Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:28 pm on 3 February 2021.
Thank you, Dawn. I am very familiar with the complexities of some of the grant streams that directly employ staff in local authority areas. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, so a whole year ago now—though it seems both shorter and longer to many of us—grant teams were all advised that they needed to offer flexibility where that was at all possible, for example, by extending deadlines for outcomes to be delivered, or indeed in allowing 'morphing'—I believe the expression is—of various grant streams to allow the most flexibility. There isn't a blanket agreement, however, to hand out that funding with complete flexibility, because sometimes the funding comes from elsewhere to the Welsh Government with funding envelopes attached to it. So, we've provided as much flexibility as is possible from grant streams that we have complete control over and then we've flexed the boundaries of the others where that's been possible.
But if you want me to look into a very specific case, I'm very happy to take it up. It's very difficult to give an overall answer, since each grant stream comes with a different set of parameters and controls that need to be looked at. But in general, where at all possible, we have flexed the grants so that authorities can do exactly as you've just said, and it's good practice, of course, which is that as business-as-usual services have had to close down or become much more restricted, those staff can be put to good use in front-line reaction to the pandemic. And I know that that's been happening across local authorities as well. So, I'm more than happy to look into the very specifics for you, but, as I say, in general, we've put as much flexibility into the system as we could manage.