6. Will the Minister provide an update on the twenty-first century schools programme in Carmarthenshire? OAQ54921

Thank you. Carmarthenshire has seen £87 million invested in their school estate through the first wave of the twenty-first century schools and colleges programme. A further £112 million for rebuild and refurbishment of Carmarthenshire’s school estate is proposed for the second wave of the programme, funding of which began in April of last year.

I am grateful to the Minister for that update. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me asking her again about progress on delivering Ysgol Gymraeg Dewi Sant in Llanelli. I was very grateful when, before Christmas, the First Minister undertook to have some cross-Cabinet discussions about the particular issues around planning for that school, and I wonder if the Minister is able to tell me today whether those conversations have taken place and when the parents, the staff, but most importantly of all, the pupils, can expect to hear that building on the new school will start.

Well, as the Member will be aware, the outline business case for the replacement of that particular school was approved in 2017. However, since that time, that proposal has become subject to a wide-ranging discussion around planning issues, which the Member will be aware of. The planning decision branch of the Welsh Government is currently contemplating the request of a call-in, but I have to inform the Member that the request cannot be considered in its full way until Carmarthenshire council prepares its own officer's report and submits this to the committee meeting. Officials are currently awaiting that report, and then will make recommendations to the Minister for Housing and Local Government upon its receipt. Any influence she can bring to that process is very welcome.

Minister, I wonder if you could tell or confirm to us what formal arrangements you have in place for monitoring and evaluating the value for money of the twenty-first century schools programme deliveries, whether it's Carmarthenshire or throughout Wales.

Absolutely. Given the considerable amount of public money that is being spent on the programme, both money from within Welsh Government, but also capital money that local government themselves put into the project, then there is an evaluation process. That helped inform the second wave of funding, and we continue to work with our local authority partners to deliver the best value for money possible. I'm very pleased to say, because of very close management of the fund in the first band, we were able to deliver more projects than had been initially anticipated at the beginning of the project. But close attention to value for money is an important part of the robust process that is overseen independently of the Government when approvals are taken. So, it's a multilayered approach, and recommendations are made to Ministers by an independent panel.