Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:49 pm on 31 January 2017.
Thank you for that, Suzy. The advantage of having this single body is that we can plan strategically and we can address gaps, as I said. And one of the gaps that we have at present, I believe, is a gap in Welsh-medium provision. We know that there is a growing demand for people who have skills in the Welsh language in a whole variety of areas. I’m particularly interested in, as is my ministerial colleague, how we can ensure we have caring roles—that people have Welsh language skills to do that, whether that is for older people, or, for instance, as we roll out the Government’s childcare offer, that needs to be available through the medium of Welsh, and therefore having training opportunities to qualify those people to be able to do that job and to be able to do it through the medium of Welsh is vitally important. Therefore, having a strategic body that looks at the plan overall I think will help improve that, as well as the work of Delyth Evans, who is currently looking at the remit of the ‘coleg’ and whether we can extend that into FE. I don’t want to prejudge the outcomes of that, but I believe the ‘coleg’ has done a very good job in terms of HE. I think they have proven their ability to get things done and, therefore, I think it’s right that we should look now to see whether they can plan that. But having a more strategic overview of what we’re commissioning and monitoring the quality of outcomes, I think will make a difference to provision in the Welsh language.