input: Text: Sian Thomas: Bore da. Unfortunately, the Chair, Lynne Neagle, is unable to attend today's meeting. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 17.22, I call for nominations for a temporary Chair, for the duration of the meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Sian Thomas: Any further nominations? I therefore declare that John Griffiths has been appointed temporary Chair, and I invite him to chair for the duration of today's meeting. John Griffiths AM: Thank you very much. I thank the Members for that. Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. The first item on our agenda today is apologies, substitutions, declarations of interest. Obviously, Lynne Neagle isn't able to be with us today. We haven't received any other apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2 on our agenda, the continuation of our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes, and evidence session 8. And I'm very pleased to welcome Estyn here this morning to give evidence to the committee. Would you like to introduce yourselves for the record, please? Meilyr Rowlands: Meilyr Rowlands, chief inspector. Claire Morgan: Claire Morgan, strategic director. Simon Brown: Simon Brown, strategic director. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you. And welcome again. If it's okay, we'll move straight into questions—we have quite a number of questions to get through this morning. Firstly, Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning. I just want to start by asking about your perception of how schools are using the pupil development grant funding, and to what extent they are genuinely targeting that funding exclusively towards children eligible for free school meals. Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question. This grant has been targeted far better by now than it was originally. Estyn has made several reports regarding the effectiveness of the grant, and, really, going back to before this specific grant, to a similar grant, called RAISE. At the start of this grant, the funding was often spent on tackling underachie
  Question: What were the benefits to Wales of having an independent body for inspecting?
  Answer:
output: Meilyr Rowlands suggested that it was hard to compare Ofsted and Education Scotland and the Education Training Inspectorate in Northern Ireland with the decision to have Estyn as an independent body inspecting schools and other institutions in Wales. Different institutions did things slightly differently, but the government had benefited a lot from each one of them. Meilyr Rowlands concluded that the use of the nominee and peer inspectors in particular supported the whole process in Wales.