Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 15 January 2020.
Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, I have to say I was very pleased when you amended the guidance, to be followed by local authorities primarily, requiring them to take additional steps before they made a decision on closing small, rural schools. And while that didn't capture all small schools, it was a statement of recognition of the place in the community of small, rural schools and their contribution to standards, and of course the negative consequences of having young children being ferried across large distances, and in some cases of course the negative effect on Welsh as a community language.
But small schools are more expensive, per head, to run, and to assist with this you've offered, from the centre, a yearly grant of £2.5 million to be allocated annually from April 2017 to support greater school-to-school working in rural areas. It's an annual grant, but I wonder if you can tell me where I might find it in the draft budget for 2020-21, and what use it's been put to since its introduction.