8. Will the Minister provide an update on autism provision in Blaenau Gwent? OAQ54904

Thank you. We're improving services through the autism strategy, and the integrated autism service is operating across Wales, including in Blaenau Gwent. We will consult on the draft statutory autism code of practice this spring and we are undertaking a demand and capacity review to ensure that services meet the needs of autistic people and their families.

I'm grateful to the Minister for that, and I know the Minister has demonstrated a very great personal commitment to delivering a high level and high quality of services for people and families with autism. I would ask him to review the way that those policies are being delivered in Blaenau Gwent. I hear in my advice surgeries on a weekly basis about difficulties that families are having accessing services. I recognise that this isn't happening across the whole face of the country, but I would be grateful if the Minister could commission a review of the provision of these services in Blaenau Gwent to ensure that the quality of services being delivered to people that I represent matches the best quality of provision across the whole of the country.

The Member, to be fair, has been consistent in his concern over the lived experience of autistic people and their families in his constituency and the particular concerns that he feels exist in the join-up of all of those services to help make the most positive difference for those families. I think I'm meeting shortly with a group of parents from your constituency, and I'd be happy to discuss further there not just their lived experience but where any review could or could not be done. Because we're reviewing the whole national picture, we're having a national interaction, we're listening to people's own experience, so their voices will be within the code of practice and the improvement programme that we've set out, but I'd want to understand in some more detail what that might look like and whether, actually, there could be partners locally who could do that in any event without me trying to direct that at a ministerial level or to cut across the work we're doing. I think that's probably best taken up with the Member at his constituency in the coming few weeks.

Thank you, Minister.