At the heart of the complaints we get from parents and school leaders, however, is what they are beginning to see—[Interruption.]—is what we are beginning to see as unfairness in funding between schools within the same local authority, let alone compared to other counties, combined with some ruefulness around new ways of funding, which don't always meet their priorities—priorities that often arise due to the demands of Government. Which is why we tabled this debate: to flush out the evidence behind the confusion and to encourage the Minister to tell us about the thinking that she has done to get us to into this position—a position where, it seems from the Government amendment, that she is content. Well, our constituents, school leaders, councils and parents—they're not content. This is why the Children, Young People and Education Committee is holding an inquiry into school funding—an inquiry that I hoped this debate would assist. And that is why I have to say I am very disappointed in the Government amendment to this debate. I was hoping that this would be about ideas, but to delete the entire motion and to say that everything is fine because of guidance, has completely missed the point that our constituents are struggling with school funding despite this guidance. So, we won't be supporting the amendment.

The first point fails to address the lack of transparency on what happens between calculating the indicator-based assessment figure and the actual spend on schools by local government. The regulations that provide the guidance were published in 2010, yet the frequently asked questions guide referred to in amendment 2 only appeared in September 2018, on the verge of us doing our committee investigation, I must add. And, as to their quality, the answer to the key question, 'How can I be certain my school's budget allocation is correct?' is, 'Contact your local authority'.

The third point of the amendment says that the guidance is aligned to 'Our national mission' policy document. And that may be so, but, yesterday, in the Estyn debate, Minister, you signally failed to address my points about audit and risk management of current evaluation processes, preferring to talk about the new ones that you would be introducing. So, I'm asking that question again today. I would like you to tell us exactly how you evaluate the effectiveness of the particular funding streams against your policy objectives and how those evaluation processes themselves are audited by your officials and external auditors to see if they're fit for purpose.

So, let's have a look at why our constituents are confused. Your notional figures already take into account what you're expecting in the block grant, Minister. In fact, Welsh Government often gets a little bit more than anticipated, hence the in-year supplementary budgets. For 2018-19, the year just ended, and with these observations in mind, the Government calculated that the notional gross budget for schools to be included in the revenue support grant was £2.56 billion, with a notional figure of £2.24 billion to be delegated to schools themselves. Schools actually got £2.16 billion. So why did local authorities think schools needed less than you thought they needed?

Carmarthenshire council felt it could spend £4 million less than you thought they needed. Pembrokeshire, where one in 10 primary schools and 37 per cent of secondary schools are in the red category, spent £1.6 million less on schools than you think they should. And this is before we get to the huge variation in how much local authorities retain centrally. In Powys, that's 25 per cent, and in Cardiff it's 10 per cent. And while there are very understandable reasons for that, related to rurality and sparsity, rurality and sparsity affect the schools themselves every bit as much as the provision of central services, so don't they need more too? You're beginning to see why I'm asking questions about your internal processes for evaluating the effectiveness of the implementations of your decisions. 

The Association of School and College Leaders blame the non-hypothecation of schools funding, as you know. What I see is an increasing tendency to bypass the RSG route because you don't trust councils enough to spend enough of what you do give them for schools, and you can't face the fight. But steering funding through centralised grants and consortia isn't going down well either. It's beginning to look like that established Welsh Government tactic of regionalisation by stealth. Consortia direct the spending of £230 million. Local authorities are top-slicing their school budgets to contribute towards that. The pupil development grant, which I think is a valuable idea, turns out not to have narrowed the attainment gap in the way we first thought. And that £139 million for school improvement—well, I'm not going to rehearse the whole of yesterday's debate; I made the point that the various forms of evaluation don't tally and don't result in persistently failing schools getting better. So, that £230 million seems to be an awful lot of money for the very little in achievement.

The ASCL has calculated that £450 million from the Government's education budget that could go to schools doesn't get to them through any route, whether to fulfil your own priorities or theirs. And you told us, Minister, in July, that you were looking into precisely this concern about money getting held up in local authorities or consortia and not getting to schools. The National Education Union Cymru says it's time to call time on the consortia. I think it's time you shared your findings of that work with us to see whether we agree with the NEU.

Now, I just want to come back to the PDG for a moment, because this is a good example, I think, of why I come back to the question of effectiveness, because we support the purpose of the PDG. However, the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods and Estyn have both expressed concerns about how the money has been targeted at low achievers and that our more able and talented continue to be held back by their low-income backgrounds. And the committee found something very similar. So, a letter to schools is not good enough. How do you plan to evidence more effective use of this money across the ability range, especially as more children will now be eligible for free school meals under the universal credit changes? We accept that the PDG can't be spent in a vacuum and, if there is incidental benefit for non-free-school-meal children, well, that's fine, but I think you have to ask, Minister, whether use of the PDG to take on teaching assistants is, in fact, starting to mask the fact that schools just don't have the core budget to employ staff at all.

Now, let's just compare two primary schools in one council area in my region, both in the green category. One has a high PDG requirement, a sufficiency of dedicated staff and a big thumbs up from Estyn, which it deserves. The other has a low PDG requirement, a similar number of students, but it is looking at laying off its dedicated staff and is asking parents to pay for equipment. It still gets a thumbs up from Estyn.

This is, in summary, what that school says, and I am summarising: 'There seems to be an assumption on the part of Government that parents will plug the funding shortfall. Our pupils and pupils in other similar schools are not as well resourced or provided for as schools in more deprived areas. This has led to'—and here's the list—'staff redundancy; a cut in spend and resources, premises, health and safety, so pupils are no longer getting support in class; no longer able to support a qualified teacher in our nursery class; no longer able to fund a qualified teacher for statutory PPA cover for all staff'. They're considering cutting school hours by half a day a week to give the teachers the PPA time to which they're legally entitled. 'Insufficient TA staff to meet the recommended ratios for foundation phase; no money for a properly trained well-being or attendance officer; senior management team has no management time; staff do not have sufficient resources to do their jobs; pupils no longer have support in the class; the fabric of the building and the ground is deteriorating; the caretaker is part-time; TA staff, if off sick, are rarely replaced in the short term; if teaching staff are off sick, they're not replaced in the first instance, and thereafter their work is split between other staff, increasing class sizes and causing a workload problem'—[Interruption.] Yes, thank you.