What I would say, on
behalf of the principal youth officers’ group and the WLGA,
is that we are here to support the now small team in Welsh
Government, and we will do so.
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[365]
Llyr Gruffydd: Your written evidence is much more damning, if I
could say so. You sound very, very timid. I mean, this is your
opportunity to really articulate to us exactly what the vision
should be and how that could be delivered. I mean, you say that
you’d like to be consulted a bit more. In your written
evidence, you say that policies are published without the sector
being involved. I mean, this is a missed opportunity, unless you
tell us now today—. The criticism is coming through, loud and
clear, from a number of directions, but over the last 30 minutes, I
haven’t heard it at all.
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[366]
Mr Opie: I think that what we have found in the last couple of
years is that we’ve had formal national conferences and
events delivered by Welsh Government, and that documents have been
published at those events that we hadn’t had sight of before.
That is problematic, but, as I say—
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[367]
Llyr Gruffydd: So, how do we fix it, then? That’s what we want
to understand. What would the answer be? What I’m picking up
is, you know, ‘Maybe a little bit more of this, or a little
bit more of that.’ The feeling I get is that it’s, you
know, much more fundamentally flawed, if you like, in terms of the
relationship between Welsh Government and the sector—not just
local authority. It may be better in your context than it is for
the voluntary sector, potentially—I perceive that that would
be the case—but, still, it feels very, sort of, disjointed, I
have to say.
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[368]
Ms Howe: If I could just give you one example of something
that came out of the Welsh Assembly recently. It was called an
outcomes framework and actually it was an outputs framework. For us
in local authorities we have oceans of outcomes that we can
demonstrate: journeys for young people that they’ve
travelled—real journeys, real progress. Actually just getting
out of the house and even facing going back into their house,
sometimes, they face things that we don’t
encounter—well, I definitely wouldn’t encounter or
haven’t encountered in my life. When we questioned and
challenged the outcomes, which was an outputs framework, it
didn’t seem to land. I went to a couple of those workshops
and it didn’t seem to land because the outcomes—.
There’s a lot of initiatives that target academic
achievement, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but
for some young people an achievement of just actually going on a
bus, having the confidence to go on a bus and get to meet their
friends down the valley is something you can’t measure
through academia. We have those outcomes. We can show those
journeys. We have distance travel tools that we can show that
through and that will be missed in an outputs framework.
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[369]
Dr Llewelyn: Can I come in as well? In terms of the written
evidence, it is gathered through consultation with the 22
authorities and the services within each of the authorities. As the
WLGA, I think as I mentioned at the outset, we engage with the
Welsh Government at a strategic level and it seems to me that what
comes through in the evidence is the need, maybe, to be more
self-conscious and to have a better process or better mechanisms of
then communicating with the sector from the strategic down to the
operational level. It may be that in the association’s
interface with Ministers and senior civil servants there is
dialogue and discussion in terms of the strategic direction, but
what I think we’ve picked up from the evidence gathering is
that, as we then move down the system, if you like, towards the
more operational end, it’s at that point where I think there
needs to be more effective—. Maybe it is a level of
self-consciousness and of being aware of the need to communicate,
to discuss and to engage with the sector, because I think it comes
through that, within the sector, there is the feeling that, maybe,
the communication could definitely be better. If there are
instances where documentation is produced or strategies are
published without consultation, I don’t think that anybody
would want to be in that position. I don’t think it’s
an effective way across the public sector.
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[370]
Lynne Neagle: Okay. Michelle and Darren.
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[371]
Michelle Brown:
Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask
you what your view would be on the creation of the national youth
work council for Wales. Do you think that would help bring improved
strategy and bring everybody together? Do you think that would be
an effective way forward?
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[372]
Dr Llewelyn: I think, from a WLGA point of view, we have raised
this issue in the past and I think there’s definitely room
there for a discussion—is there some potential there for
getting some kind of national forum where various partners could
get together and discuss issues of common concern? We would
certainly be interested. If there were to be the idea of doing
that, we’d be interested in a discussion.
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[373]
Mr Opie: I think the sector is somewhat unique in the fact
that there isn’t that platform to promote and improve youth
work in Wales. I sat on a steering group that established the
Education Workforce Council and I was there through goodwill from
CWVYS and the principal youth officers’ group to speak on
their behalf, but I couldn’t in a, sort of, executive
capacity. So, that’s just one practical example. I think as
well on the issue that, Llyr, you raised about leadership in the
sector, there is potential that a body like that could perform that
function as a critical friend with Welsh Government.
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[374] Lynne
Neagle: Anything you want to add, Barbara or Jason?
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[375] Mr
Haeney: I think that the principal youth officers’ group
would support the national youth work council for Wales idea. I
think that would be quite an interesting one, going forward. I
think it would help build the links, like Tim suggested, as
well.
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[376] Lynne
Neagle: Okay. Darren, then Hefin.
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[377] Darren
Millar: I just wanted to follow up on these communication
issues and problems that you, Mr Llewelyn, were sort of identifying
between the Welsh Government and local government on youth
services. What about the communication problems between local
government and local providers in their areas? We were just told by
CWVYS that, you know, very rarely are youth organisations invited
to sit on local authority partnerships that might be operating in
different areas. Why is that? You can’t criticise the Welsh
Government if you’re not pulling your weight yourself in
terms of communication at a local level, can you?
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[378] Dr
Llewelyn: Maybe my colleagues can comment about what happens
within their own authorities. That concern hasn’t been raised
with us as a national organisation, so if it is, then I’m
surprised that it hasn’t been put to us.
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[379] Darren
Millar: I appreciate that there might be variables and some
good examples. It sounds like, in Neath Port Talbot in particular,
you’ve got some good local work, and probably in your area as
well, in Torfaen. But what is being done to support, if you like,
those who might be lone voices within the local authority, if
it’s not given the priority that it might deserve—youth
work—that are trying to manage this unwieldy sort of bringing
together of those different organisations, or even trying to
identify them, which is a struggle for some?
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[380] Dr
Llewelyn: We would be open to that discussion. If it was raised
with us, we would be happy to engage in a further discussion. I
think, with your suggestion of looking for examples of good
practice, if there are relations within particular authorities that
are deemed to work effectively, and the other partners think it
works well, then we’d be more than happy to look at how we
could promote that and share it with other authorities.
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[381] Mr Opie:
It’s not something I’ve been aware of, and it’s
not been raised with me, but I think it’s fair to say as well
that CWVYS is represented by its membership, and there are a number
of other voluntary sector organisations of varying sizes across
Wales that do engage with local authorities. But it’s
certainly something that we’ll look into. As Chris says,
I’m happy to have that conversation with the sector.
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[382] Darren
Millar: Thank you.
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[383] Lynne
Neagle: Hefin.
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[384] Hefin
David: Do local service boards have a role?
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[385] Mr Opie:
In—?
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[386] Hefin
David: In engaging with youth services.
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[387] Mr Opie:
I think that’s a question that maybe CWVYS can answer. I know
that they’re keen to be involved with the new public service
boards.
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[388] Hefin
David: Public service boards, sorry.
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[389] Mr Opie:
Yes.
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[390] Lynne
Neagle: Would local government welcome the input of the youth
service into the public service boards?
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[391] Dr
Llewelyn: Yes, I think it probably is a requirement, but
it’s something we could look into. There seems to be some
potential there.
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[392] Lynne
Neagle: Okay.
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[393] Hefin
David: Just to say, one of the things that CWVYS said to us is
that the voluntary services haven’t got the capacity or the
resources to engage with public service boards.
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[394] Mr Opie:
This has traditionally been an issue—the children and young
people’s partnerships, because there were 22. It’s
finding that mechanism for that link.
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[395] Dr
Llewelyn: In terms of the public service boards, I suspect that
that would be a widespread problem. I think, in having 22, many of
the other partners would—. I think I’ve seen various
public statements that it does stretch the capacity of smaller
organisations.
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[396] Lynne
Neagle: Chris, you’ve highlighted a tension between
constricted resources and the fact that the youth service is in the
statutory provision, yet, in Wales, we’ve got the
children’s rights Measure, which is meant to confer
entitlement on children and young people. Can I just ask each of
you whether you would support a statutory duty to provide youth
services being introduced in Wales?
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[397] Dr
Llewelyn: There is statutory underpinning at the moment. I
think it would be a question of looking at the detail of any new
proposal.
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[398] Mr Opie:
The directions and guidance that are currently in place for the
sector, which links to the Learning and Skills Act 2000, are
extending entitlement. I think that, again, talking about status
and profile, in recent times, whilst the majority of the sector
would agree that they still work to it and it’s all still
relevant, it may need some kind of restatement.
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12:15
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[399] Welsh Government
have tried on a couple of occasions in the last approximately 10
years to review that and it’s hit the buffers for various
reasons. But, as Chris says, that legislation and guidance is
there.
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[400] Lynne
Neagle: Barbara and Jason.
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[401] Ms Howe:
I think, for us, we feel that we are a statutory requirement
because we’re written into an awful lot of initiatives, like
the youth engagement framework, for example, and embedded in there
is youth work. That can’t be delivered without youth workers.
Families First and Team Around the Child—they can’t be
delivered without lead workers forming part of the youth work
profession. So, I feel like we are in there, implicitly, but not
explicitly. So, there are an awful lot of WAG initiatives that
actually wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—delivered
without the inclusion of youth work. Extending entitlement, I feel,
is an invisible, embedded practice across Wales. People
still—and I agree with Tim—adhere to ‘Extending
Entitlement’, and the youth work charter that’s
recently come out is a fairly good précis, I guess, of the
10 entitlements, but it’s ‘Extending Entitlement’
that is the invisible default document that we all go back to.
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[402]
Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Jason.
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[403]
Mr Haeney: It’s the same for Neath Port Talbot. I think
‘Extending Entitlement’ is the go-to document for us. I
think that the statutory requirements for the local authorities on
youth work could be strengthened. That would help the sector. But I
agree with the youth charter; it’s a good example of
something that’s been done recently that we can work towards
and, within the local authority of Neath Port Talbot, there’s
lots of youth work involvement in lots of different aspects of the
well-being of young people and their education. Maybe we could look
at strengthening and building that in a little bit.
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[404]
Lynne Neagle: Okay, thank you. We’ll move—
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[405]
Ms Howe: We’ve got the future generations Act now. How
can that go forward without somebody representing young people in
their communities?
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[406]
Lynne Neagle: Okay, thank you. We’ll go on to funding now,
then. Darren.
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[407]
Darren Millar: Yes. In terms of the funding, there’s been a
suggestion from the voluntary sector that there needs to be some
kind of hypothecation for funding. I just wonder what your response
is to that. I know that, again, in some local authority areas,
there’ll be a very well developed voluntary sector delivering
services and maybe less of a need for expenditure by the local
authority, because there may be fewer gaps. Whereas, in a number of
other local authority areas, I suspect there may be a requirement
to spend more than the amount that is suggested by the Welsh
Government through the revenue support grant. What are your views
on hypothecation and how useful a tool do you think that would be?
I know you’re not keen, generally.
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[408]
Dr Llewelyn: Yes. Can I come in first? As you probably know, the
association always opposes the idea of hypothecated funding, and I
think the arguments are stronger in times of cuts in public
spending than in more affluent times. Our argument is that you need
to take decisions about how services are managed, run and,
particularly, funded as close to the point of delivery as possible,
so local authorities are best placed to take decisions about
funding because they deliver services and they are at the point of
delivery. When budgets are cut, local authorities need to have as
much flexibility as possible in order to stretch those resources as
much as they can to cover the full range of services that they
provide. If local government spending was completely ring-fenced,
then what we would find is that a lot of discretionary services
would come to an end and we would see more leisure centres, parks
and playing fields, and the non-statutory dimension, we would see
lots of services coming to an end.
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[409]
The other point to add, I think, as well,
is—and I think there’s a common misconception,
certainly outside of Government and outside of local
government—that the RSG formula, and the figures that are sometimes referred to,
namely the IBA figures in terms of the various lines within the
formula, is devised as a mechanism for dividing up the funding
that’s available. Nobody does an exercise and looks at how
much it costs to run an ideal youth service and then provides
authorities with that amount of funding. Rather, what happens
is—the current local government formula, I think, was devised
in the late 1990s—that part of the formula covers the youth
service. There are notional figures there in terms of how much
should be allocated to each authority. It’s population based
and there’s a weighting for deprivation. The population
figures are based on projections from the census figures that are
available at the start of every decade.
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[410] So, as you can see, it’s a very inexact way of
distributing funding, but it’s the best thing that we can
come up with. I think, sometimes, externally, there is a view that
if there’s an IBA figure there that, somehow, that relates to
the cost of delivering the service in that area. We’ve had
this debate in education for the last 10 years or so, and our view
as an association is that it’s not a particularly profitable
exercise.
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[411] Darren
Millar: You’ve already expressed some support for the
idea of a national youth council or some sort of body to hold the
Government and others to account for delivery against a national
strategy with some clear objectives. Again, one of the suggestions
that has been made is that that could also be a body that receives
funding from the Welsh Government to then invest in youth services
across the country. Do you think that top-slicing from the RSG,
putting a pot of cash into the hands of a national youth council of
sorts to distribute resources, would be a good idea or a bad
idea?
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[412] Dr
Llewelyn: I’d go back to the same argument—
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[413] Darren
Millar: I can predict your answer. [Laughter.]
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[414] Dr
Llewelyn: I think it would be a bad idea, because we think that
the best decisions about how services are run, provided and managed
are taken as locally as possible and that those people who use the
services are as informed as possible in informing decisions about
the services. We would say that local government is the mechanism
for doing that.
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[415] Darren
Millar: I mean, the reality is, though, isn’t it, that
we’ve got gaps in provision, because some local authorities
are better at delivery than others. Well, that’s the
impression we get from the evidence that we’ve received so
far.
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[416] Dr
Llewelyn: There’ll be variation because the immediate
circumstances are different, the historical circumstances are
different and there are a number of variables that result in that
position. But, again, I’d come to the same point that I think
it would be challenging to think that a national organisation could
somehow be best placed to take decisions about a service that is,
by its nature, very locally based.
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[417] Lynne
Neagle: Julie.
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[418] Julie
Morgan: Why is there such a wide variation in local
authorities’ use of the revenue grant to youth services?
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[419] Dr
Llewelyn: Well, I think that—
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[420] Julie
Morgan: It’s very huge in some cases, isn’t it?
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[421] Dr
Llewelyn: I’m not sure, you know, in terms of the
particular examples you might be referring to, and I’m
probably not best placed to comment on the individual
circumstances, but the truth is that the circumstances are very
different. Historically, provision is different and, increasingly,
authorities are structured in different ways and, because of what I
mentioned earlier about trying to develop alternative models of
delivery, I think it makes it increasingly difficult to make
comparisons between sectors. Simply looking at the revenue outturn
analysis of how much authorities spend on youth provision
wouldn’t give a full picture—
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[422] Julie
Morgan: We all understand that, in relation to the full
picture, but, in the figures that we were given, Carmarthenshire
spent 31 per cent of the notional allocation and Rhondda Cynon Taf
113 per cent of the notional allocation. So, is what you’re
saying that that money is being put in in other ways through
different methods of delivery?
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[423] Dr Llewelyn: The difficulty, I think, is
that you’re not comparing like with like. We’ve had
this exercise in other service areas as well, and I think looking
at expenditure gives you a very partial impression of what happens
within those service areas. So, I think it is very deceptive.
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[424]
Julie Morgan: So, on those figures, Carmarthenshire could possibly
be providing as good a youth service as Rhondda Cynon Taf, even
though there’s such a big disparity in the use of the revenue
support grant.
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[425]
Dr Llewelyn: Again, without—. I’m not familiar enough
with those two authorities to know how they—. There are so
many variable factors. The way they allocate costs can vary
significantly. I’m always bemused whenever I attend meetings
with finance officers and they discuss their budget returns. Almost
every authority will do things in a different way because
they’re structured so differently. So, I don’t think
that looking at expenditure gives an accurate reflection of the way
the service is provided.
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|
[426]
Julie Morgan: So this is too simplistic, really.
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|
[427]
Dr Llewelyn: Yes.
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[428]
Lynne Neagle: John.
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[429]
John Griffiths:
In terms of those issues, then, is there
some mileage in looking at an outcomes-based approach? You
mentioned earlier, Barbara, didn’t you, that there’s a
framework that’s recently been introduced for outcomes,
although I think you were saying that it wasn’t, in your
view, really about outcomes, even though that’s what it
purports to do. But is that approach more valid in terms of us, the
people of Wales, having some confidence that youth services in all
the local authority areas are delivering what they should be
delivering?
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[430]
Lynne Neagle: Barbara, do you want to comment on that
first?
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[431]
Ms Howe: Yes, we do have management information systems right
the way through Wales for youth services, and that gives not just
outputs; that gives real, genuine stories. These are stories that
don’t just go to one cohort that belongs in year 3 in school.
This is a longitudinal journey that we follow through with these
young people. Definitely in Torfaen we can evidence—we can
show the difference that we make.
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|
[432]
For example, we were working with two
young women, both pregnant, both had babies removed, and we worked
with them on a meaningful relationships programme, not just the
statutory youth service. We could never do this alone. We have to
work in partnership with the voluntary sector. We absolutely have
to. We don’t have all of the resources and all of the
expertise. Working in that partnership around tailored services
around these two young women, they retained primary carer status
for their babies. That’s life changing, not just for them,
but for their babies and their babies’ babies. It’s
absolutely life changing, and we have that evidence that we can
show.
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|
[433]
We don’t have masses of numbers,
although we did work with 3,000 young people. We don’t have
3,000 case studies, but we have stories that count, that affect
lives of young people, and it will affect generations now, for them
and their children. It has a massive effect, and just counting
beans is not going to give you the stories that you’re
looking for around this table. Those outcomes are real, and
they’re long lasting, and they’re
generational.
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[434]
Mr Opie: I think in relation to the sector as well, it’s
notoriously difficult to measure soft outcomes, and for the youth
service almost uniquely, with the age span that it works with. You
don’t often see the outcomes until further down the line,
maybe 10 years later. That’s not to say that we
shouldn’t be trying to capture some of that.
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[435]
Dr Llewelyn: Can I come in here? I think, as Tim says, it is
difficult, because you don’t have scientific laboratory
conditions, so measuring the impact of any intervention is very
difficult, but anything that can shift the focus away from
measuring spending process and activity to outcomes, challenging as
it is, I think is a much better idea.
|
|
12:30
|
|
[436]
John Griffiths:
Could I just ask about the evidence
framework that you mentioned, Barbara? So this is something that
Welsh Government has—
|
|
[437]
Mr Opie: It was a consultation; it’s not something
that’s been agreed as yet.
|
|
[438] John Griffiths: Okay; it’s going
through consultation at the moment.
|
|
[439]
Mr Opie: Sorry, Barbara, I didn’t mean to talk over
you.
|
|
[440]
Ms Howe: It was a consultation, and it wasn’t about
outcomes, it was about outputs. We did put our views quite
powerfully forward on that in the consultations.
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|
[441] Mr Opie: Again, I think some of the
requirements in there—had we been in the development of
it—weren’t within the gift of the youth service. I
think it’s important that we jointly develop something.
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[442] Lynne Neagle: Thank you. Are there any
other questions from Members? No. Okay, well can I thank you for
your evidence this morning? It’s been very useful to talk to
you. Thank you very much. Can I remind you that you’ll have a
transcript of the discussion to check for accuracy? Thank you very
much for coming.
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|
12:31
|
|
Papurau i’w Nodi
Papers to Note
|
|
[443]
Lynne Neagle: We’ll move on now, then, to papers to note.
We’ve got paper 4, a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for
Education on the pupil deprivation grant; paper 5, a letter to the
Secretary of State for Health from the Minister for Social Services
and Public Health—
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|
[444]
Llyr Gruffydd: Could I ask something on that? I’m happy to
note it, it’s just that there’s reference to a
Government response to the committee of advertising practice
consultation on the introduction of restrictions on non-broadcast
advertising of food and soft drinks; could we ask them for a copy
of their response? It would be useful.
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|
[445]
Lynne Neagle: Yes, we can do that.
|
|
[446]
And the final paper to note, then, is the
letter to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee from
us on the Wales Bill. Is everybody happy to note those? Lovely.
Okay, well that brings us to the end of the meeting. Can I remind
Members that the next meeting is next Wednesday, when we’ll
be hearing from the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh
Language on our inquiry on youth work? We’ve also got
Professor Sir Ian Diamond coming in to talk about his review into
higher education funding. We will also have a private item to agree
the next inquiry topic. So, thank you very much for attending,
everyone.
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Daeth y cyfarfod i ben am 12:32.
The
meeting ended at 12:32.
|
