Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. We remain committed to our vision of securing well-being for people who need care and support, and carers who need support. Significant progress has been made in the nearly 10 years since our first White Paper on social care, 'Sustainable Social Services: A Framework for Action', which marked the beginning of this journey. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 has reshaped the nature of the sector. It shares with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 a focus on well-being, an ethos of prevention and early intervention, and the imperative of co-production and cross-sector working.

Whilst we have a strong legislative framework, there is a range of challenges facing social care, and of course the biggest challenge facing the social care sector is the funding position, set in the context of increasing and more complex demands on services, and years of UK-wide austerity have made their mark on public finances. The Welsh Government has increased local government budgets by £172 million in 2021-22, compared to the current year, but there is uncertainty about future budget decisions at a UK level. Even with the additional funding in the Welsh Government's draft budget, and the significant investment we have made in the sector to address costs arising because of the pandemic, the projected future funding need looks challenging. The Minister for Health and Social Services will update the Senedd in the coming weeks about the work of the inter-ministerial group on paying for care.

The pandemic has put the delivery of care and support under further significant strain, and made the fragility of the sector even more visible. It's difficult, I know, at the moment, to look much beyond each week, let alone to the long-term future, but the impact of the pandemic shows that we must work to put care and support on a much firmer long-term footing. That's why we must increase the pace of our transformational work to make social services sustainable. We must seize the moment when the public's consciousness of social care is at a high-water mark, and look to forge a Wales-wide consensus about what we need to do to build back stronger. We must learn from the way that the sector has worked together during the pandemic to co-ordinate and deliver services, in line with our vision of a healthier Wales.

I am strongly committed to decisions about local services being made as close as possible to local people, and therefore to local democratic accountability. In making that clear statement about local democratic accountability, it is not contradictory to point to the complexity in the social care landscape. I believe there are a number of issues that we need to address through an evolutionary approach to the policy direction that Welsh Government provides at a national level.

In January, I published a White Paper consultation on 'Rebalancing care and support'. I am proposing that to be fit for the future we need legislative measures that we believe are essential to secure our vision. In essence, the White Paper seeks to rebalance care and support so that it is based on a clear national framework, where services are organised regionally and delivered locally. We intend to develop a national framework for commissioning social care that will reduce complexity and ensure that quality is the key determinant of success in the social care market.

We know that continuity of the social care workforce has a significant impact on the achievement of people's outcomes, and therefore there will be a strong link between the national framework and action to support the workforce. A small national office will be set up to develop the framework productively with our partners, particularly in local government and the NHS. Separately, we will establish a professional voice for the social care and social work workforce, at a national level within Welsh Government.

We remain committed to regional partnership boards and want to support them to build on their successes, to strengthen integration across Wales. We will enhance regional partnership boards by providing them with a sharper set of tools to deploy, to deliver their core aims, to better plan and commission care and support where collective action is essential in order to improve people's well-being.

The proposals I've set out will reduce complexity, bolster sustainability and strengthen integration. They will increase transparency rather than obscure local accountability. The proposals are key to securing the vision for social care set out in the social services and well-being Act, supporting people to achieve their well-being outcomes.

The White Paper is a blueprint for a stronger, more balanced, care and support sector. It'll be for the incoming Welsh Government to take forward the results of the consultation about my proposals. And I hope that all Members of the Senedd will encourage all those with an interest to take part in the consultation, so that we can work together to achieve our vision of securing well-being for people.