Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 13 December 2017.

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Photo of Llyr Gruffydd Llyr Gruffydd Plaid Cymru 1:43, 13 December 2017

I find it interesting that you say that feedback from practitioners has been less than positive, because the Government’s own evaluation of the implementation of the Learning in Digital Wales Programme in October last year reported positive feedback from schools on Hwb+ and concluded that,

'Abandoning the project would severely disappoint and alienate teachers, who are enthusiastic about further take-up of digital learning and have invested their considerable time and effort setting up Hwb Plus school sites and promoting it to colleagues at their school.’

You yourself have lauded Hwb+ as being a finalist in the Microsoft global education partner of the year this year, so that’s positive feedback in my book. Where you get the negative feedback from, I’d be interested in understanding. But also we need some clarity, I think, about the level of investment that’s been invested by the Government in this. You recently gave the cost of the Hwb project on the basis of the contract for the Hwb platform as being £2.53 million. That’s inconsistent with a Government answer in 2015, which said that the supplier contract value to provide Hwb+—the all-Wales learning platform—to all schools in Wales is near £4.5 million. There’s a disparity there. So, can you tell us what has been the total cost of the project? Can you also tell us what additional cost will there now be resulting from your decision to make these changes?