5. What is the Welsh Government’s over-arching strategy for tackling poverty? OAQ(5)0189(EI)

Supporting a strong economy that generates sustainable employment opportunities that are accessible to all is fundamental to our ambition of delivering prosperity for all. The evidence is clear that fair, sustainable work provides the best route out of poverty and also the greatest protection against poverty for those most at risk.

Cabinet Secretary, we couldn’t disagree with that analysis, but unfortunately the complexities of enabling everybody to be work ready and then to sustain work is very complicated. The winding down of the Communities First programme has raised many concerns that the place-based strategies for strengthening the resilience of deprived communities to both articulate their needs and be involved in solving their problems may be completely undermined.

The Government seems to be relying on the competencies of public services boards in line with the future generations Act, and the lead delivery bodies for the Communities First programmes, to pick up those programmes that have worked well. It seems that we are taking a very substantial risk in terms of complementing the employment focus strategies that I know you’ve just spoken about a moment ago. So, I wonder if you can say how the Government is determined to ensure that those place-based strategies that have really contributed to the community are going to be retained.

The Member may be interested to know that with the proposed regional model of economic development, we’ll be bringing together in a similar footprint those activities that relate to employment and skills training and skills provision, so that we have a more place-based approach to economic development and the delivery of skills provision. But there will continue to be programmes, of course, that are based on need.

What we’re keen to do is to make sure that every barrier to employment, every barrier to prosperity, is torn down, whether it be the barrier of transport through the provision of the metro in the south, a better rail franchise across the rest of Wales, better buses, or whether it be through childcare, through the roll-out of the most generous childcare support anywhere in the UK, or through the provision of skills training, through the roll-out of a new employability plan. The key thing is that we have a sensitivity to regional idiosyncrasies and requirements whilst also making sure that there is equitable provision for every individual right across our country.

Cabinet Secretary, it’s clear from independent evaluation with regard to Communities First that the Government has failed in its aim to decrease general poverty in these areas. With the scrapping of Communities First, how will you deliver on the specific goal of decreasing poverty? Because, and I quote the Cabinet Secretary from this morning’s committee evidence to us, he will be relying on a ‘jigsaw’ of different projects to come together, via the councils’ funding mechanisms and via employability programmes, specifically looking at an individual’s, from your portfolio. So, it’s a question of how will you deliver on tackling poverty now that that key delivery body that you set up to be able to do that has fundamentally failed in that goal.

Well, let’s just look at the figures first of all, and then I’ll come to answer the specific point about what we’re going to be doing moving forward. In terms of gross domestic household income, we’ve seen it rise faster than the UK as a whole, and in terms of GVA per head, likewise the index of production and the index of construction.

What’s important is that we’ve also seen a reduction in the poverty rate as well, during some of the most brutal austerity years that any of us can remember. But we are determined to ensure that there is prosperity for all, and for that reason, we’re going to have, as the Cabinet Secretary told you this morning, we are determined to have a mix of programmes that are place specific and those that are available across the whole of Wales, that are able to make interventions in people’s lives that help them to overcome the barriers that I spoke about a little earlier.

I do believe that the roll-out of an all-age employability programme will be crucial, likewise a most generous childcare offer, and the retention of other programmes where they have proven to be effective. Some of the programmes that have proven to be effective and will continue have been relatively inexpensive as well. It’s not always the most expensive programmes that are the most effective. We know, for example, that the Fusion programme that brings together communities with cultural institutions has been delivered for a relatively small amount of financial resource, but the impact is considerable, with a huge number of people who were previously economically inactive gaining the skills, gaining the experience, to get into work or to go on to higher and further education. And I think that’s a valuable contribution for some communities that, perhaps, have felt left behind as the world has transitioned from the old economy to the new.