Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 6 March 2019.
Thank you very much. So, as we move to transitioning the NPS and Value Wales teams into new functions, we'll certainly be taking into consideration the recent Public Accounts Committee inquiry into procurement, which concluded in February. We'll be considering the observations that PAC has to make in terms of helping us shape our way forward. But we have engaged with the support of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies to help shape our future approaches, and we're very keen to draw on their particular experiences, having worked on procurement initiatives across the UK and across the EU. The example of Preston has often been given as one that has been seen as particularly successful in terms of ensuring that procurement benefits the local community.
We'll also be looking at the work we've been doing through our Better Jobs Closer to Home pilot programmes. I think that they offer us particular opportunities to maximise the benefit from our investment, not just in terms of ensuring that money circulates within the local economy, but actually benefits people who are currently out of work, for example, people who are furthest currently from the employment market, and also exploring what more we can do to use procurement as a lever in terms of our decarbonisation agenda.