Janet:

I would like to thank Lynne Neagle AM for her leadership as our chairman of the CYPE committee, the preparation of this report and also for introducing it here today. She has hit the nail on the head: there is simply not enough money going into the Welsh education system, and certainly not enough finding its way into our schools.

Now, of course, since the publication of this report—[Interruption.] I haven't even started. Sorry, I can't.

Since the publication of this report and, thankfully, our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP, has announced that the Welsh Government will receive £1.24 billion extra spending directly for schools. This money will provide an opportunity for the education Minister to take decisive action to close, if not crush, this £645 per-pupil funding gap between England and Wales. Earlier this year, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers' representative told us that it was the worst year for Welsh school budgets since 1995, and, sadly, things are only set to get worse because the Minister herself, actually, is in denial about this.

The WLGA have projected that the school budget gap will rise further to £319 million in 2022-23, and the cuts this is causing are crippling. For example, the number of teachers has fallen by 1,500 between 2010 and 2018, despite there only being 29 fewer pupils. There needs to be sufficient funding of schools, so I am pleased that recommendation 1 has been accepted. I will be following the urgent review with much interest because I believe that we need to know, however, the timings on this and by when we can hope to have a base figure for running a school and educating a child here in Wales.

Now, the report also gets to grips with monitoring the level of priority that local authorities give to schools within its distribution of funding and puts us on track to have a better understanding and tackling the known inconsistency with setting school budgets by 22 authorities. For example, the inequitable situation is exemplified when considering that the amount spent by authorities on schools can range from £5,107 to £6,456 per pupil. So, we are in a peculiar position where 501 schools held reserves above the statutory thresholds whilst 225 were in deficit as of March 2018. Shockingly, 70 per cent of Welsh secondary schools are currently in deficit. This is a priority problem.

I wonder, therefore, why the response to the recommendation about deficits does not explain how you are working with local authorities to explore effective management. I welcome your continued commitment to challenge regional consortia about money reaching the front line. The National Education Union have told us that they have had problems with the consortia since they were first established. The evidence we have received shows a lack of understanding of the roles of local government and regional consortia. I cannot criticise the confusion as even you are still working on providing clarity. And, Minister, I do recall during my scrutiny of you during one of your ministerial presentations to us at committee, you said, 'Janet, even I cannot follow the money from the Government to the schools', so there is a concern that if you can't follow it, how are our headteachers and, indeed, our parents able to follow it?

There is no bigger area calling out for clarity than spend on school improvement. In 2018-19, despite spending £11 million on purchasing school improvement services from consortia, local authorities also spent £10.9 million on school improvements. So, I strongly support the calls for an urgent comparison of both those spends. There is no room for duplication of work and financial frivolousness. The funding in the system must be made to work as effectively as possible as the school situation currently is unsustainable. For example, a headteacher in north Wales contacted me only yesterday to explain that teachers are leaving the profession and are not being replaced, teachers are reducing their hours due to budget pressures, and support staff are being hit by redundancies and reduced hours. So, I will be voting for the best interest of young people and our hardworking teachers, and I therefore support all the recommendations.

However, I do believe that you, Minister, can go further through addressing the queries I have raised to help provide a boost to schools from here, the Welsh Labour Government, as our Prime Minister has done from the UK Government.