National Assembly for Wales

Substantive response

As set out in our Ending Homelessness Action Plan the Welsh Government is committed to ending homelessness across all regions of Wales. This year alone, we are investing almost £220m in homelessness prevention and support services. This includes over £8m of funding through the Housing Support Grant to Denbighshire Council to prevent homelessness and support people to maintain a stable and suitable home.

We have allocated £10.2m to Denbighshire Council via the Social Housing Grant programme for 2024-25. Last year, six housing schemes were approved in the Rhyl and Prestatyn area receiving over £6.3m via the Social Housing Grant programme and over £133k via the Recycled Capital Grant.

Denbighshire Council and their RSL partners also received over £3.7m of funding from the Transitional Accommodation Capital Programme in 2023-24 to support move-on from temporary accommodation, bringing forward 36 homes, which includes 28 properties brought back into use.

A key priority in the Council’s Rapid Rehousing Transition Plan focuses on expanding activity on early intervention and prevention. This financial year, we have provided over £623k of ‘no one left out’ funding and over £129k Discretionary Homelessness Prevention funding to cover preventative measures such as offering a rent guarantee and paying for rent arrears to help people stay in their own homes.

Admission authorities are responsible for admission decisions. The Welsh Government does not usually have a direct role. The School Admissions Code allows a parent to apply for a place at a new school should they wish to do so at any time. In dealing with applications outside the normal admissions round, admission authorities must comply with parental preference unless one of the statutory reasons for refusing admission applies.

Anyone expressing an interest in admission must be given an application form at the first point of contact. Once received, such applications must be considered without delay, and a formal decision either to offer or to refuse a place should be made and notified to the applicant within 15 school days or 28 calendar days, whichever is the sooner.

Both Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) and Hafren Dyfrdwy (HD) have installed Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) on more than 99.5% of their relevant storm overflow assets and have recently unveiled storm overflow maps providing near real-time information on storm overflow activity across Wales.

When DCWW first launched its real-time map on 1 February 2024, they started with the assets closest to bathing waters and within 1km of swim locations, as well as shellfish waters. DCWW are incrementally adding more assets and all 2,300 of their overflow assets will be live with near real-time information by March 2025. The map is available on DCWW’s website at: Storm overflow map | Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (dwrcymru.com). Hafren Dyfrdwy’s map is also available online at Storm Overflow Map | In My Area | HD Cymru.

Welsh Government will continue to work closely with both water companies through the Better River Quality Taskforce to ensure the data is robust and accurate.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) provides legislation which protects all species of wild birds including gulls, their nests, eggs and chicks, from disturbance and harm.

However, there are some circumstances where large numbers of gulls, particularly during the breeding season can become aggressive and present a risk to health and safety for the public. In this instance, there are steps which can be taken and Natural Resources Wales have published guidance to this effect.

https://naturalresources.wales/media/693021/gull-management-guidance-note.pdf?mode=pad&rnd=132297793640000000

I would strongly advise local authorities to consider this guidance and the actions which can be taken to reduce or avoid problems caused by gulls. 

My officials meet regularly with Denbighshire County Council regarding funding for flood defences. All lead local flood authorities including Denbighshire are also represented on the Welsh Government’s Flood Programme Board which meets quarterly to discuss the Flood and Coastal Risk Management (FCERM) Programme.

We have allocated funding to Denbighshire County Council to progress flood schemes via three funding workstreams. First, under the main FCERM Programme for 2024-25 we have made over £680k capital funding available to Denbighshire County Council. The full FCERM Programme was published on 19 March 2024 on Welsh Government’s website: Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Programme 2024 to 2025 | GOV.WALES.

Additionally, under the Coastal Risk Management Programme (CRMP) we are funding 85% of the £66 million Central Rhyl and £26 million Prestatyn schemes currently in construction. Meanwhile, the £27.8 million East Rhyl scheme was completed in 2022, and 85% Welsh Government funded. When the three schemes are complete 4,788 properties will be at reduced risk of flooding.

Finally, Denbighshire has been allocated funding to progress natural flood management (NFM) schemes. Between 2020 and 2022, Welsh Government made £997,000 available to Denbighshire through the NFM pilot scheme. More recently, we have made over £1.57m available to Denbighshire between 2023-2025 to progress five schemes under our ongoing NFM Accelerator Programme.

My officials meet regularly with Denbighshire County Council regarding funding for flood defences. All lead local flood authorities including Denbighshire are also represented on the Welsh Government’s Flood Programme Board which meets quarterly to discuss the Flood and Coastal Risk Management (FCERM) Programme.

We have allocated funding to Denbighshire County Council to progress flood schemes via three funding workstreams. First, under the main FCERM Programme for 2024-25 we have made over £680k capital funding available to Denbighshire County Council. The full FCERM Programme was published on 19 March 2024 on Welsh Government’s website: Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Programme 2024 to 2025 | GOV.WALES.

Additionally, under the Coastal Risk Management Programme (CRMP) we are funding 85% of the £66 million Central Rhyl and £26 million Prestatyn schemes currently in construction. Meanwhile, the £27.8 million East Rhyl scheme was completed in 2022, and 85% Welsh Government funded. When the three schemes are complete 4,788 properties will be at reduced risk of flooding.

Finally, Denbighshire has been allocated funding to progress natural flood management (NFM) schemes. Between 2020 and 2022, Welsh Government made £997,000 available to Denbighshire through the NFM pilot scheme. More recently, we have made over £1.57m available to Denbighshire between 2023-2025 to progress five schemes under our ongoing NFM Accelerator Programme.

The NHS Wales Executive’s gastroenterology clinical network works with Crohn’s and Colitis UK on the development of services for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The network is discussing collaborating with the charity at its next meeting in respect of public awareness activity.

The Oversight and Intervention framework was published in January 2024, replacing the framework that had been in place since 2014.

The new framework demonstrates how Welsh Government triangulates information on quality, planning (workforce and finance), delivery (performance and quality), patient experience and quality of services based on the six escalation domains.

The oversight and escalation arrangements enable discussions between the various partners to discuss any concerns they may have with NHS organisations. Based on the assessment of health organisations, informed by these discussions, my officials make recommendations to me around the escalation status of each health organisation.

As highlighted in the framework, organisations that are escalation will need to achieve specific de-escalation criteria before I will consider the recommendations for de-escalation. If any deterioration is noted, there is an opportunity for organisations to be further escalated.

The implementation and effectiveness of the oversight and escalation arrangements will be reviewed later this year to ensure that it remains effective and relevant.

The Childcare and Play Anti-racist Wales Action Plan (ArWAP) Governance Group meets quarterly. Membership is comprised of representatives from the following organisations:

• Clybiau Plant Cymru Kids Clubs
• Care Inspectorate Wales
• Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning (DARPL)
• Early Years Wales
• Mudiad Meithrin
• PACEY Cymru
• Play Wales
• Social Care Wales
• Welsh Government
• WLGA

A number of our community mentors (individuals recruited from a variety of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities to support us to develop an anti-racist approach based on lived experience) also attend.

The Welsh Government recognises the invaluable work done by GP practices in the face of increasing demand and rising costs.

General practices are contracted via health boards to provide general medical services and they are managed as independent businesses. The responsibility for their day-to-day running and financial management lies with the contractors. As is the case across the UK, some practices have made decisions to merge to serve a larger area and support larger patient numbers.

Health boards provide a range of support to their contractors, including support following a change in practice escalation status, or on receipt of a sustainability application.

Over the past three years, we have made significant investment in general practice as part of a wider contract reform programme, including £20m last year.

From 1 April 2022, capacity funding of £4m was made available recurrently for three years to practices via health boards. This scheme facilitates match funding of up to 50% for the cost of either additional posts on appointment or additional hours worked by existing post-holders, enabling GP practices to take on additional administrative and clinical resourcing with the aim of increasing GP capacity and improving patient outcomes.

And we are investing more than £5m a year in our partnership premium scheme, which provides an incentive for people to take up valued GP partner roles.

Sustainability of general practice is a priority and we will continue to work with the profession to develop strategic solutions to navigate the challenges facing GP services in Wales. 

The Welsh Government estimates the number of people with self-reported long COVID in Wales to be approximately 104,000, using 2023 mid-year population estimates[1], based on the comparative figures for England and Scotland[2].  In this instance, long COVID is described as experiencing symptoms more than four weeks after a coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, that are not explained by something else.  Although Wales did not participate in the ONS Winter COVID Infection Survey (CIS), given previous surveys we expect the percentages in Wales to be comparable to the rest of the UK.

We recognise the need to support the large numbers of people suffering with long COVID symptoms.  In March 2023, I announced further investment into Adferiad (Recovery) Programme as detailed in my Written Statement: Adferiad Programme Update (14 March 2023) | GOV.WALES.

I have ensured this funding is recurrent so that health boards are able to continue to provide services to people with long Covid, but also to widen access to these services to people with similar symptoms, rehabilitation and recovery needs.  Making this funding recurrent allows for sustainable planning and development of these vital services, aligns with our ambition to improve access to health professionals, further develops community care services, and ensures comprehensive support for all individuals with long-term health conditions.

[1]  Population estimates for England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

[2]  Self-reported coronavirus (COVID-19) infections and associated symptoms, England and Scotland - Office for National Statistics

The Welsh Government’s quality statement for cancer describes what good cancer services for Wales look like.  This is underpinned by nationally optimised pathways for each cancer type that provide timed pathways of care describing how organisations can achieve the suspected cancer pathway target.

Our expectation is that all health boards should be working to achieve the national target of at least 75% of people starting treatment within 62 days of the point of suspicion.

We continue to work with the NHS Executive and health boards to drive sustainable improvement for cancer waiting times, including a focus on component waits across the pathway and increasing straight-to-test rates.

The Wesh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust is responsible for achieving the national ambulance performance target for red calls, and health boards, via the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee, are responsible for commissioning emergency ambulance services.

The trust has developed improvement plans to help manage more people in the community, reduce conveyance to hospital and protect valuable resources for those most in need of an urgent response. These include:

• Optimising use of the 999 clinical support desk, with an aspiration to manage up to 17% of people remotely where clinically safe to do so and reduce the number of people conveyed by ambulance to emergency departments
• A targeted workforce plan to reduce sickness absence rates and increase available capacity
• Additional volunteer capacity through the trust’s Connected Support Cymru initiative to aid decision making and support more people to remain at home.

We provided £3m to the trust in 2022-23 to pump prime the recruitment of 100 new staff to help manage increasing demand.

All health boards have Six Goals for Urgent and Emergency Care programme plans in place, supported by £2.7m in additional Welsh Government funding. Successful delivery of these plans will support improvements across a range of measures, including the reduction of ambulance handover delays contributing to improved ambulance responsiveness.

This funding is part of a wider package of more than £180m this year to support health boards and regional partnership boards to safely manage more people in the community; to avoid ambulance transport and admission to hospital; and deliver integrated solutions with social care services to improve patient flow through hospitals.

GPs and their teams are the front door to the NHS for many people, providing high-quality care close to home while managing the pressures of very high demand.

Our current GP trainee marketing campaign Train, Work, Live provides financial incentives to attract GP trainees to specialty training schemes in Mid, North and West Wales. These are areas  where it has been historically difficult to recruit. 

The GP specialty training programme has been significantly expanded over the past few years and there has been a significant increase in the fill rate for GP training. The current recruitment target of 160 new GP trainees each year is consistently being achieved.

This is further supported by increasing the numbers of GP trainers (circa 545) and training practices (circa 200) across Wales.

A total of 199 new GP trainees were recruited in 2023. This will have a direct positive impact on increasing the number of GPs caring for patients across Wales.

In line with the Mwy na geiriau plan 2022-27 we will be undertaking a survey with primary care providers to understand the impact of the Welsh language duties. The findings of the survey will be used to guide initiatives aimed at improving and expanding services in Welsh including whether the 2019 regulations need to be reviewed. The intention is to start the survey toward the end of 2024.

In addition, complementary qualitative research will be carried out to:

• Understand language duty implementation and Active Offer delivery in primary care.
• Explore the impact of Welsh language duties on delivering the Active Offer in primary care settings.
• Assess challenges and/or facilitators related to duty implementation and support needed.
• Identify any good practice examples in the form of case studies.

We are encouraging the public to give feedback on roads with a 20mph speed limit to help highway authorities apply our revised guidance. In addition, highway authorities are required to consult on Traffic Regulation Orders used to change speed limits.

The Trade Policy Advisory Group advises the Welsh Government on trade policy matters. The core membership of the Trade Policy Advisory Group is published on our website and includes:

• ACCA Cymru Wales
• Aerospace Wales
• Cardiff University
• CBI Wales
• Chamber Wales
• Fair Trade Wales
• FinTech Wales
• Food and Drink Industry Board Wales
• FSB Wales
• Hybu Cig Cymru
• Institute of Export and International Trade
• Make UK
• MediWales
• Public Health Wales
• RDP Law
• TUC Cymru  
• Unite the Union
• Welsh Automotive Forum
• Women Equality Network Wales

Following an invitation to tender, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) commissioned Laurel Research Consulting to produce Inclusive Futures: a guide for anti-racist library collections in Wales. Consultants from Laurel undertook the research and produced the guide.