Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 23 October 2019.
Thank you for that answer, Minister. I've had correspondence with the headteacher and chairman of governors from Evenlode Primary School in Penarth who have highlighted the real difficult and challenging financial environment they and many other schools face across Wales. Hopefully, there will be consequentials flowing from the announcements made in Westminster, and some of those consequentials, obviously, are directly in your field of education. Are you confident that those consequentials, when the Welsh Government makes its decisions, will find themselves in the education budget so that the shortage of teachers that are available to fill many of the key posts that primary schools need to fill will be there and the budgets will be there to pay them? The evidence that they provided me has shown that across Wales there are nearly 1,300 extra pupils but there are 278 fewer full-time equivalent teachers and 533 fewer full-time equivalent teaching support staff. So, obviously, if the budget is there, then schools can go out and obviously make these employment choices. So, can we have an assurance that those consequentials will find their way into your budget lines?