1. A wnaiff Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet ddatganiad am gymorth ar gyfer y sector gwirfoddol yn Sir Gaerfyrddin? OAQ51816

Through the third sector support Wales grant in 2017-18, we provided £176,217 to the Carmarthenshire Association of Voluntary Services in core funding, to help local organisations with fundraising, good governance, safeguarding and volunteering. I have already committed to the same amount for 2018-19.

Thank you for your response. As I'm sure you know, there are some extraordinarily community-minded organisations based in Carmarthenshire that rely very, very heavily on volunteers—organisations from CAVS, to Homestart Carmarthenshire, ward befrienders at Glangwili hospital, animal rescue sites, home visiting volunteers. And they've really stepped up to the plate, especially at times like this when public funds are tighter. What could you as the Welsh Government do to encourage more people into volunteering, not only to help these extraordinary organisations, and to give them the numbers and the arms and legs that they need to go about doing what they do, but also because volunteering is so good for the person who's doing the volunteering? It helps to combat some of the ills we talk about, like isolation and loneliness, it's good for the soul, and it's really good for the organisations. And I just wonder what help you can give to encourage more people to do voluntary work, particularly younger people—and I don't mean necessarily the teenagers, but the 30, 40, 50-year-old bracket, where there's a huge gap.

Can I say, Presiding Officer, how much I endorse the sentiments that have been described by the Member? I think all of us—it's one thing that unites, I think, Members on all sides of the Chamber here, and Members who represent all parts of this country—recognise the importance of volunteering, for the individual concerned, as has been outlined, the community, and different organisations, many of which simply wouldn't survive without volunteering and the skills, the energy, and the creativity that volunteers bring to this role.

The Welsh Government seeks to provide funding, clearly, for a number of different third sector organisations. But it's my view, and I think it will be the view of the Member also, that Welsh Government needs to go further than that. We need to create the opportunities for a holistic approach to policy, which means volunteers and volunteering is at the heart of what we do in terms of social prescribing, which the Member has described, and in terms of fostering and engendering a sense of community as well. And I hope that one of the areas that we can discuss—I met the Welsh Council for Voluntary Action this morning, and I'm speaking at Gofal3 event next week, and at the third sector partnership council next week as well. And what I will seek to do is to move beyond the conversation about funding, into a conversation about the sort of society and the sort of communities we want to protect and to invest in in Wales, and that means a holistic approach to policy that sees volunteering as a part of not just how we deliver services, but a part of what our communities actually will be in the future. So, I very much endorse the sentiments that have been made.