I appreciate that we’ve had a written statement on NSA Afan in my region, but I would like to ask for an oral statement on how exactly the Welsh Government is conducting its inquiry into allegations of financial irregularities at NSA Afan. Not one substantive allegation has been put to them, according to NSA Afan and what they’ve told me, but let me make it absolutely clear that I’m not wishing to discuss the ins and outs of this investigation, but merely the way it’s been carried out. The Welsh Government is obliged to audit those organisations in receipt of Communities First, and this it did with NSA Afan during the years of the incidences of the theft now alleged against the former financial officer that was supposed to have taken place. Each time, the Welsh Government gave NSA Afan a clean bill of health. So, I’m trying to understand, if that audit process took place, and if governance issues were not outlined as severely as they are now, how the Welsh Government can effectively investigate itself when many of the people who may be in the Minister’s department are carrying out those investigations—and they would have been involved in financial setups with NSA Afan. I’m also concerned to learn that a written assurance of funding for services provided during December was made by the director for communities and tackling poverty, who wrote, and I quote:

‘We wish to point out that the contractual relationship between us is unaffected’.

End quote. However, when NSA Afan met with your officials yesterday, they were told that this wouldn’t be honoured and this leaves the organisation now in a position where it cannot pay the salaries, so they tell me.

I’d like to have an oral statement here in the Chamber because I think this warrants an oral statement considering the problems that some Communities First schemes have had in the past. We don’t want to have another potential problem in this area when the Minister is minded to discontinue Communities First, and I think it would be sensible for the Government to have that conversation in the open.