Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:38 pm on 13 May 2020.
Okay. Thank you. In terms of the numbers, we've updated the numbers from the initial draft that Public Health Wales provided. That's why we get to the figure of 1,000 that we published today; that's the reason. But as I explained earlier, you can expect the number to move around. And that's part of the challenge here, because when we start—if we're going to start from 1 June, for the sake of argument—we may not need everyone and that full 1,000 at that point in time. We need to have enough people trained though so the system is robust. And, actually, Public Health Wales are working with the rest of the system on the training for what people will need to be able to do, how they run through that and the scripts they'll have to use, and then how they will need to record that information. That's all being worked through. And you'll see the trial of that—some of the trial of that, at least—next week, which will help to inform and I think further advance that work.
In terms of not just the numbers, but where they're coming from, local government have been really keen to play an active part in this, because they already have people who have got IT skills, who are used to using IT as a regular part of their job, who are keen to have work to do. They're really committed public servants, even in their specific area of work they were doing before lockdown, and because of lockdown, some of those activities aren't taking place as well. So, there are people who want to be redeployed, who want to work in this area. Now, that means that we've got a group of staff. The Welsh Local Government Association, again across all different political leaderships, in different parts of the country, say that there are enough staff to meet the need that we'll have for, if you like, that contact tracing team. So, we're relying on the detailed conversations that are taking place there.
But there will then be a challenge, if we are able to successfully unlock further areas of activity over a period of months, as to what that will mean in terms of the financial pressures, but also then, if other areas of activity are returning, it's about how we make sure that we don't suddenly lose staff who are working in this way, but to make sure that the whole system is still robust and can effectively work. And those are things we're continuing to work through with local government. But I really do think that, for the first stage of contact tracing, it'll be essentially a local government resource that will do that, in partnership with their local health boards. I do have a good measure of confidence that we'll have enough staff to make this work and we will of course need to address a range of challenges to make sure those staff are still in place in the right number in the months ahead, because we're talking about many, many months of a contact tracing system in place when the test, trace, protect model will need to be active right across Wales.