Can I commend the children’s committee—the Chair in particular, but also the other Members—for producing such a lucid and apposite report? I think this is very high-quality scrutiny, and just the sort of thing that Assembly committees should be doing. The key issue, obviously, is what happens when you approach questions to increase the mainstreaming as above ring fencing. This is something that we often face in the choices we make here. In an ideal world, you do want as mainstream a system as possible, which, I think, the previous speaker, Bethan, was hinting at.

But we also know that you need very specific actions, sometimes. I have done a lot of work, over the years, on the issue of looked-after children, and there are many echoes here, particularly about the gap in achievement at GCSE and then for the future opportunities that these young people have. But I think what this committee report has really nailed is that if you do move to mainstreaming approaches, you do need very clear and effective monitoring and evaluation. Otherwise, you can lose the whole purpose of the intervention—the intervention is still desired. We may be moving from a very specific grant to a more general approach, but the need for intervention is clearly accepted. I have to say I agree with the Members—both Darren and Julie’s very eloquent contributions—that it is very worrying that the approach has been quite so slipshod amongst those who are responsible for ensuring this change occurs effectively, which, at the moment, we just don’t have the evidence to conclude that it has. So, I think it’s very, very important that we can demonstrate effective monitoring and evaluation.

There is a danger, I think, that the specific needs of minority children can be overlooked, even when there’s a clear political priority for special attention. This is something we need to be very aware of. Can I just repeat the point about the gap in achievement? I think it’s always appropriate, when we look at specific groups, to compare them to the peer population, because—and, again, reflecting earlier contributions—I think our expectations should be the same. Why on earth should we stand in front of people and say, ‘Well, those with particular needs and special circumstances—we start by just lowering the bar and the expectations that those people can be expected to achieve’? I think that’s really, really poor. The gap at the moment, with 24.5 per cent achieving the basic level at GCSE, compared with 59 per cent in the peer population, is too wide. It has closed, and it may be because the consortia are, in their own way, which we cannot demonstrate, working productively. But we’ve got to have evidence, and, anyway, I think we would all agree we want that gap closed much more considerably than that.

I do think that, in measuring the effectiveness of public policy, there is always that moment when we hear from those who have the executive responsibility to implement change that we sometimes need to move to an approach that aims at general improvement, rather than being tied down to very specific, targeted outcomes. There are times when that is the appropriate way—to be more expansive. But I do think that there’s a lot of evidence that we’re at the stage here where we need to be more targeted, and, frankly, when you’re more targeted, I think you need very good evidence to move away from a more ring-fenced funding system. But I do congratulate the work that’s been done here; I think it’s a very important contribution.