I speak today as Chair of the Assembly's Children, Young People and Education Committee. Each year, we consider how the Welsh Government's draft budget provides for the children and young people of Wales. This work is informed by the financial scrutiny we mainstream into all our work and is undertaken with a children's rights approach at its heart. Throughout this Assembly, we have called on the Welsh Government to provide clear information about how it has assessed the impact of its financial decisions on children and young people. This is not just because we think Ministers should do this, it's because the duty of due regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child under the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 requires them to assess the impact of their decisions on children's rights.

Last year, we worked closely with the finance and equality committees to call for improvements in how the Welsh Government assesses the impact of budget decisions on different population groups. While we recognise that the Welsh Government is still working on implementing our recommendations, the information accompanying this year's draft budget has done nothing to allay our long-held concerns about how the rights of the child shape such important financial decisions. For that reason, we have recommended that the Welsh Government should return to publishing an individual child rights impact assessment on its draft budget. We think this is necessary until we can be assured that the strategic integrated impact assessment demonstrates that the duty of due regard to the UNCRC has been clearly taken into account. 

Turning now to specific matters in our report, I don't have time to cover everything, so I will focus on the areas that have been underpinned by the detailed policy inquiries we've undertaken in this Assembly. I'd like to start with school funding. We have looked at this again this year in detail. We welcome the increase in local authorities' funding in the 2020-21 settlement, and the commitment given by local government to use it to prioritise school and social care funding. Nevertheless, we know from our focused work in this area that there are serious concerns, both within the sector and among the public, about school funding. As a result, we are calling on the Welsh Government to robustly monitor this funding and to demonstrate to the Assembly that this money is, indeed, reaching our schools.

Turning now to the new curriculum, given the Welsh Government's ambitious reform plans, we welcome the allocations made to provide teachers with the necessary professional learning to adequately prepare. We have stated consistently that our workforce has to be our strongest asset if we are to deliver this once-in-a-generation opportunity. As such, we are recommending that the Welsh Government keeps all funding to support curriculum reform under close review. We believe this is vital to ensuring that the new curriculum is effectively implemented.

It will not surprise this Chamber to hear that allocations relating to the implementation of our 'Mind over matter' report were a key focus for us this year. Following the money as it relates to children and young people's mental health is a significant challenge for Members and stakeholders alike, so we looked at it in as much detail as we could. We welcome the significant funding the Welsh Government has made available to support services for children and young people's mental health and emotional well-being. However, given the amounts invested, we found the information available about how its outcomes are to be measured to be very lacking. We are, therefore, recommending that the Welsh Government should reconsider fundamentally how it monitors funding in this area.

In the field of perinatal mental health, it is approaching three years since we called for urgent action to provide specialist mother-and-baby-unit provision in Wales. We are deeply concerned that there is still no figure identified in the draft budget for permanent MBU provision in Wales, let alone a unit in place. We acknowledge that an interim service is being developed, but even this is not yet functioning. This has to change, and we'll be following up rigorously on this over the month ahead.

Finally, and very importantly, I'll turn to support for looked-after children. I said it in this debate last year and I'll say it again: looked-after children are some of our most vulnerable young people. Over the last few months, the Welsh Government has been working with local authorities on plans to reduce the numbers of looked-after children. During our scrutiny of the budget, we heard that local authorities have not been asked to cost these plans. Given the pressures on children's services, we think it is essential to have a sense of the costs involved. This is to ensure that they can be achieved safely and affordably. We are unanimous in our view that the safety of children and young people must be paramount in any plans to reduce the numbers of looked-after children.

Our report touches on a number of other very important areas, and I look forward to receiving the Welsh Government's written response to all our recommendations in advance of our debate on the final draft budget later this term. Thank you.