The next item on our agenda is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children on resilient communities—the next steps. I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. In October I set out my vision for a new approach to building resilient communities focused on employment, early years and empowerment. This ambition flows from the Government’s core commitment to investing in the prosperity of our nation: generating new jobs, creating 100,000 all-age apprenticeships, piloting a new Better Jobs, Closer to Home project, delivering the most generous childcare offer for working parents anywhere in the UK, establishing the Valleys taskforce, creating the north and south Wales metros, giving children the best start through an extended pupil deprivation grant, and promoting financial inclusion.

Llywydd, resilient communities are ready and able to work; they offer children the best start in life—they are empowered and engaged. I want safe, strong, resilient communities. At the same time I indicated that I was minded to phase out the Communities First programme and launched a broad programme of engagement with external stakeholders. This involved an online survey and meetings with interested people and organisations, including councils and public services boards. There were more than 3,000 responses to the engagement exercise and I’d like to thank all those who participated.

The feedback demonstrated the many ways in which Communities First has benefited individuals. I would again like to thank the Communities First workforce for the difference that they’ve made to thousands of people. Respondents recognised the need for change and highlighted ways in which Communities First could be improved. A significant number felt that far-reaching reform was needed. The engagement exercise has highlighted broad support for resilient communities and a new approach focused on employment, early years and empowerment. Stakeholders also emphasised the importance of early intervention as a basic principle that should underpin our approach to building resilience. Llywydd, in light of the feedback, I have again considered options for Communities First and have concluded that it should be phased out.

I recognise the support for Communities First voiced by those who work on or have benefitted from the programme. However, in reaching my decision, I’ve also taken account of a range of other responses and factors. The Welsh Government’s approach to prosperity for all, and the policy, legislative and financial contexts in which Communities First has operated have changed fundamentally. Individuals have clearly benefitted from Communities First but, as the Bevan Foundation highlights, performance has been mixed and poverty remains a stubborn and persistent challenge. No single programme can tackle poverty. We need a holistic approach encompassing the Welsh Government, local authorities and public services boards’ members.

I know the potential impact on individuals and communities. So, I will adopt a careful approach going forward, seeking to preserve some of the most effective aspects of the work done by Communities First. I will ensure that lead delivery bodies have sufficient time and resources to plan the transition. And so, I have decided that funding, at 70 per cent of current levels, will be provided until March 2018. I will establish a legacy fund of £6 million, to be introduced in April 2018, which will enable local authorities, in consultation with communities and public services boards, to maintain some of the most effective interventions or community assets developed by Communities First.

I know how important community buildings are, too. I therefore will be providing an extra £4 million of capital funding to the community facilities programme in 2017-18 and in future years, with priority for Communities First areas within that programme, to help protect valuable community assets where renovations or alterations might help to provide a sustainable future.

We are clear as a Government that we must now transition into a new phase in our fight against poverty in Wales. Our interventions—our support for those who need it most—will not end with this programme. Indeed, our aim is to intensify our efforts to give people the tools they need to have a more equal share of the nation’s prosperity. At the centre of this must be the promise of good, secure work. So, while maintaining the valuable legacy from Communities First, I want to take forward our new approach to resilient communities.

Reinforcing my commitment to employment, I have already announced the extension of two key programmes, Communities for Work and Parents Childcare and Employment—the PaCE programme. Now, I want to go further to help create a more prosperous, secure and equal Wales. As we take forward our wider Welsh Government employability plan, led by the Minister for Skills and Science, we can develop a new infrastructure to support those furthest away from the labour market into employment.

Llywydd, from April 2018, I will introduce a grant to develop this infrastructure, building on the successes of Communities for Work and Lift. I will provide nearly £12 million a year to enable councils to enhance support focused on those people often faced with complex barriers who are furthest from the labour market. It will also allow this support to go beyond the tightly defined geographical boundaries of Communities First, which currently constrain the reach of such services. My officials continue to work closely with those leading on the wider employability plan. Enhancing and expanding employment support in our most deprived communities will be an important part of the wider employment offer.

Llywydd, investing in our children is an investment for the long term. It is the most sustainable means of building a more prosperous future. I have been encouraged by the very positive responses to date to the development of children’s zones. We will be bringing it forward, together with partners, to work with a defined community in a strategic way to improve the life chances of children and young people. I will be making a further announcement on the next steps in developing children’s zones.

Along with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Minister for Social Services and Public Health, I have also announced the establishment of an ACE hub to help organisations, communities and individuals across Wales tackle adverse childhood experiences, which can have such a devastating impact on children’s life chances. I will continue with the support for StreetGames in developing innovative ways of engaging our young people in positive activities. These initiatives, together with our continued investment in our successful Flying Start and Families First programmes, will ensure there is comprehensive support for children as they grow up.

People knowing and accessing their rights is crucial to building empowered communities. It is why and for that purpose I will continue to support Citizens Advice Cymru in the vitally important work that they do, helping to build resilience in the face of welfare reform changes. The reforms proposed by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government to strengthen local democracy and the role of local councillors and support more effective community and town councils are fundamental to the development of empowering communities.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Building resilient communities is the work of Welsh Government as a whole. We are committed to prosperity for all, a stronger economy that creates sustainable, quality employment opportunities and is accessible to all, delivered through a new joined-up approach that tackles individual issues through wider action. Llywydd, we will make the most of enabling and once-in-a-lifetime schemes and developments. These include city deals and the development of the metro, tidal lagoons, Wylfa, and other major investments. Together, we can build the resilient, safe, strong communities for all, and we want to continue to engage with communities and stakeholders as we move forward. Llywydd, change is never easy, but we cannot ignore the combination of new and deep-rooted challenges we face. We must have courage to find fresh ways to respond to this. That is why and what I will do, and all of my Government colleagues are determined to do so. Thank you.

Today’s statement marks the latest phase in the Labour Government’s winding down of Communities First, which was once described as its flagship anti-poverty programme. I would share the disappointment felt by many about the lack of progress in terms of reducing poverty in Wales, and I would like to add Plaid Cymru’s thanks to the existing workforce. Communities First has been a matter of some controversy. I have personally been very critical of the programme’s inability to meet its original objectives, or even to try to measure its success, or otherwise. But I wouldn’t want to see the good elements, or indeed the principle, of an anti-poverty programme disappear. Now, the Cabinet Secretary himself has accused Plaid Cymru of jeopardising this programme over several years. In April 2011, he stated that the scheme was, and I quote, only safe with Labour, and that under Plaid Cymru, I quote again,

‘we can kiss goodbye to the Communities First programme that has helped lift so many deprived areas out of poverty.’

Neither of those statements were true; they were pure spin, and now we see that it’s a Labour Government that is winding down Communities First. Unfortunately, the second part of the Minister’s statement in 2011 wasn’t correct either: the programme hasn’t lifted enough people out of poverty. It didn’t have enough resource or focus. It didn’t follow through on focusing on the communities’ priorities, and the scale and the scope of Communities First was never explained to those communities in an honest way.

Nearly a quarter of people in Wales live in poverty. That figure goes up to nearly a third when we talk about children. If this anti-poverty programme didn’t work, then the question has to be, ‘What do we do instead?’ The problems of poverty and disadvantage have not gone away. In today’s statement, no sufficient replacement scheme is set out, and frankly, that is absolutely scandalous.

The legacy fund for public service boards, at only £6 million, won’t make a dent into deep-rooted poverty issues in our communities. The extra money for community facilities is welcome, but it will be spread very thinly. What happened to your principle of targeting? An extra £12 million on skills from 2018 is simply not sufficient. It will reach too few people. None of this adds up to an anti-poverty programme to replace Communities First, and given that we’re talking about some of the most deprived communities in the whole of the European Union—communities that risk losing that extra funding that they currently get from the EU because they are so poor—now you want to take this money away from them as well.

Nothing, nothing at all, in this statement today shows the urgency with which we need to tackle poverty in this country. There is so little ambition here, and there is so little in the way of new investment or funding. Of course, we’ve got plenty of buzzwords—exactly the same buzzwords that people in our poorest communities have been sold for years. Well, let me tell you something, Cabinet Secretary: people have had enough of those buzzwords, and they have had enough of being let down by this Government. Will the Cabinet Secretary acknowledge that what he has done in this statement is to just list a number of schemes that are already happening, and will he clarify whether there will be a budgetary saving to phasing out Communities First, and if so, how much? Will he commit today to reinvesting the entire amount of money currently spent on the programme, and, finally, will he accept that what he is doing with his statement is pulling the rug out from underneath our poorest communities, giving us little, if any, assurances that there will be an alternative way of focusing on and tackling poverty? This is you walking away from our poorest communities. Isn’t that the case, Cabinet Secretary?

I thank the Member for her contribution. Clearly, she wrote the contribution prior to my making this statement, because all of the things I listed in the statement were what the Member didn’t mention. Purely politicising poverty is not the way to go forward, and the Member should know better about that. The Member started off by making reference to when I made statements back in 2011. That’s six years ago, and I accept I made those statements—you’re absolutely right I did—but just before then, her Cabinet colleagues were around the table when Communities First was being discussed and didn’t raise that issue, when that Member was also on the benches in this Chamber, so don’t start to lay blame about responsibility and what poverty is and what poverty isn’t. The Member is running into an election and hoping that an attack on us regarding this Communities First programme is something that she will gain benefit from. But let me tell the Member what she didn’t raise: the issue of Flying Start, the issue of Families First, the issue of adverse childhood experience hubs, employability pathways, childcare, the pupil deprivation grant, community assets. These are all programmes—[Interruption.]

Can we just listen to the Cabinet Secretary please?

[Continues.]—delivered by this Government, which the Member didn’t make one reference to. The fact is that she can’t make a contribution on tackling the issues of poverty because she hasn’t got a clue about it. The fact is that we are trying to tackle this very stubborn issue of tackling poverty. And I will not politicise this.

How is that going?

I will not politicise the difficulties that our communities are going through. What I will do is make investments in our communities with a partnership approach between Governments, local authorities and other public bodies. The Member should perhaps reflect on her statement because the content of it was just a political swipe rather than an opportunity to make a constructive statement here today. [Interruption.] She may chuckle from the benches there; she does, she finds poverty funny, clearly, but what she really needs to do is come back to this Chamber with some ideas, because the Member clearly doesn’t have any.

You are the Minister.

Thank you. Mark Isherwood.

In drafting this statement, and your proposed or announced way forward, what consideration have you given to the Welsh Government grant-funded ‘Valuing place’ report by the Young Foundation, which was only launched in the Assembly a week ago today, based upon research with people from Aberystwyth, Connah’s Quay and Port Talbot? It was commissioned and funded by the Welsh Government. It said that establishing a local network to help encourage, train, mentor, coach and connect people together who want to take local action, whatever their skill set or resource, should be a priority. We need to allow for positive development of place that is inclusive and participatory. As I say, that included the great population of Connah’s Quay, and is a very valued report that doesn’t appear to have been—not necessarily the report, but the recommendations of that report—considered in the statement you made today.

At risk of being accused of being party political, let me say that although the annual report on income inequality from the Office for National Statistics released last month said that there’s been a gradual decline in income inequality over the last decade—UK obviously rather than Wales specific—and although the Communities First programme, according to the Assembly Research Service, has had nearly £0.5 billion invested in it between 2001 and the end of last year, it is, I’m sure you’ll agree, regrettable that the number of working age people not in employment in Wales, in the latest published figures, has gone back up to 524,000 people, with Wales ranking tenth out of 12 UK nations and regions for poverty, and with the eleventh lowest weekly earnings.

You refer to the north and south Wales metros. Could you answer the question that your colleague the Secretary for Economy, Infrastructure failed to answer last week, as to when the Welsh Government will be responding to the North Wales Economic Ambition Board’s ‘Growth Vision’ document’s specific calls for internal devolution of some matters to help close that prosperity gap that widens the further west you go in north Wales? Because so much depends on that and, simply, the metro proposed by the Welsh Government will be a sticking plaster compared to the opportunities that could be delivered with both Governments and the region working together.

You identify, rightly, broad support for a new approach, focused on employment, early years and empowerment, and stakeholders’ emphasis on the importance of early intervention. Looking back—and I’ve just heard your comments, obviously, to Leanne Wood, Member for Rhondda Cynon Taf—do you now recognise that you could have perhaps taken forward the WCVA and the Centre for Regeneration Excellence Wales’s proposals, ahead of the last Assembly election, for what should follow post 2012, which is the model that my party had proposed? We were not proposing to scrap Communities First, but simply to develop that model, which detailed proposals for a vision that would be more effective at tackling deprivation, building stronger communities, fewer bureaucracy costs, more community ownership, and where community organisations in an area would be the focus themselves for services and activities to meet local need.

You refer to the Bevan Foundation statement that performance has been mixed, and poverty remains a stubborn and persistent challenge. Well, their submission, the ‘Communities First—Next Steps’ document, which I believe was drafted by the respected Victoria Winckler, also says that Communities First did not reduce the headline rates of poverty in the vast majority of communities, still less Wales as a whole. So, how do you respond, and you appear not to have done in your statement, to her, or their, statement, that a new programme should be co-produced by communities and professionals, and not be directed top down, i.e. by local authorities, and it should be based on a clear theory of change, building on people’s and communities’ assets, not deficits, and that local action should be led by established community-based organisations with a strong track record of delivery, and which have significant community engagement, again, not by the public sector directly? Although, clearly, corporate governance arrangements would have to be firmly embedded in that.

You refer to ensuring that lead delivery bodies have sufficient time and resources to plan the transition, and the need for recognising support for those who need it most, and, therefore, that support will not end with this programme. What consideration have you given, therefore, to the submission by Cytûn, Churches Together in Wales, where they said that any changes should be gradual rather than wholesale, where they highlighted a problem with staff working in Communities First receiving redundancy notices, or leaving early, losing the most experienced and best-qualified staff, seeking employment elsewhere and being lost to those communities when they’ll be the people desperately needed during the transition period?

Are you winding up, please?

And they also—

Are you winding up, please?

If I may, how do you respond to their statement that the 2012 programme, the clusters programme, actually, in terms of their evidence, led to a loss of local ownership, which, in some cases, has been critical in reducing local support and the effectiveness of Communities First and its work?

And, finally, if I may, you refer to building on the success of Communities First—sorry, Communities for Work, and Lift. Two months ago, I asked you a question and raised concern that the Welsh Government had been unable or unwilling to release data on the outcomes of Communities for Work and Lift, where it’s understood that UK Government Work Programme providers in Wales have been able to deliver jobs to the people furthest from the workplace for an average of £3,000, where it’s understood that the cost of jobs to these schemes could be up to—

Will you wind up, please?

[Continues.]—five to 10 times higher. Thank you.

Thank you. Cabinet Secretary.

Thank you, and I thank the Member for his constructive approach to the change in the programme.

First of all, he mentioned the Young Foundation programme. There are lots of think tanks and charities that offer views on how to build resilience in communities in Wales, and in England. And we look at those reports very carefully, to see how we should or could involve the good ideas that are brought forward in them. I’m grateful for the Member bringing that to my attention.

I think what we’ve moved into here is a very clear approach to the employability plan, and that’s why just under £12 million will be introduced into a delivery scheme for the clusters across Wales, where we’ll be engaging with the hard-to-reach individuals, either through Lift or Communities for Work, or PaCE. And it’s something I’m very keen on, working with other Ministers, that we can get people back into the jobs market.

I can’t answer the Member’s specific question on the issue of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, but I will ask my colleague to look at that and perhaps write to the Member with regard to specific issues around the metro. I think the Member’s right, actually, to want to know about the metro because the metro is just one part of a jigsaw, a suite of tools, that will enable people to get into the work profile through access to modern transport systems. What we’ve got to remember, again, without laying blame anywhere, is that this is about times changing from where the Communities First programme started to where we are now, 17 years later. The whole landscape, fiscally and economically, has changed dramatically and welfare reform has had some indirect consequences on our communities on trying to tackle the issue around poverty. That’s why we are shaping a different direction.

The Member may look at Victoria Winckler’s Bevan Foundation report; he should look at it closely because, actually, what we’re proposing here isn’t that far off from what the Bevan Foundation are saying. About the employability pathway, the Minister will make a statement on that very shortly, but my part of the employability pathway is at the very front end, and we’re looking at how we get people into the education system, into the skills opportunities, and move them in to employment, which is a very important point. With regard to designing programmes with people as opposed to to people, the Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) 2015 is very clear on that; we will, from this statement, make a very clear commitment to go back out into those communities to talk with individuals—both workforce and organisations—that can help us design opportunities with the legacy fund as it moves forward.

Cytûn and others have made representation on the softening of the structural changes, and I believe we’ve done that. We’ve offered a 70 per cent funding model until the end of this financial year, and then, from there, we’re introducing a legacy fund. I think that gives authorities or clusters time to start shaping a different conversation about how they can develop, but that is a matter that we hope will be able to enable and empower as opposed to make sure that we deliver that process. It will be delivered from the ground. But, I think the offer here is about refocusing on the issue of how we tackle poverty, recognised by the Member that the stubborn effects of poverty are very difficult to tackle, but we are committed to doing that as a whole-Government approach.

Can I thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement? What I would say at the outset is that I do understand the Government’s position on Communities First, and your concern that, of itself, it hasn’t achieved its ambition to lift people out of poverty. In some areas, it really hasn’t delivered at all. As you recognised in your statement, I think it’s probably difficult to imagine that any devolved administration can deliver any one policy that would lift a population out of poverty as poverty is also linked to the macro-economic situation of the United Kingdom, which is outwith the control of Welsh Government. Of course, again, like you’ve alluded to, Cabinet Secretary, there’s the unfair benefits system, which hits the poorest the hardest. It’s again something over which Welsh Government has no control. However, you know from my previous contributions in this Chamber and in personal representations that I’ve made to you that I have nothing but praise for the benefits that Communities First schemes have brought to my constituency. My concern in ending the scheme was that we could end up throwing the baby out with the bath water, and that much of the excellent work currently being done could be lost. So, I would like to thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for the way in which you have listened to the representations from myself and other Members.

It’s welcome that Welsh Government has recognised the real benefits that some Communities First schemes have delivered, and is putting a generous transition arrangement into place. I also welcome the fact that, during the transition period, local authorities will be able to directly prioritise those schemes that are most beneficial to the community, allowing time for them—as you’ve said in response to Mark Isherwood’s question—to refocus on what they do and to seek alternative funding streams where necessary, so that work that has made a difference in those communities can continue. I’m thinking particularly about the work around health, well-being and social inclusion. The transition period, I can see, Cabinet Minister, will allow Welsh Government time to refocus its anti-poverty priorities, directly moving the emphasis towards employability, which we all accept is the key to lifting people out of poverty, and this policy does move across areas currently not covered by Communities First.

And can I say, I very much welcomed the strategy that was set out by Alun Davies last night at the Valleys taskforce public meeting in Merthyr Tydfil, which homed in on the need for employability skills to be at the centre of revitalised Valleys communities, together with the provision of well-paid, quality, secure jobs, but also continuing with Flying Start, Families First, ACEs and the children’s zones, which you set out in your statement? So, my question, Cabinet Secretary, is whether you can agree with me that when, as part of the transition arrangements, the legacy money is allocated to local authorities, those councils must prioritise the work that successful Communities First schemes have delivered for some of our most deprived areas, and that they will be given clear guidance on how to do so, and that consideration will be given to ring-fencing this money to ensure that that happens.

Thank you, Dawn, and thank you for your question. Can I say, I’ve been lobbied by many Members, of all parties, and lots have fed in to the consultation documents? People like Dawn, Lynne Neagle, Hefin David, and many others around this Chamber have been very robust in their views of Communities First. Can I say also, I genuinely believe that the staff in many Communities First clusters have done a fantastic job in trying to tackle the very most severe poverty? And I believe the Communities First programme has probably prevented some communities from getting poorer. What it hasn’t been able to create—and that’s not anybody’s fault, but it hasn’t been able to make that big shift into making a proactive track in terms of tackling poverty head on, and that’s what we’ve got to do, and I absolutely believe that this has to be delivered by giving people employability skills, jobs growth skills, but also jobs—and I know David Rees has raised this with me in the past: giving people skills is one thing, but giving people jobs is another, and it has to be approached on a complete basis.

Can I say, in terms of transition, what I’ve tried to do here is soften that process in terms of taking a longer-term approach to change? Change is always difficult, but we need to do that. I think it’s ambitious, it’s brave, but, actually, it’s not working. The current position is what we’re trying to deliver on. So, I will be giving guidance to local authorities on the revenue legacy, to look at how their well-being plans reflect the needs of their community, but I don’t want to be very specific in terms of programme. I think it is really important that people who understand their communities better are able to make the influences of change, with the finances attached to that.

Thanks, Minister, for your statement today. A lot of the discussion today has been about Communities First; well, that scheme is now going, so we do have to ensure that any kind of programme that replaces it is going to be effective, but, mainly, today, I wanted to talk about the other side of the poverty issue, which is what Dawn Bowden alluded to: employability.

Now, you’ve previously stated, Minister, that in-work poverty is a growing problem and, in fact, the Welsh Government identified this issue when they brought out their report on building resilient communities in 2013. One thing the Government can do is to try to attract more jobs, and, hopefully, better quality jobs. Now, I know that your Government is mindful of this aspect, because your economy Minister, Ken Skates, came to the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee last week, and he was talking about this issue, and he said it’s not just any work, it’s quality of work, that matters, and I think that that is important to bear in mind. But we are up against a number of problems in this regard. In the same week as Ken Skates’s remarks, we also had the First Minister, as I mentioned earlier today in First Minister’s questions—he informed us that the Welsh Revenue Authority was coming to Treforest, but that nearly all of the jobs were going to be taken up by people recruited in the London area. Now, I appreciate that we haven’t known forever about the Welsh Revenue Authority, but we’ve known about it for some time, so I do still wonder as to—[Interruption.] Well, it’s been mooted for some time, let’s put it that way. I do wonder why, in these situations, Welsh people can’t be trained up to fill these roles.

I don’t want to focus particularly on that, but I just want to highlight the issue of training and upskilling people. The Welsh Government is now looking to take over responsibility for procurement in order to use this as a lever of job creation. We do have some major infrastructure projects in the pipeline such as the south Wales metro and the Swansea bay tidal lagoon. But the possible outcome here is that we won’t have the skilled people in Wales and we will have to again import them. So, we may not be creating jobs for the local community at all, or, at least, not many. We could, in fact, be putting more pressure on housing supply for locals and thus inadvertently exacerbating problems associated with poverty. I know that there is a Government employability programme for upskilling, overseen by Julie James, which is touched on in your statement, but, to repeat what I said earlier to the First Minister, one does wonder what the Government has been doing about upskilling over the last 17 years, because this is not a new issue, clearly. You would know more about that than I, so, if you could enlighten me, I would be grateful.

We are also faced with other problems regarding the employment market in the shape of automation, which Lee Waters has alluded to several times. Jenny Rathbone asked last week, ‘Who will benefit from it?’ Well, it certainly won’t be the relatively low-skilled workers. So, this exacerbates the problem of upskilling. What practical things can be done to improve employability? Well, Ken Skates talked last week about using what he called ‘labour-market intelligence’ in designing apprenticeships. We do need all-age apprenticeships now, which I believe is part of the programme of employability. We do need them, because the employment market has become so fluid and there are no jobs for life now. We do, perhaps, need greater Government interaction with private industry, as the public sector is likely to contract.

Transport, I would say, is a major issue. Many new jobs are created in industrial areas on the edge of towns, often without public transport, and, of course, a lot of it is shift work. How will workers get to their workplace without a car? So, can the Welsh Government liaise effectively with transport providers? Most workers will have to work initially through employment agencies. Many of these agencies are not very good, in my experience, in communicating effectively with their workers. Often, management is poor in these agency jobs. Does the Welsh Government have any plans to work with these agencies in future? What are your plans for working with transport providers, and what are your plans for working with private industry? Thank you.

Well, the Member raised many questions there, but I think the premise of most of it was based around employability and employability pathways. I did make reference in my statement to the employability programme we are introducing: nearly £12 million-worth of investment at the very difficult end of interaction with some of our most difficult to gain market training and advantage. But, look, we shouldn’t talk Wales down. Wales is the most successful part of the UK in unemployment stats. We have done particularly well, despite the economic difficulties we face. What we have done is created many jobs, and many decent jobs. We legislated for decent jobs only a few years ago.

In terms of large projects, we do have a procurement process. There is a community clause in our programmes, where we encourage—in some cases, expect—apprenticeship schemes to be introduced. I’m sure that will be part of that whole concept around the metro and the new franchise as we talk on the issue around travel. Preparing for the future, automation is a big problem. We have to think about that very, very carefully, training and giving people the skills today for the future. We’ve got plenty of cutting-edge companies in Wales, the GEs, the Airbuses—all at the cutting-edge of technology, but we’ve got to embrace that and build upon it.

The Member raises often the Welsh Revenue Authority. Look, we’re talking about 17 very highly-skilled jobs here, and some of them will have to be brought in because of the skills base. But, in general terms, we are working with employers, we are working with our schools and colleges, to give people the right skills for planning for the future, because, if we don’t, we will be not the best in the UK in terms of our unemployment figures; we’ll be one of the worst. That’s why it’s important to change with the times and that’s what we’re doing with this programme.

This is a very sad day for Swansea East and a sad day for health, as smoking cessation, smoke-free homes, exercise classes, healthy diet and slimming programmes end. A sad day for educational attainment, as Easter exam preparation, homework clubs and family learning programmes end. A sad day for people who would have benefited from money awareness courses, utility bills advice, basic budgeting courses, and income maximisation programmes. Last year, the first supplementary budget found an extra £10 million for higher education. Will the Cabinet Secretary ask the finance Cabinet Secretary for £10 million for Communities First in this year’s first supplementary programme?

I’ve had many conversations with the Finance Minister, and a sign of the times is that we are moving into a different space of tackling poverty. The Member is wrong—quite clearly wrong—to say that all of those programmes will end. He doesn’t know if they’ll end; I don’t know if they’ll end. What it does mean is that we’ve got to talk to communities about how we make them more resilient for the future. I’m very aware of the Swansea clusters—I’ve visited many clusters across the whole of the UK—so it is rather unfortunate that the Member uses that type of language to frighten people as opposed to being constructive in the way he approaches this in the Chamber.

I’d like to thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement today. In many ways, this is a bittersweet moment, and I would like to join with you and with previous speakers in acknowledging the ways in which Communities First has improved so many lives in some of our most challenging and challenged communities, but the nature and shape of poverty is not a static concept. It is quite right, therefore, that, as a Government, you should look to addressing the changing shape of poverty, and I certainly welcome the move to do that.

So, looking ahead, I welcome the Welsh Government placing employment, early years and empowerment at the heart of its new, proactive, joined-up communities policy, and also the way that the new approach ties into the employability agenda, the Valleys taskforce agenda, and the wider economic strategy. My first question relates to the issue of community assets. I welcome the commitment to a legacy fund, and the extra money for the communities facilities programme, but I would welcome any extra detail, Cabinet Secretary, that you could provide for me today on this. When Communities First services in my constituency merged in the past, this often led to a centralisation of services, with implications for the community assets that formerly housed the programme where Communities First was the anchor tenant, allowing other organisations to use the space for the benefit of the community. How will this new funding help to ensure that that kind of situation is not the case moving forward, and also will the fund that you have referred to be open retrospectively to former Communities First venues that have already lost the Communities First provision during previous mergers?

Secondly, I welcome your commitment to supporting those furthest from the labour market back into employment. However, there may be challenges here around the skills agenda, so I’d be grateful if you could tell us what assessment has been made of this, and also of any particular approaches from Communities First that could be retained in any future model.

Finally, I welcome the holistic partnership working that’s at the heart of the Welsh Government’s vision that you’ve spelt out for us here today. What response has the Welsh Government had from public services boards, local authorities and other partner organisations to these proposals?

I thank Vikki Howells for her questions today and, again, another Member that’s been very forthright in her views on Communities First for her community. Vikki, what I would say is that we should be ambitious and we should be optimistic for the future. We are absolutely committed to tackling the issues around poverty. We will have the most generous childcare pledge anywhere in the UK delivered in your constituency and constituencies right the way across Wales. Tackling the issues of adverse childhood experiences that have devastating effects on our children longer term—generational issues that are not only morally right that we tackle, but also fiscally right for public services. We need to change direction and that is what we will do, working in partnership with Flying Start and Families First and children's homes in Wales, tackling the issues that matter to us, that matter to the people of Blaenau Gwent, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Swansea, and the areas where we’ll be delivering pilots on childcare in September of this year.

The issue the Member raises around the issue of capital spend and the community facilities programme—we’ve attached £4 million to that for a four-year legacy from 2018. I expect that to be used with a degree of flexibility with local authorities, which will help them change their capital and sweat the asset they have. So, whether they need to construct new kitchens or new boiler facilities where that may enable that facility to become the new childcare facility for your area, or a place where we can deliver more training and employment agencies, these are the opportunities that I see where local authorities and local people are more at the forefront and can deliver these programmes. The made-in-Wales approach to community asset transfer is something I’m talking to the finance Minister on, and we will make a further statement on that in the near future.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement, and also thank him for his engagement with me as a backbencher who’s been deeply worried about these proposals, and also for meeting with my local authority? I firstly wanted to place on record my thanks, and pay tribute to the staff who are delivering Communities First in my constituency, who have done an absolutely sterling job. I know that the Cabinet Secretary is well aware of the excellent performance of Communities First in Torfaen, but just to remind him, we are first in terms of getting people into employment, second in terms of boosting skills, third in terms of improving numeracy and literacy and improving mental and health well-being. So, we have quite a track record there to try and protect. I also think that it is very important to guard against the narrative that this programme has not tackled poverty, coming, as it has, for the last nearly seven years, against the backdrop of swingeing benefit cuts, which can be dismissed by the Welsh Conservatives, but which have undoubtedly had a deep impact on our poorest communities, and which are set to get worse with the roll-out of universal credit.

As you know, I have been very clear in my representations to you, and also in my written response, that it is absolutely crucial that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater in this programme. With that in mind, I very much welcome the fact that you will be maintaining funding for the coming financial year at 100 per cent until June, and 70 per cent until the end of the financial year. I also welcome the fact that there will be a four-year transition, but I am sure you will not expect me to be anything less than very concerned about the significant decrease in funding for that four years, which, for my constituency, will mean a reduction of £1 million per year. So, I hope that that is something that we can continue to keep under review, as it is funding for our most deprived communities.

In terms of questions, I would be interested to know some more detail on how you see this legacy fund working and how you will ensure that is targeted to the areas that can be most effective with the funding in question. But I’d also be interested to know, in terms of the employability money, how much flexibility local authorities are likely to have in using that money. Because we know that a lot of people in Communities First areas are not by any means employment ready, and a lot of the softer interventions that Communities First has been so good at are absolutely vital to ensure that they even have a fighting chance of benefiting from those employment measures.

I thank the Member for her contribution, and I agree with the Member. Torfaen is one of the authorities that has been very good in demonstrating the way that they can engage with their community at a very local level. Caerphilly is another example of where there has been very good activity on the ground. I’m not saying that the Communities First programme has been broken; I’m saying we need to do something different, because the things that we are trying to tackle—the stubborn effects of poverty—aren’t being tackled as well as we were hoping they would have been. That’s why we have to have a change in direction. The Member shouldn’t be shy in coming forward either: while Torfaen has many firsts in it, the Member was one of the first to come to see me, as well, in terms of saying what her concerns were on the effect of this programme.

I’ve visited some of the success stories from the Lift and Communities for Work programmes. We’ve got a great result on employment programmes and getting people back into work, but these are a cohort of individuals who sometimes are just not ready for work and we need to do more with them. I’ve seen a great success story in Cardiff, which I visited recently, where we were able to give people confidence; enough just to get over the doorstep, to start talking about the jobs market, then giving them confidence to get into that skills basis. Hopefully, from there, we can move them through the system: through Julie James’s employability programme into the work placements—and Ken Skates has been very successful in attracting businesses to this area.

With regard to how the revenue streams will operate, I will be issuing some guidance, following consultation with stakeholders, about how I see the PSB or the local authority being part of the well-being plan, making sure that the areas that should be tackled—tackling poverty in those areas—are the ones that are given priority to do that. That’s something I’ve already spoken to the children’s commissioner and the future generations commissioner’s offices about—making sure that they are on top of this to ensure we target the right places. But it will be, of course—there is less money going into the system in this space, and that will have impacts in that. But what we have been able to do, and I’m grateful for the Member’s acknowledgement of this, is give this a softer landing in a process where we can plan for a future where, hopefully, education, health and other organisations in the third sector can come to the table to talk about what the success is in these areas and move that forward as we go on.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. I apologise to all those other Members who wanted to come in, but we have gone over time.