Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân, do you want to ask about the Welsh language?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've—. I'm happy with that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Really—?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened.
Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons.
Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem.
Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems.
Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning?
Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers' standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with.
Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please?
Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea?
Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment?
Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area.
Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to—
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting—
Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great—very successful.
Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that: 'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government’s work on the Early Years system.' That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering?
Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension—
Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system—
Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more—. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it.
Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that—unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children—on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five—that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas?
Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas—I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that—? Do you know the actual percentage?
Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but—
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty.FootnoteLink
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is—basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of—
Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter.]
Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second—oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course—in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can’t prove it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we’ve been working with the SAIL—secure anonymised information linkage—and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children’s progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions.
Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage?
Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we’re thinking of doing with Flying Start—. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we’re looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities—we talked about that earlier—so, that’s where we’re going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that’s what we’re looking at. And we’re looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with—
Suzy Davies AM: No, no—we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected?
Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we’ve taken to evaluation in Flying Start—. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you’re familiar with the work that, as I say, we’ve been doing with SAIL. We’re currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We’ve been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child’s chances have improved primarily because they’re getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There’s got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference.
Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky—in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so—
Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do.
Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me—yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition—taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire?
Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year—
Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you?
Julie Morgan AM: —and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to—well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that—
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago.
Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that.
Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for—. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries—it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided?
Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course—we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really.
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up—
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment.
Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting—again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful.
Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3.
Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure.
Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you.