6. How is the Welsh Government monitoring the implementation of the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018? OQ58056

We are co-creating an accountability framework to understand the impact of the implementation of the new ALN legislation. This will include assessing the effectiveness of implementation, obviously, but also identifying barriers and also measures to support implementation and exploring the emerging impacts and benefits of the new system.

Diolch. The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, or ALN Act, aims to overhaul the current special educational needs system, placing the child or young person's views at the heart of the process and involving them and their families in the planning, intervention and review process from the outset, with schools themselves having more autonomy over their additional learning needs provision. The ALN code of practice states that local authorities should consider at strategic level whether changes to funding arrangements for supporting children and young people with ALN are appropriate. Although the ALN code's children's rights impact assessment states that children and young people currently recorded as having SEN are twice as likely to be eligible for free school meals as those who do not, there is concern that some local authorities are using free school meals as the sole measure to allocate ALN funding to schools, which could leave ALN pupils in schools with lower free school meal levels deprived of the resources they need to fulfil their potential. How is the Minister therefore ensuring that local authority allocation of ALN funding to schools allows the Act's aims to be implemented?

[Inaudible.]—point. I think the additional funding that has been made available to local authorities in order to implement the new reforms has, of course, been significantly enhanced and extended in recent months. In January, I announced an additional £18 million, and I announced a further £4 million for special schools specifically at the beginning of March. But, the point he makes is very important—that we need to ensure that funding is invested in a way that enables the Act's requirements to be met, and that should follow need where it exists in schools in our system. So, one of the key aspects of the implementation review that we will be undertaking is to ensure that the emerging processes, as the Act is implemented, are delivering that outcome, but also ensuring that the co-creation I mentioned in my initial answer is really important, because that enables voices in all parts of the system to have a role in the accountability around the delivery of the Act. And I'm very certain that a key part of that work will be answering the question that he has just identified.