The SenCom Service in Gwent

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 5 June 2019.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 2:00, 5 June 2019

I also agree with the comments that Lynne Neagle has made. We have been asking you and, indeed, the First Minister about this issue for some time. I welcome the agreements that have been put in place by the five local authority leaders so that SenCom, a very valuable service, will continue in its current form until 2022, I think I'm right in saying. This should give greater security to the skilled staff.

It has to be said, Minister, that we ended up in this position because one of the partners—at least one of the partners—gave six months' notice, I think it was, about their decision to withdraw. I appreciate there are pressures on local authorities, but, really, we don't want this sort of situation to happen again with such short notice in future. So, I wonder whether you could tell us what steps you could take to make sure that this sort of situation doesn't arise in the future and that vulnerable children are given the security that they need to make sure that these sorts of services are going to continue to be available to them.