1. What steps is the Minister taking to support school students with additional learning needs? OQ60508

I'm deeply committed to delivering the ALN reforms that aim to enable learners with additional learning needs to have the right support and opportunity to reach their potential. That's why I have significantly increased ALN funding and protected this investment in the draft budget.

Thank you. You’ll recall that, last year, last summer, I raised the fact that my colleague shadow Minister Laura Anne Jones had accompanied me to Ysgol San Siôr, and they’re not the only school that have raised with me their concerns about there not being enough money for this ALN agenda.

The additional learning needs resource budget allocation has been slashed by 86 per cent from £25 million to £3.5 million. Simultaneously, in Conwy county, schools are having to continue operating despite the current year’s education budget being slashed by 5 per cent, a likely further cut in the education budget for 2024-25, and the local authority cabinet recently deciding to charge cash-strapped schools interest on bridging loans.

Our hard-working teachers in Aberconwy are being left with fewer resources to support children with ALN. Thanks to Senedd scrutiny here by these benches, we know the pressures facing our schools in delivering the new ALN system. So, what impact, as the Minister—and, indeed, as the leader-in-waiting, perhaps—do you think cuts to school budgets will have on the ability of schools to transition effectively from special educational needs to the new ALN system? Diolch.

Teachers in her constituency will want to know that she has misread the Government’s draft budget. As I made clear in my opening response, we have in fact increased in previous years and protected in this budget the ALN investment. That is the actual position. Her point is misrepresenting the budget in that respect and I hope that she will accept that.

She makes a fair point about the pressures in schools in relation to the transition to the new additional learning needs reforms. You could even say that now is the point of maximum pressure, because schools are operating two systems: the new reforms that are coming in and the older reforms for older children. So, it is a time of pressure and there are young children presenting in schools with increasingly complex needs. That is why it’s been so important to be increasing the budget to facilitate the reforms over recent years, and that’s why it has been so important to protect that in this year’s budget.

She will know as well that we are undertaking a review of the approaches taken across Wales to allocating additional learning needs funding to schools. There is a level of variation between local authorities. You’d expect to see some variation, but we want to understand quite why that variation exists. I’ll be happy to share the conclusions of that review with the Chamber in due course.

Minister, Mark Isherwood and I have previously raised the holiday club support at Ysgol Pen Coch in Flintshire in questions to you here in the Senedd, and I was grateful for your intervention. It was an intervention that made a real difference to the students. Can I also thank the school, the parents at the school, Flintshire council and colleagues in the Welsh Government too for the innovative way in which they found a solution? It did make a real difference to the well-being of the students, I must say. 

Minister, I'm seeking your support once again to ask that Welsh Government officials do have a further conversation with Flintshire colleagues and relevant stakeholders so that they can enable the school to have a year-round support hub and provide that year-round support for the students with those needs. Therefore, can I ask you to engage your officials, and ask them to speak with the council, speak with the relevant stakeholders, to discuss this further? It's an ambition shared by all colleagues who represent the Flintshire authority here in the Senedd. Diolch.

I thank Jack Sargeant for that supplementary question. He has, of course, raised Ysgol Pen Coch with me previously, and I'm glad that that opportunity created some ability to engage with the school in relation to the provision. I think he's right to say that the solution that they discovered was innovative. It's really important, isn't it, to try and find innovative approaches to all sorts of provision, right across Wales, and that can be an example to others as well. I'll be very happy to ask my officials to facilitate a further meeting between Ysgol Pen Coch and Flintshire County Council, to understand their position and any potential plans for a year-round support hub.