input: Text: Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees—pupils who are eligible for free school meals. Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to—in challenge advisers' discussions in schools—we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-me
  Question: What is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field?
  Answer:
output: The most awareness around PDG is around free school meals, and there is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. In the nature of the cohort, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. The thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously, so the looked-after PDG is held at a regional level.