8. What assessment has the Minister made of how well local authorities have embraced public services boards as a way of making service delivery more efficient? OQ57376

Local authorities, along with their other statutory partners, are seeing benefits from working through public services boards. Their annual reports provide evidence that local authorities are committed to working with their public services board partners to improve well-being in their area.

Obviously, it's a key plank of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 to ensure that all public services named in the Act are collaborating together in order to eliminate duplication. And I've just heard you tell Peter Fox that, once we disregard the additional money we've got for COVID, which is obviously a very special set of challenges, the UK Government is actually planning to reduce the budget for Wales, not next year but the following year, which is pretty frightening. So, all the more reason why public services boards have a huge role to play in their collaborative innovative approaches. Are you able to tell us which public services boards you regard as pathbreaking in leading the way in showing how well they can work together?

Yes. I think we have some excellent examples of work taking place, so Cwm Taf PSB, for example, that undertook a live lab exercise with the office of the future generations commissioner, and it focused specifically on addressing adverse childhood experiences, to try and work out how those partners could best respond to children and young people experiencing adverse childhood experiences.

And also Flintshire and Wrexham PSBs; they formed a joint PSB specifically to have a joint response to COVID and to develop a shared recovery plan from COVID. Again, I think that's been a really useful innovation. And then, Monmouthshire PSB has managed the resourcing of volunteer networks during the early stages of the pandemic, and they were engaging and supporting people at a very micro level and again, that was really, really positive. But I think all PSBs have some good examples of good practice that can and should be shared across public services.

And I'm keen that we do enable that sharing of good practice, so my officials and those of the future generations commissioner's office are bringing together PSBs officers quarterly in order to make sure that there is that forum to share experience and share good practice.

Thank you, Minister.