Group 13: Duty to promote awareness (Amendment 31)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:20 pm on 5 December 2018.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 7:20, 5 December 2018

I am indeed aware that there have been a range of communication challenges for local authorities, parents and providers in relation to the offer to date, and I've considered carefully the findings of the evaluation report on the first year of early implementation, covering many of these points.

So, we will be launching a national communications campaign regarding the offer ahead of it being available nationally in 2020. Alongside this, as Janet has referred to, we'll continue to work with the family information service to ensure that details about both this offer, and also other, wider childcare support, are available to parents as needed.

Each local authority has a family information service, which acts as the first point of contact for advice and information on local services for families and carers. It is, of course, also important to make sure parents have access to information about childcare at the point when they make decisions about jobs and careers. So, we've been working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that employment advisers have that information, as well as with our own Welsh  Government-funded employability programmes. So, given that all of this work is already under way and that we have a service dedicated to providing families with advice on their childcare choices, I don't see that we need to add additional duties in this regard by way of this Bill, so we won't be supporting this amendment.