Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:23 pm on 19 October 2016.
Well, as I said during the statement on the budget yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary’s decision on Communities First is not driven by budget considerations. It is driven by making better use of the funding that has been put to those purposes in the past, bringing it together with budgets for Families First and Flying Start and trying to make sure that we have more of an impact in those communities that she so regularly represents on the floor of the National Assembly. As far as education programmes are concerned, there were two programmes, time-limited in nature, for which no funding provision would normally have been made next year. In the circumstances we find ourselves, it is impossible to carry on everything, particularly when schemes have been specifically identified as having a limited life. We were unable to take forward Schools Challenge Cymru, but we were able to take forward the pupil deprivation grant, which has a far higher budgetary implication, and to double the pupil deprivation grant for children in their most early and formative years. Together, I think they demonstrate the ongoing commitment of this Government to the agendas that she has so ably championed.