8. Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report: 'Flying Start: Outreach'

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:38 pm on 23 May 2018.

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Photo of John Griffiths John Griffiths Labour 6:38, 23 May 2018

I want to raise a particular matter, Dirprwy Lywydd, which I've raised before as part of this work, that relates to my constituency of Newport East, where the postcode element of eligibility for provision, notwithstanding the outreach element that partly addresses that limitation, has still resulted in two communities that are very similar—social housing in Moorland Park and Broadmead Park in Newport—having very different access to the Flying Start programme.

So, there is a Flying Start base in Moorland Park—in the Moorland Park community centre, in Newport East—and the Moorland Park social housing area has access to the provision. But Broadmead Park, which is alongside, doesn't have that access because of the postcode eligibility criterion. Although there is that outreach element, it isn't sufficient to enable that disparity to be sufficiently addressed. So, I do ask Welsh Government to look again at that element of the programme because what we discovered was that there was spare capacity in the facility in Moorland Park community centre, so the staff were in place, the facilities were there, which would enable them to help more children and more families, but they weren't able to do that because of that postcode limitation. So, I think it's a stark illustration of not the best use of capacity and resource, and it does need to be addressed.