Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:38 pm on 27 April 2022.
I'm very grateful to Altaf Hussain for raising the Preston model—it's something that Welsh Government has been very interested in as we've been developing our own work on the foundational economy. And it's certainly a model that we did explore in terms of those anchor institutions—the role that the NHS has to play, the role that local authorities have to play, higher education institutions. All of those institutions that aren't going anywhere have a really important role to play in terms of the foundational economy work. And that's something that we have learned very much from the Preston model, and also the work from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. We have, as a result of some of that thinking, supported the NHS in Wales through our foundational economy programme, to embed social value within their contract-award decisions. And in the last financial year, this resulted in over £28 million being won by businesses in Wales. So, we're absolutely using what we learned through the Preston model, but then putting, obviously, our own Welsh stamp and own Welsh emphasis on that.