Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:57 pm on 8 February 2023.
Well, I thank Jane Dodds for that question. The accounts are something that I'm a great fan of personally, and I've increased the budget for them substantially. It is important that we continue to provide opportunities whereby people in work can renew and transform their skills. Two of the areas where we've focused funding on are digital skills, as Altaf Hussain mentioned, and also green skills. As we look at increasing the budget for PLAs, one of the greatest priorities is to ensure that we reflect the needs of the economy. So, discussions with the Minister for Economy are certainly moving in that direction.
In this financial year, I allocated almost £18 million for the PLA programme, and what we have seen happening—and this has happened during COVID too—is that we've been able to provide funding and then ensure that we support people in accessing new skills in a very short period of time. The ability to move quickly is so important in a changing economy.