7. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the innovate-to-save fund? OAQ52896

I thank Mike Hedges. The second bidding round for the innovate-to-save fund was launched on 19 February and 20 new bids were received. A total of seven have been shortlisted for the next research and development funding phase that will last until the early summer of 2019. Initial research workshops to take forward that phase are currently being established.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer? I'm someone who's long advocated an innovate-to-save scheme as a means of getting people to do something different, which can create great benefits. All of them won't succeed, because if all of them succeeded, we'd be back to invest-to-save where we do the safe. But, some of them will succeed, and some of them will make substantial savings for organisations. How does the Cabinet Secretary intend to promote the successes so that others can copy and benefit from innovation? It's long been said that good practice doesn't travel as well as it ought to in Wales. 

Llywydd, can I thank Mike Hedges for his continued support for the innovate-to-save fund? He will know that partly in order to make sure that we promote the work that's done within it, the fund is run through a combination of the Welsh Government in partnership with Nesta, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and Cardiff University, and we rely on the wider networks of those three other organisations to spread news of the fund and to make sure that its successes are widely advertised. There will be a workshop held next week, on 22 November, led by Nesta and the Welsh Government exactly to disseminate learning to date.

I've been encouraged by the fact that in the second round of bids for innovate-to-save funding, we've attracted bids from a wider range of organisations than in the first round—we've had bids from the health service, we've had bids from local authorities and we've had bids from the third sector. That does suggest that news of the fund, and what can be achieved through it, is beginning to make its way out there into the relevant organisations in Wales.  

And finally, question 8, David Rees.