Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 2:05 pm on 15 June 2022.
Thank you for the question. I'm pleased to say that the new ReAct+ programme does provide personalised support for those persons with barriers to employment. So, taking the service the extra mile and providing support to coach individuals into work is part of what we expect it to deliver. I recently met more specifically on this with Learning Disability Wales, who represent the learning disability sector, as the Member will know, to hear first-hand about the issues that disabled people face, and actually the point that you raise now about the support and coaching and the mentorship that is often needed to help people into work is part of what they raised with us. So, it is definitely part of what's informed the approach to the employability and skills plan, and I expect it to be part of the service. We'll obviously then need to understand whether it's actually meeting the needs of people as we want it to. So, I think the set-up and the policy is there, and our understanding of the need is definitely there as well. We now need to make sure it's delivering what we want it to in practice. I'd be more than happy to engage with the Member as that programme continues to make sure that it is actually doing what we want it to do.