6. Will the Minister make a statement on Flying Start? OAQ(5)0040(ERA)

The Flying Start programme continues to be a priority for this Government, giving children living in some of our most disadvantaged communities the best possible start in life.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response? Flying Start has made a huge improvement to life opportunities for many of my constituents. It means that children are starting school at or close to their chronological age. Whilst I believe it should be based on communities, not the vagaries of the Office for National Statistics-created super-output areas, will the Minister reiterate his support for Flying Start?

Indeed, I will. Flying Start remains a priority in 2015-16. The programme supported over 38,000 children and their families and exceeded our target of 36,000, which we’d allocated. It is a great programme with great staff and great outcomes; long may it continue.

There are clearly concerns about the qualifying criteria for Flying Start and the geographical focus of that, and it was a concern levied against Communities First as well with electoral wards and potentially one side of the road being in and the other side of the road being out. I touched on this yesterday in your announcement on the proposed children’s zones. Could you confirm that the children’s zones won’t be using such a blunt approach? Could you be clear as to whether the proposed zones will be areas where people will have to live within in order to access the service, or whether services will be provided in certain zones that anyone can access?

Well, as I said to the Member yesterday—there are two responses to the Member—firstly, Flying Start and Families First: what I’m seeking to do is to give more flexibility around those schemes financially, and therefore we can start picking up people from outside the area-based approach, people in need who require those services, and hopefully we’ll be able to roll that programme out. The other element of children’s zones is a growing programme where we’re looking to pilot different schemes. So, some will be school based, some will be community-area based and we’ll have to see which works best. I’ve started discussions already today with other organisations seeking to do similar things. So, the NSPCC, Public Health Wales and National Offending Management Service teams are all looking to create an ACE-style hub. We’re going to see how that works and who can deliver better in those areas. So, I can’t give you a definitive answer today, but actually we’re going to trial what works best.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your answer to Llyr Gruffydd. I’m very pleased to hear that you want to widen access to Flying Start. I do believe that it makes a difference and it is a shame that so many people have been excluded from accessing the support that’s available through Flying Start to date. But can you give us a timescale by which you expect to implement this decision that you appear now to have made, because I think it is important that this happens sooner rather than later?

Well, we’ve started on the discussion about the broader principle of Communities First and, as indicated yesterday, the narrative of where we want to see the division moving, to Flying Start and Families First having flexibility, will of course be based around the budget time. I’m hopeful that, on the basis that you are confident about this programme, you will be supporting the budget in a few weeks’ time in order for me to implement this and make the changes. That is what I’m seeking.