Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:51 pm on 17 May 2022.
Thank you, Heledd Fychan, for those questions. She's right to say that the situation has been something that we've wanted to address for years. I remember when I was in school taking advantage of free music lessons and, as the Member was able to, I was able to borrow a brass instrument, without our having to buy one as a family. Unfortunately, the landscape has changed significantly since then, of course. And the committees, including Bethan's committee, as the Member referred to, undertook work in the last Senedd to shape this, and it has been very valuable. And I would also like to talk about the work that Kirsty Williams, my predecessor, did in terms of investment in instruments and establishing Anthem, which has been a contribution to this important landscape.
In terms of the work that we will be doing with other bodies beyond the borders of the service, there will be a role for local authorities, Estyn and the consortia to help shape how the work of the service touches with the needs of the curriculum and so forth. In creating resources, we'll be working with Estyn on that in order to create professional training resources, for example, so that tutors have access to the best means of ensuring that this happens. And the element of evaluation, I think, is an important one in this sense, because this is a significant investment, and the structure we have is one that's growing from the grass roots up, rather than the other way around. That's exciting, and it enables experimentation and local approaches, and we'll learn from those in terms of what works best and what doesn't work. That is inevitable, I would say. So, this process of evaluation, as we go on, is important so that we can make changes in order to respond to the best practice that will be demonstrated. And I think the Member is right to say that we have to do that in the context of looking at what's happened during the last two years, as that has had an impact.
The point about practice space is important. I think this is part of the wider agenda that we have as a Government in terms of schools that have a community focus and are therefore open beyond the restricted hours of the school day in order to allow their resources to be used in the way that she mentioned in her question.
Just as a final point, this commitment is a three-year commitment. We've only got a three-year funding commitment currently for everything, so that's the reason for that. Of course, we'd want to see the continuation of this sort of service beyond that. I hope, and I expect, that this will be a period where we'll be on a new path. I'm sure we'll see success in this area over the next three years and that we'll want to build on that.