4. What action is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that workers have the skills required by businesses to grow the Welsh economy? OAQ52759

Diolch, Mohammad. The Welsh Government is supporting the development of a skilled workforce, including delivering 100,000 apprenticeships this Assembly term. Our flexible skills programme is supporting businesses across Wales to upskill their workforce, and we're also working with the regional skills partnerships to ensure that skills provision in each region responds to business need.

Thank you very much for this precise answer, but the fact is that you will be aware that a recent Estyn report found that most providers of higher level apprenticeships do not manage them well and that many courses are outdated. They went on to say that, as a result, many providers did not reflect current practice and the needs of employers in Wales. Welsh Water sends its staff to college in England to fulfil training needs, while other large companies have been forced to develop their own apprenticeships because their training needs are not offered elsewhere in this country. What action is the Cabinet Secretary or your good self taking to address these concerns to ensure that Welsh workers have the skills required to allow businesses to grow and thrive, please?

Thank you. You're absolutely right: it was the Welsh Government who commissioned that report by Estyn, of course, because we were concerned that, perhaps, in relation to the higher apprenticeship framework, we weren't getting the kinds of results that we'd hoped for. So, that's why we commissioned the report. We're obviously taking the recommendations in that report very seriously. We are working with Qualifications Wales to make sure that they understand there's a need to drive up standards, and a lot of this is about making sure that we communicate and we work with the appropriate sectors to make sure that we are responding to the needs of what businesses want, so that the curriculum needs to really address the issues that need to work in a concrete way, in a practical way, in the workplace. 

According to recent research by Chwarae Teg, young women still favour sectors that are traditionally dominated by women, despite the need for more women in areas such as the STEM subjects, for example. One claim made in the report is that careers advice services don’t provide the necessary support for young girls. I do know that a number of individuals are doing excellent work, but is the Government confident that careers advice services are challenging stereotypes sufficiently and providing information about all sorts of careers and sectors?

Thank you for that. We are all concerned about the lack of women in STEM subjects. We need to increase that and that is why we have a specific programme in order to ensure that we try to get more girls to study these subjects. Many more European funding programmes have received support recently in order to push for girls to go into these subjects. I think that the careers sector is extremely aware of the situation. We do have Have a Go days, where they encourage girls to have a go at subjects that aren’t traditionally female roles. So, this is an exceptionally important issue for the Government, and what we don’t wish to see is that girls and women are encouraged to go into sectors where they are trapped in careers that don’t attract high salaries. So, we want to increase the number of girls going into STEM subjects, and I think that the careers sector is very aware of that.

Cabinet Secretary, Minister, the Welsh economy will be transformed in the coming decades as digital technologies become more prominent. Businesses will have to adapt as data becomes the most valuable commodity. In order to help our economy adapt, we must ensure that our young people have the necessary skills. Cabinet Secretary, what is your Government doing to ensure future generations have the coding skills needed for our future digital economy? 

So, we have a very specific and clear programme that the Cabinet Secretary is leading in relation to digital skills in schools. We are also very aware, in terms of the skills in the sector, that we need to move in this area. That's why we have commissioned Professor Brown to look at automation, the impact that automation and digitalisation will have on our economy and how we should best, as the Welsh Government, respond to that. So, we are on this case. We are very aware that there could be, potentially, tens of thousands of jobs that will be changed, that will be eliminated as a result of the digital age, but we need to also see this as an opportunity, because of course there will be thousands of new jobs that will be created and we need to make sure we have the skills in the workforce to make sure that those are appropriately provided for. We're on this case; we're awaiting, with anticipation, that report from Professor Brown.