Children's Opportunities for Play

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:55 pm on 13 July 2022.

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Photo of Julie Morgan Julie Morgan Labour 2:55, 13 July 2022

I thank Peter Fox very much for that question. I am aware of Scope, and I've had a letter from Scope as well. Welsh Government officials have met with Scope officials already twice this year. I can absolutely assure you of our continuing commitment to provide opportunities for all children and young people to play in safety and to support improved access to play for disabled children. Both the Welsh Government and the play sector in Wales favour inclusive play where able-bodied and disabled children are able to play together, and this is supported by the Children's Play Policy Forum and UK Play Safety Forum, who released a joint position statement this year supporting inclusive play, which, of course, goes beyond accessible playgrounds. Local authorities, as I'm sure the Member will know, are required to ensure that there are sufficient play opportunities for all children in line with the provisions under section 11 of the Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010, and this includes specific provision for the consideration of the needs of disabled children. So, local authorities should be looking at this already.

Just to give an indication about how much support is being put in by the Welsh Government, since the play sufficiency duty was introduced in November 2012, we've made £33.330 million revenue funding available to local authorities to enable them to meet the requirements—that's since 2012—but, for the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22, we awarded local authorities a total of £8 million COVID recovery capital funding, which gave authorities the flexibility to purchase large items and refurbish playgrounds and access to playgrounds.