Diolch. Our motion proposes that this Senedd regrets the failure of the Welsh Government's Communities First programme to tackle poverty in the most deprived communities of Wales. Like many, I gave my support to this tackling poverty programme when it was launched because we were told it was about genuine community empowerment and ownership. However, concerns developed as evidence grew that the programme wasn't delivering the improved outcomes needed by people in Communities First areas.

Eight years ago, the Welsh Government rejected the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and Centre for Regeneration Excellence Wales report, 'Communities First—A Way Forward', which found that community involvement in co-designing and co-delivering local services should be central to any successor tackling poverty programme. Five years later, and after spending almost £0.5 billion on it, the Welsh Government announced that it was phasing out Communities First, having failed to reduce the headline rates of poverty or increase relative prosperity in Wales.

As the WCVA and CREW said in 2011,

'any successor programme to Communities First needs to create the conditions to migrate from a top down government programme into a community led strategy for tackling deprivation and promoting social justice.'

As CREW's 2014 'deep place' study in Tredegar found:

'In recent years the community empowerment agenda has been increasingly framed within the co-production approach' and

'governance for resilient and sustainable places should...seek to engage local citizens', requiring

'a very different perspective from the normal approach to power at community level and...dependent on a willing and open ability to share power and work

for common objectives.'

As the 2017 Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee 'Communities First: Lessons Learnt' report found, Communities First had a mixed record because

'there was too much variability across Wales, and inadequate performance management frameworks'.

As the Bevan Foundation stated in 2017,

'Communities First did not reduce the headline rates of poverty in the vast majority of communities, still less in Wales as a whole.'

Oxfam Cymru has specifically called on the Welsh Government to embed the sustainable livelihoods approach in all policy and service delivery in Wales, helping people identify their own strengths in order to tackle the root problems preventing them and their communities from reaching their potential. As the Bevan Foundation states, if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don't work and a new programme should be produced with communities, not directed top down.

The 'Valuing place' report, commissioned by the Welsh Government, based on research in three communities, including Connah's Quay, found that establishing local networks to connect people together who want to take local action should be of priority. I, personally, have been pleased to work with local GPs and third-sector co-production change makers on Deeside seeking to do this.