7. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the future of community support projects in north Wales? OAQ(5)0120(CC)

I thank the Member for her question. The Welsh Government will continue to provide core funding for county voluntary councils across Wales, including CVCs in Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Isle of Anglesey and Wrexham. In addition, community support projects will be benefiting from the Communities First transition, legacy funding and the employment grant.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Following on from the announcement of the intention to phase out Communities First in its current form and the shift of focus onto employability-type programmes, I’m sure you’re already aware, Cabinet Secretary, of the numerous employability programmes in Flintshire that are providing support not only to prepare people for the world of work, but to also enable and empower them into work—projects such as the Building Futures course in bricklaying skills, and the brilliant one that I saw on a recent visit to Ysgol Maesglas in Greenfield. It is a brilliant initiative they’re doing there to work with the parents on an employability programme. Of course, we’ve got the Lift programme, which has seen over 200 participants, and partnership programmes with Lift on social care. Cabinet Secretary, are you able to provide a further update on the future sustainability of such projects and perhaps provide an idea of alternative support that could be made available for any projects that don’t fall directly under the future criteria under the new employability scheme?

There are two elements to that. There is a transition period where we will provide 70 per cent of the funding to prepare Communities First clusters to start thinking about what the future looks like and how they are able to attract other finance sources. Also, we’ve made an £11.7 million investment through the employability programme, Communities for Work, Lift, and PaCE. We’re continuing proposals as we drive that forward.

The other priorities for local authorities or for delivery boards will be a matter for them in terms of the amount of funding available to them and how they can work with the Communities First current settlement to move forward for the future. I’m confident that, given time, they will be able to adjust the programmes accordingly.

When you announced that you were phasing out Communities First, my response referred to the ‘Valuing Place’ report commissioned by the Government, based on research in three communities, including Connah’s Quay, somewhere I think you’re very familiar with. They found that establishing local networks to connect people together who want to take local action should be of priority.

In the answer you’ve just given, you referred to the delivery boards and local authorities, but how do you respond to the article from the Bevan Foundation in their spring 2017 publication exploring what the idea of resilient communities is, stating that community buy-in is essential and there’s a consensus that, if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don’t work?

Well, that’s always the case, isn’t it? I think you get that with political parties and political will across the spectrum. My intention is to make sure that public services boards and local authorities are very close to their communities. We legislated on this, about engagement being a critical part of involvement in decision making. I would expect any authority that moves into a transition period from Communities First to engage with the communities that they work with, so that we can build this from the ground up as opposed to doing things to communities, working with them to make sure the ideas come from the centre.