5. What level of priority is given to the education portfolio in deciding Welsh Government spending commitments? OAQ52531

Thanks to John Griffiths for that. Allocations to the education portfolio receive a high priority in budget setting, but in an age of unrelenting austerity have to be considered alongside the need to invest in our health and social care services, in housing and in transport, in energy and the environment, to mention just a small selection of pressing needs.

Cabinet Secretary, I do understand that it's incredibly difficult to allocate funding in this age of austerity and all the pressures that involves. Nonetheless, I do believe that education should have a bigger share of the Welsh Government's budget than is currently the case. I believe that would be very much in line with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, because greater spend on education will equip our children to prosper in their careers and to have better health and better quality of life in general. I also believe that it's preventative spend in terms of lifelong learning. In addition, a report by Brian Morgan and Gerry Holtham looking at what works for economic development across the world found that the biggest single determinant of economic success was a high level of spend on education. So, with that sort of background, will you, in the future, consider whether education and lifelong learning should have a bigger share of the Welsh Government's budget?

Well, Llywydd, John Griffiths makes a persuasive case on behalf of education spend, and he's made it regularly in this Chamber in recent years. He will know that, on the capital side of our budget, the twenty-first century schools programme, band A and band B taken together, is the single largest investment that we make right across the responsibilities that the Welsh Government exercises, and that is a sign of the very high priority that we do attach to education and lifelong learning. Where revenue spending is concerned, where the auditor general's letter to the Public Accounts Committee confirmed that our budget has been cut by 10.5 per cent over the last decade, the choices are starker still. But I can assure him that, in making those very difficult decisions, the case he makes and the case that is repeated by the Cabinet Secretary with that responsibility is never overlooked.

Cabinet Secretary, the Assembly's education committee has highlighted concerns that the pupil development grant funding aimed at helping poorer pupils may not be delivering value for money in Wales. Given that tackling poverty is a key core aim of the Welsh Government, what consideration was given when setting the education budget to ensuring that the pupil development grant meets its aim of improving the attainment outcomes of pupils from the poorest backgrounds, not only to help their educational attainment but also their future health and well-being? Thank you.

I thank the Member for the question. I agree with the committee that it is very important to have a focus not simply on inputs—the money we spend on something—but the impact that that spending has, and I can assure him that, in the discussions that I have bilaterally with all Cabinet colleagues during the budget-setting process, not only do we consider the amount of resource that we are devoting to any area but we look at the impact and the effect that that spending has too. If we come across programmes where we don't believe that the spend is having the impact then we look to see how those can be recalibrated. I am very proud of the investment that this Government makes through the PDG in providing for those pupils who come from the least advantaged parts of our communities. I want that money to have a maximum impact, and I know that the Cabinet Secretary concerned works very hard to ensure exactly that.

I was very pleased that Plaid Cymru was able to achieve an additional investment of £30 million capital funding, as part of our agreement on the supplementary budget, to expand Welsh-medium education. By now, I have received confirmation that all local authorities in Wales have put in a bid for a proportion of that money. In fact, the total of applications is over £100 million. So, I would like to ask the Cabinet Secretary what that tells us about the demand that exists for creating investment in Welsh-medium education. What message does that send to you as Cabinet Secretary as you consider your budget for next year? Will you consider at least continuing with that type of investment in the coming year, if you’re not in a position to be able to increase it?

The message that I draw from that is the success that we’ve had here in developing the numbers that want to access education through the medium of Welsh. That’s important, and it's a cross-party issue here in the Assembly that we've worked hard to promote.

The Member will remember that one of the strongest cases for the additional £30 million upfront investment in Welsh-medium education is that it would free up resources in subsequent years so that we will be able to create a new stream of investment in the Welsh-medium sector, not just for the £30 million, but following it. So, I'm not surprised to learn that there was a greater level of application for the money than money in the fund, but because of the way that we have done it, it does mean that there will be opportunities not just in that year but in subsequent years, and I'm quite sure that those schemes that are not at the front of the queue when the decisions come to be made, and where the money may not be needed immediately—that we will also now look to see what we can do to go on investing in this sector, because that was what the money was intended to do.