In January 2019, the Bevan Foundation launched its project on the Welsh benefits system, aiming to develop a coherent and streamlined framework of help in Wales. As they said:

'The Welsh Government and Welsh local authorities provide a number of different schemes which...range from the provision of free school meals to discretionary housing payments.'

They added:

'At present, each of these schemes is viewed as discrete from each other, meaning that claimants often have to make multiple claims to receive all of the additional Welsh support they are entitled to, and creating inefficiency in the system.'

Speaking at the policy forum for Wales seminar on reducing poverty in Wales, welfare reform, local approaches and long-term strategies in March 2019, I noted that Community Housing Cymru had called on the Welsh Government to respond positively to their call for Welsh Government and local authorities to work with Jobcentre Plus in Wales to co-locate services and enable applications for local authority benefits to be made at the same time as universal credit.

Speaking here in September 2020, in the debate on the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report, 'Benefits in Wales: options for better delivery', I welcomed the Welsh Government's acceptance of our recommendations that it establish a

'"coherent and integrated 'Welsh benefits system' for all the means-tested benefits for which it is responsible...co-produced with people who claim these benefits and the wider Welsh public"

'and that it used the Oxfam sustainable livelihoods approach toolkit'.

I added, however, that

'We now need words turned into real action so that at last things are done with people rather than to them.' 

'The Welsh Government states that it is finalising actions to take forward following its review of its existing programmes and services'— and they're—

'developing a set of principles and values on which a Welsh benefits system will be based and tackling poverty more widely will only succeed with citizen involvement at its core.'

That's over two years ago.

Speaking here in January 2021, I asked the First Minister how he responded to the calls by the Bevan Foundation, Citizens Advice Cymru and Community Housing Cymru for the Welsh Government to establish a single point of access for benefits and support schemes administered in Wales.

Speaking here in July 2021, I challenged the Welsh Government on the actions it had taken to establish a coherent and integrated Welsh benefits system, as recommended in the 2019 committee report on benefits in Wales. I asked the Trefnydd, who was answering questions on behalf of the First Minister,

'what action has the Welsh Government therefore taken since to turn its words into real action'.

We'll be pleased to support the motion as drafted accordingly.