1. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on progress for supporting communities in Wales once Communities First has come to an end? (OAQ51003)

I thank the Member for her question. My officials have been supporting lead delivery bodies to deliver their transition plans for this year. A number of mitigation measures have been established to support arrangements going forward. Local authorities are engaging with partners to ensure future delivery reflects local needs.

Thank you for that answer. It sounds like work is still ongoing. I have to say, you told me shortly before recess, in a question on representations made to me on behalf of Faith in Families in Swansea West, that Swansea’s local Communities First delivery board had, and I quote, ‘detailed transition plans to make sure that locally supported projects didn’t lose out.’ I’ve now been contacted about Clase family centre in Swansea East, where Faith in Families also run services, but this time it’s by constituents themselves, and they’re very anxious because they still don’t know what the funding picture’s going to look like after March 2018. Now, six months isn’t long. Have you had any indication from all councils when those detailed transition plans will be announced?

Well, I’m really surprised by the Member’s question in terms of the detail around Faith in Families. I know that Faith in Families are running a significant media campaign around this transition period. In broad principle, the transition is going really well and we haven’t got any red-flag areas in terms of the transition process going forward. Faith in Families have been running the media campaign, as I said. However, as set out in Swansea’s local delivery board’s detailed transition plan, Faith in Families are receiving 100 per cent of their Communities First funding up to 31 March 2018—approximately £260,000. If the Member has specific questions around a particular organisation, I’d be more than happy for myself or one of my team to meet with her to clarify those issues.

From what I understand, the emphasis of the counter-poverty work that used to be carried out by Communities First will be on early years education, helping people into work and empowering communities—those will be the focuses now—which is what you refer to as the three Es: early years, employability and empowerment. I would like to understand, and I think the people in the sector also want to understand what exactly ‘empowerment’ means. What’s your interpretation of that? Importantly, how will you measure the success of this ‘empowerment’ element in attempts to reduce poverty in Wales?

Well, empowerment is certainly about local people having an involvement in the decision-making processes as we move forward, and that’s why public services boards and the future generations Act have a very close link to engagement with all communities and individuals that they have a stake in, moving forward. I think the whole principle of the three Es is an exciting one for communities. What we did realise is that Communities First hasn’t worked as well as it was designed to do in terms of lifting communities out of poverty. I think it’s done a great job of stopping communities getting poorer, but we have to have a game changer here, and the new programmes that we have in place and the support mechanisms around that, I believe, will be the experience that local communities will want to achieve, going forward.