Questions now from party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Sam Rowlands. 

Diolch, Llywydd, and good afternoon, Minister. As an avid council enthusiast, I'm sure the Minister is as equally thrilled as I am to see the local government elections next week. And, firstly, Minister, with the election cycle coming to an end, I'm sure you'd like to join me in thanking all those councillors who have been carrying out that role these last five years. It's been a challenging time for all those elected members, working with their officers and officials in delivering those really essential services over this five-year period. Councillors, as we know, are the unsung heroes oftentimes in our communities. 

But, moving on, Minister, how would you assess the role that the Welsh Government has played over the last five years in allowing our councils to deliver on their priorities? Thank you. 

Yes, thank you absolutely for giving me that opportunity to put on record my thanks, and Welsh Government's thanks, to councillors of all political parties and none, who have served their communities over the past years, and especially to those who are choosing to stand down this time. I think that I want to put particular thanks on record to those, and also, just from a personal perspective, a huge thank you to those local government leaders who we've been working so closely with over the period that I've been in post, but certainly long before that as well, because they've done an incredible job. I think you referred to the work that's been done over the past five years, and, if anybody needs to know the value of local government, you only have to look at the response that local councillors made over the course of the pandemic, going above and beyond every day to meet the needs of people in their communities. There's no party politics in that. It is absolutely about putting on record our thanks for that. 

I think that Welsh Government has tried to work constructively and collaboratively with local government over the past five years, and I think that we've developed excellent relationships with local government. We've sought to have discussions early on so that we can bottom out problems before they become real issues, and I do think that we have that mature relationship with them now, and there's a keenness on our part to support local government to realise their ambitions. And you can see some of that through the support that we've been giving through the city regions approaches, but also through the work that we've been doing with the corporate joint committees and trying to support them to become successful, although we are still at an early stage with that work, as you appreciate. 

Thank you, Minister, and you do mention some of those regional bodies that have been set up, I think, from your point of view, to help those councils deliver on their priorities. But I do hear from councils and councillors some of the frustration about the layers of bureaucracy and the layers of governance and boards and bodies being put in place, and public services boards, regional partnership boards, regional leadership boards, and the corporate joint committees that you mentioned. And there's a number of these boards and bodies that have been set up over recent years, which actually take time and energy away from many of those front-line services delivering what residents need on the ground. So, I'm just wondering what plans you might have, or action you'll be thinking about delivering over the next term, in working with councils, to remove some of that bureaucracy and remove some of those layers, which can, at times, take up a huge amount of time and energy. You mentioned the council leaders, and it's often those council leaders who sit on all those bodies and boards away from the ranch, as it were, hearing those on-the-ground issues that they need to support and deliver on. So, what action will you be taking to cut some of that bureaucracy out of the way? Thanks. 

I think we've all got a shared interest in ensuring that the strategic partnership landscape across Wales is fit for purpose and is enabling rather than hindering delivery for communities. I think regional partnership boards in particular do have a special focus, but there's nothing to stop members of PSBs choosing to merge to match the local health board and, therefore, the RPB footprint, for example. So, there are options for the regional partnership boards to take. 

We've been very much of the view that any changes of this sort should be from the ground up, but I have committed to meeting with all the chairs of the RPBs to discuss their experiences, and perhaps this will be an opportunity to hear from them what they think the best fit, if you like, for serving local communities is. But I absolutely don't want to see duplication. I don't want to see onerous work on individuals. So, there is work to be done, and it's part of our commitment with Plaid Cymru to look at our strategic partnership landscape to make sure that it is working in the optimum way. But I welcome ideas from all parts of the Chamber. 

Thanks, Minister, and it is really welcome to hear that that work will be undertaken to understand the effectiveness of all those boards and bodies, and the importance, of course, of our locally elected councillors delivering on the ground for their residents. But, over the last 20 years or so, we have, of course, also seen this historic underfunding of councils, which has forced councillors to increase council tax—around a 200 per cent increase over the 20 years—with our hardworking residents bearing the brunt of these costs. I would say that now is the time to provide a plan to deliver stronger and safer communities, empowering local people, because they know what's best for their area, as I say, to deliver on the ground, tackling the issues that blight our communities. And, of course, I would say it's only the Welsh Conservatives who have the ability to deliver in our local communities. So, Minister, would you share my enthusiasm that a vote for Welsh Conservatives next week at the council elections will empower local councils whilst delivering stronger and safer communities? 

I always like to answer a direct question with a direct answer. So, no, I do not agree with the Member on that. I am surprised that, in the week of local government elections, or just before that week of local government elections, the Conservative Member would want to raise what he describes as historic underfunding of local government in Wales, because, of course, this is nothing if it's not a remnant of the period of austerity, which we went to. It's absolutely the case that Welsh Government is only able to provide the funding to local government that we receive from the UK Government, and although we have had an improved settlement this year, we've always sought to prioritise local government within the funding that we have. But we have been through 10 years of austerity and that's being felt still by local authorities, of course it is, but also by households right across Wales, as we move into the cost-of-living crisis. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth.  

Thank you very much, Llywydd. In February, your Government announced that 53,000 care workers in Wales would receive a bonus payment of around £1,000. Now, any additional funding for workers in that sector is to be welcomed, of course, but one-off bonus payments aren't the answer. They don't get to grips with the real problem. What is needed is for workers in the care sector to be recognised as they deserve in their wages on a monthly basis, month after month, year after year, and treated with parity with those working in the health sector. This bonus payment was a headline; it was a sticking plaster. So, what funding is available and in place to reward, stabilise and grow the care workforce in the long term, as is required? 

Well, Welsh Government was very pleased to deliver very early on our manifesto commitment to deliver a real living wage for people working in the social care sector, and, of course, that work is being led by the Minister with responsibility for social services, but we were very pleased to be able to deliver that. But to bridge workers in that sector to that, of course, we did announce the recent bonus, or recent payment, I should say, to people working in that sector as registered professionals, social care workers—it's specifically those in care homes, domicillary care and personal assistants who are paid through direct payments—to ensure that they have the benefit of that before the real living wage payment kicks in. But we tried to make sure that there was very early action on that in terms of delivering on that particular pledge. 

The Government has made a mess of the attempt to introduce bonus payments time after time, it has to be said, over the past few years. I said, a moment ago, that of course any additional payment is to be welcomed by those who receive it, but another major problem is that many aren't receiving it: kitchen workers and cleaners in care homes, as constituents of mine and the Unison union have drawn attention to—people who work in day centres for adults too. It's a long list, and for them all they see is their role being undermined. Now, the payment creates a two-tier system within the workforce, and it's hard to think of a clearer way to tell some people, 'Sorry, you're not being appreciated.' Now, as you are such firm believers as a Government that it's through one-off bonus payments that you show your appreciation, will we have a commitment to pay that bonus of £1,000 to the whole care workforce?

So, just to be clear, the £1,000 payment that we're talking about here is not a bonus payment. We were able to pay two bonus payments to people working in the social care sector during the course of the pandemic. The first was a £500 payment and then a second payment of £735. We were clear that those were bonus payments, they were thank you payments for the work that had been undertaken by people working in those sectors, working under incredible stress, working in very, very difficult and fraught situations, and that was a payment to say thank you for that work. 

What we have today and what we're talking about today is the £1,000 payment, which is, as I've described, that bridging payment between the point at which we were able to announce the real living wage and the delivery of it through the budget for this and forthcoming years. So, they are two very different payments, and that's why the same groups of people aren't captured by them. This payment that we're talking about at the moment isn't a bonus payment in the same way that previous payments were. So, I think we are talking about two different payments. I don't want to give the impression at all that the work of everybody in these settings isn't absolutely valued, but we are talking about two different payments with different purposes.