National Assembly for Wales

Bore da, pawb. Welcome to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. I have apologies from Jane Dodds and Mick Antoniw, as well as apologies from Joel James for lateness. He's been unavoidably delayed. And I'd like to welcome John Griffiths, who is joining us as a substitute for Mick Antoniw.

Today we are continuing our ministerial inquiry into disability and employment, and I'm very pleased to welcome Jane Hutt, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Jack Sargeant, the Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnerships. Would you just like to introduce your officials, Cabinet Secretary?

If I could introduce Lorna Hall, who is on the line from north Wales, the deputy director for equalities.

Bore da. My name is Stephen Layne and I'm deputy director for fair work, and the disabled people's employment champions sit within my division.

Lovely. And, Neil Surman, you're the deputy director for skills. Is that right?

I am, Chair, yes. Apologies for my croaky voice this morning.

Thank you for joining us despite your not being very well. I'm just going to start off the questioning. I see from your paper, Cabinet Secretary, that the Welsh Government adopted the social model of disability back in 2002. All the evidence we've heard seems to indicate there has not been very much progress made in moving away from the model of disability, and I just wondered if you would like to comment on your analysis of the rate of progress.

Thank you very much, Chair, and can I first start by welcoming the Equality and Social Justice Committee's inquiry into this really important subject, which, of course, is very much cross-Government? And I'm glad to be here with Jack Sargeant, but I could be here with many other colleagues and Ministers as well.

You do recall the fact that I was the Minister for Health and Social Services who announced that the Welsh Government would adopt the social model of disability back in 2002. It was the first nation in the UK to adopt it. Can I just actually pay tribute in retrospect to a former Member of this Senedd, David Melding, who actually was very strong about these issues? But also, coming from the voluntary sector, not that far away from that time of becoming a Minister, the social model of disability was very much what we believed should drive all policy making. So, it is such a straightforward thing, isn't it, the social model of disability? It's quite clear that this is  about the barriers that exist, the barriers that disabled people face because of their impairments and it's clearly a distinction between impairment and disability. So, I'm proud to be one of the first adopters, but it has been over the years—. We have, as a Welsh Government—. And, indeed, this applies to all those who you've taken evidence from—local government, business as well—they have also got to adopt this. We've made progress, but we have to do more in driving that understanding and cultural shift and, indeed, cross-Government adoption of the social model, away from what is the medical model. I still get very frustrated when I hear people, and it happens when people talk about 'people with disabilities', because people are disabled by society.

So, this is something that drove the discussions from the 'Locked out' report on liberating disabled people following the pandemic. What we said at the outset with all those engaged with the disability rights taskforce—and I co-chaired it with Professor Debbie Foster and I'm meeting her very shortly to take stock—was that all the work that we did in the disability taskforce should be was based on the social model of disability and co-production. It's a priority of this Government, and I think disabled people's employment champions, which of course are Jack's responsibility, have underpinned their work in terms of what they've been doing with the public sector employers, particularly NHS, local government, Careers Wales, national park authorities, joint councils of Wales, the workforce partnership council. And it's about training, isn't it—training resources on the social model? It's available through the Business Wales website. Jack might want to say more about that in terms of the way it has underpinned the work of the disabled people's employment champions.

I think it is something that—. It's crucial that—. It's a straightforward thing to do, to understand. Training of all of our senior civil servants is crucial. But also I was interested, just quickly, to say that the disability evidence unit has got—. One of its work streams this year was to provide guidance to analysts and researchers on using social model language in research, statistical reports, releases and documents, including recommendations on terms that should and should not be used. And I think that goes back to the way we still have to drive this and underpin this in every aspect of Government. But, Jack, you might have something to say on this.

Yes, thanks, Cabinet Secretary, and to add my thanks to the committee for holding the inquiry. The social model of disability and the adoption of the social model by the Welsh Government was obviously the right thing to do, but the ingrained medical model that's been ingrained in society for decades does take a longer period to shift. You recognised that within your question, Chair, and the evidence that you've heard. The Cabinet Secretary pointed to the disabled people's employment champions who have gone about raising awareness in certain organisations. The NHS is one; I think the workforce partnership council is another valued area where they've promoted the social model of disability. The Cabinet Secretary also pointed to where training, perhaps, might go some way in shifting us to a better place, a place where we all want to be, and I'm sure the committee wants us to be.

So, the disabled people's employment champions, Chair, will be undertaking and delivering training on the social model of disability to the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus counterparts in the new year. So, a space where we can work with our partners across the UK to try and get the shift that we want to see.

We'll come back to the disability employment champions a little bit later in the session. I think, from talking to the witnesses that we've heard from earlier, the 'Locked out' report was very, very welcome after the terrible experience of many disabled people during the COVID lockdown. Equally, the disability rights taskforce that was set up in response to that report has raised expectations of the action needed to address a lot of the issues that disabled people continue to grapple with.

So, the income and working group of the disability rights taskforce concluded its work in December last year—that's 11 months ago. You say in your paper that the disability rights action plan won't be published until the spring of next year, and I just think that people are getting very concerned about actually implementing a lot of the actions that have been identified that need to change in order to have a better deal for disabled people. So, could you say, Cabinet Secretary, why the publication of the plan has been so delayed?

Thank you very much, Chair, and it was a really important point of action that the Welsh Government took, back in 2021, following the 'Locked out' report. In fact, I recall it well. It was myself and the then First Minister Mark Drakeford, and other Ministers, even possibly Julie Morgan in her previous role: we wanted to make it a cross-Government response, because it was covering all policy areas. I said earlier on that we also agreed that it should be co-produced on the basis of the social model of disability, and we did turn to the forum, the disability equality forum, for assistance and guidance. You will know the disability equality forum, and you've received evidence from them. I'm meeting them, actually, on Thursday, and we'll be talking about the progress in terms of publishing the disability rights action plan, which of course comes after the disability rights taskforce.

Well, you know the number of working groups that were brought out of the work that started on the disability rights taskforce. Those working groups are all really important. You've mentioned the income and employment working group, but there are a number of other working groups as well. Independent living was the first one that we worked on, but I have to say that the disability rights taskforce wanted to see embedding an understanding of the social model of disability as a work stream in itself, as well as looking at independent living, health, children and young people. Access to justice came quite further on into our deliberations, because there was a recognition that perhaps that was missing, so that came in later. And well-being as well. So, what happened was, as we worked through the taskforce, there were other policy areas that came forward. So, in fact, the final two work stream reports didn't conclude their business and their work until June of this year.

So, we now need to get this adopted by Welsh Government across all ministerial areas. I've been having bilaterals over the last few weeks with all Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers about their commitment to the disability rights taskforce and what has come through it. Every time we actually concluded the work of a work stream, we then presented it and met with the Minister at the time. I remember the employment and income work stream back in December. In fact, Vaughan Gething came to hear the recommendations, because it was very important that all of the recommendations were presented by this co-produced taskforce and the work streams. I think it's important that we now progress with it. If June was the last two reports, as I said, we'll take those recommendations now to Cabinet and then consult fully on the outcomes of them.

I think it's been a really interesting example of co-production. You can't rush co-production, although there's a frustration then about, 'Well, when are you going to deliver the recommendations?', and you have got to get cross-Government engagement. That's where, Stephen, you and others across Government certainly had to then engage at official level, and you may want to just comment on how you felt you were engaged, and perhaps Neil as well. Lorna, of course, very much helping with her teams to drive this. So, it's really important now that we do get this right.

I mean, back in 2019, I actually launched the last iteration of action for independent living, which was very much cross Government. I remember launching it at the Bridgend disabled people's organisation, and it covered all of the range of areas that this taskforce is covering, and I recall then there was a feeling that it wasn't going to go far enough. One of the key work streams, I would say, for example, was travel and transport as well as access to services, including communications and technology, because those were some of the lessons that were coming out of the pandemic about, 'Did we appropriately access disabled people during the pandemic?'

Access to justice came in later on because there was a recognition that there were injustices to disabled people, some of which, of course, were not devolved in terms of the way we needed to address that with the UK Government as well. So, the disability equality forum has met throughout this period, alongside the disability rights taskforce, and co-production was the commitment, independent living, of course, and access to justice was key, that we got that right. But I don't think we've stopped. When I look at some of the recommendations, we've actually started to implement some of them.

I've mentioned the disability evidence unit. Well, pre pandemic, we didn't have such a thing as a disability evidence unit; we didn't have a race evidence unit. We set that up, and I'm sure you will want to ask how things are going, but if you look at the report that they published in May of this year, quite a lot of their actions related—and I've mentioned one of them already—to the importance of the disability rights taskforce, and they continue to play a role in that, including—and this goes back to cross-Government work—looking at barriers to employment for disabled people, which is an active part of their work programme.

Well, none of us, I'm sure, would criticise you for engaging with the experts, who are disabled people, on this, but you can see that there's a tension between that very widespread engagement and actual delivery, which Professor Debbie Foster was very concerned about. Obviously, she co-chaired the taskforce with you. She is really anxious that we are now running out of time in this sixth Senedd to actually implement a lot of the excellent work that's been done, all the things that you've agreed that you need to take forward. We are less than 18 months before we go into elections, and who knows what happens afterwards? So, how do you think we're going to see some outcomes from all of this hard work before this Senedd is dissolved?

Well, I think, as I said, some of the outcomes are already being implemented. We learnt on the job, as it were, in terms of—

Okay. But, Professor Foster is expressing concern.

And I've mentioned the disability evidence unit. Can I just say also, I'm meeting the disability equality forum, as I said, on Thursday? I know that my officials have met with all the chairs, the chairs of all the work streams, over the last couple of weeks. It's got to go to Cabinet to get the backing of all of our colleagues. They were very supportive and signed up to it. But also, we should be able to start delivering on the recommendations of the taskforce next year, and I would hope very much—. This is a cross-party Equality and Social Justice Committee. I'm hoping you will also be very positive about the fact that the findings of this taskforce, many of which you've heard already in terms of evidence, will be driven through into manifesto commitments and programme for government for the next Government in 2026.

But also, can I just say that it's not just for the Welsh Government? We've got a new UK Government as well. I was just looking at the Welsh Local Government Association evidence to this committee; it's critically important that we get local government engaging and delivering. I thought that they gave a very positive response to your call for evidence and inquiry. There's the commitment to the social model as well, and disability confident employers. There's the health service, obviously that goes without saying; Business Wales—they've all got to be delivering on the outcomes of this. If they want disabled people to be in the workforce and the labour market, and if we want to make sure that travel—. There were so many meetings that we had with the Deputy Minister for transport, at the time, with the travel group. Changes are being made as a result of that co-production, and then we need to drive it through into next year and the next election. But I don't know whether it's worth you saying anything, Stephen, about the commitment at the highest level. 

Yes, absolutely. The way in which the action plan is coming together is a new way of working, quite frankly. Co-production comes with absolute advantages, but it also does come with challenges. Obviously, it would be much quicker if a group of officials sat down in a room somewhere and put together an action plan and a set of recommendations, but it wouldn't be informed by that co-production process, and it certainly wouldn't have the buy-in of the disabled community either. So, this does take time, particularly on this scale, because there isn't an area of Welsh Government policy or delivery that, in some way, hasn't been engaged in the work of the taskforce and the working group. So, co-producing something on that scale will take time, but as the Cabinet Secretary has alluded to, a number of the recommendations within the work of the taskforce are actually being implemented. They're already influencing our policy thinking and behaviours within Government. So, on an official level, it's been a real learning experience for us and a really valuable experience in terms of broadening our minds, becoming much more informed about the challenges that the disabled community face. So, it has absolutely helped us, and we are embedding some of that in our thinking right across Government. 

Thank you. Sioned Williams. 

Well, I hope that the proof will be in what comes out of this, in terms of the disability rights action plan that comes out of, as Stephen and I have said, a really intensive co-production taskforce, bringing together so many disabled people who've never had a voice before. Our disability equality forum, over the years, has very much been representatives of disabled people's organisations coming together, not disabled people. And this started as we were coming out of the pandemic, into the beginning of this term of Government and this sixth Senedd. So, it has been very much alongside taking forward, obviously, our 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' and our LGBTQ+ action plan, but the commitment from officials, Lorna and her team, has been absolutely on a par with those.

And can I also make the point that it is quite an intersectional area of policy here? We're learning more about that intersectionality, and that's also what's important. I've mentioned the disability evidence unit; it's actually an equalities evidence unit with the race disparity unit and a disability evidence unit. This has all happened since 2021 and it's already having a huge impact at official level. If you look at this May work plan of the evidence units, you'll see scattered through it work on—. I've mentioned one or two of the work plans on tackling barriers to employment for disabled people, the social model, et cetera. You'll see work on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller evidence, you'll see work on the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan'. We have now actually got to ensure that we embrace these issues of protected characteristics.

It's interesting; on a separate responsibility I've got, I've just introduced the draft guidance on equality, inclusion and diversity for our elections in 2026, and actually, as far as disabled people are concerned, there's already an access to politics scheme, and we want to now see whether we could do something similar for other people and groups with protected characteristics. Disability Wales has been at the forefront as the national organisation over the years, and, since 2002, we've obviously been working on the social model of disability to drive action across the Welsh Government. But of course, we've got the learning disability plan—. Within social care particularly, we've got streams of work that have been addressing many of these issues in terms of independent living; we've got work going on with our direct payments.

So, as Stephen has said, work has actually moved forward, evidence gathering through the units, and I think this is something that—. I'm meeting Professor Foster and Rhian Davies from Disability Wales in the next couple of weeks so that we can, I hope, give them the confidence, as I will on Thursday, that this is going to take us forward.

We need to move on, but Neil Surman, did you want to come in before I go back to Sioned Williams?

No, that's okay, Chair. Stephen talked about the work of the taskforce, and I couldn't add to anything that he's just said.

Thank you. Sioned.

Thank you very much, Sioned. I did write, in quite some depth, I think, back to you, Chair, earlier on this month about our response to the incorporation of the UN convention on the rights of disabled people. This is something on which we've been working very much with the independent sector, with also legal advice, but also working with Scotland as well, because we've had a very strong commitment to work together on human rights issues. You will see it's quite a lengthy response, Chair, as you know, in terms of where we are in taking this forward. The commitment is to take this forward, but it has proved to be much more difficult, as my letter explains.

I think what's important is we set up a legislative options working group, and I've referred to that in my letter. I believe you might have taken evidence also from that working group. We've got a human rights advisory group, and the information about the minutes from both those groups is actually on the Welsh Government website. They're looking at their work programme now, as you know. It's very novel and complex, as I've said in my letter, and they've actually got some funding now to support their work. I think you've got a copy of the interim report from the legislative options working group. We're also developing a human rights communications plan.

So, our commitment is there. You will know that, also, we're looking at the options for a human rights Bill. We spent quite a lot of time in the human rights advisory group in the previous Government opposing various attacks on our human right legislation, as you recall, from the previous UK Government when they wanted to repeal various human rights. We spent an awful lot of time giving evidence why they shouldn't repeal the human rights legislation that we've got and commitments to the convention on human rights. We hope, again, early in the new year, we'll be able to give you a fuller update on what is possible. As I said, we've been working with Scotland; they've got more powers, and they've actually paused their work on a human rights Bill until after the election in 2026.

What's important is that we have a human rights advisory group. It does include Disability Wales on it and representations from all of the other protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010. And we are still delivering on the recommendations of the 'Strengthening and advancing equality and human rights in Wales' research that we undertook. I'm sure you know the evidence that's come from that has a big impact, like the social model of disability, on the way that we work in the Welsh Government, and also with colleagues.

One point that's important—and it does relate to the disability rights taskforce—is that, quite rightly, in the disability equality forum, I'm regularly questioned about this, and there is disappointment that we haven't been able to go further with incorporation, but, basically, we aren't the state party, it is going to be difficult to overcome this. But it's open, it's transparent, the advisory group is something that I chair, and this is very much steering us and guiding us in terms of evidence of what we can and what we can't do. 

Well, in principle, of course. It was in our manifesto, and in our programme for government, and the UN convention on the rights of disabled people was ratified by the UK Government, but it's not been incorporated into domestic law. That means the rights contained within are not directly enforceable by any individual in the UK. This is the extensive work that's been undertaken. And indeed, Professor Simon Hoffman, I think, came in front of your committee with Dr Sarah Nason about the work that they undertook for us. We wanted to strengthen equality and advance human rights Wales, which we believe we are doing.

But in terms of the legislative options working group, we respect their work and we take their advice. We're going to have recommendations for legislative and non-legislative options. I do think it's important, Chair, and Sioned, that we look for non-legislative options as well, if we can't take a legislative route, working, again, with the Scottish Government on these issues. We need to look at our Welsh-specific equality duties, working with the disability equality forum, and we do need to look at this in terms of what is possible. But can I say, I'm also hoping, very shortly, to meet UK Ministers on human rights? Because we now have a new Government. We were fighting—well, sorry, that’s the wrong word—we were opposing the previous Government's attempts to row back on human rights; now we have a new UK Government, so I want to at least put this on the table to say, 'What is it that we could do?' But I want to look at non-legislative as well as legislative options, because, also, we were looking, as you will know, not just at the rights of disabled people, we were looking at CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, as well, as something that we wanted to take forward.

I'm happy to pick that up, Chair.

Okay. I mean, if I just comment quickly and turn to Jack, I think it is important, in the letter that I wrote to you, that there are difficulties, which were very much challenged in Scotland, about legislative powers to incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law. They were looking at that for the convention on the rights of the child, in fact. We have restrictions within the Government of Wales Act 2006 as well, so we do need to explore this further, and I'm very happy to explore it with UK Government Ministers.

Fine. Jack Sargeant.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that. And thanks to Sioned as well for, I think, highlighting the importance of knowing your rights within the workplace, whether you're disabled or not. It's crucial to understand that you do have rights and where to use those rights if you need to do that. We look at this through a lens of fair work in general, not just in this space, but, to talk to the interventions that we do do in this space, the online resources from Business Wales include the workers' rights and employers' legal obligations as well. There is, actually, Chair, the practical guide there for employers on what they should be doing when employing disabled people that I'd be happy for the committee to see, to make sure that we can share that link with you; talking to the disabled people's employment champions again, and using those experiences to signpost the services within the system; and then, more broadly, there's the work that we will be doing on the UK Government's plan to make work pay and the subsequent Employment Rights Bill. The Cabinet Secretary talked about the previous UK Government rowing back on human rights; well, we've seen them do that with access to trade union rights as well. We're looking forward to working with the new UK Labour Government to right that wrong, and I know I've had ministerial discussions on that; officials have also had early discussions around the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which will be coming forward—another area where you can do that.

And just promoting access to trade unions in general, the work that the TUC do in this space promoting the rights, knowing what are your rights within the workplace is, I think, second to none, and we should pay tribute to them and the disability rights champions. We saw the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Wales Union Learning Fund this year, Chair. I look forward to, hopefully, going on to support that Wales Union Learning Fund, because that very much embeds the workers’ voice, union reps, including those who represent disabled workers, to not only fight for what’s right but makes access and the workplace a better space for everyone. So, they’re just some of the things that we’re doing.

Okay. We'll move on to Julie Morgan, who's got some questions around your relationship with employers.

Yes. Bore da. Well, you’ve already started to talk about that, Jack, but we did hear in our evidence that there were some barriers put up by employers’ attitudes towards disabled people, and learning disability in particular was mentioned. So, you’ve mentioned some of the things that you are doing, so I don’t know whether there’s any more you would like to say about how you’re improving employers’ perceptions of employing disabled people so that we can get a much bigger move, a change, in the way things are happening.

Sure. Thanks, Julie, for that. Again, I think the disabled people’s employment champions play a key role in some of this, but also examples of where this is happening in real life. The Cymru Broadcast Centre, just down the road in Grangetown at the Tramshed Tech, is a state of the art facility in the creative industries space, the only one in the UK that has been designed and developed with employment opportunities for disabled people in their minds. I think that’s a fantastic initiative that we have in Wales and something that we should look to promote further and indeed celebrate where we can.

Our social partnership way of working here is crucial, isn’t it? So, I’ve spoken quite at length now of the role that the trade union movement can play and do play. I look at TUC Cymru, in particular, as being a big player in this space, but also my own union—I declare an interest, Chair, of Unite the Union membership—and the work that they do. Terry, one of their organisers within the workplace, Terry Mills, plays an incredible role in tackling that barrier and making sure, where this does happen, like the Cymru Broadcast Centre, that employers know about it so they can understand the barrier really isn’t one that should be there.

Then, another area that I’m quite interested in doing more in—. So, Deeside Business Forum in my own constituency have taken it upon themselves to have a range of employment summits for disabled people, or those with disabilities, and I think that is a space where we can bring businesses together. And they’ve done this on their own back. It was supported by officials from Welsh Government, but they recognised the importance of doing this and have had some successes. So, if we can look to build on the work of Deeside Business Forum, I think we should do. It’s a model that works and could be looked to to further have summits like that across Wales and across the UK.

Yes, I think that—. Well, you’ve mentioned some really good examples of where this is working, but, in terms of the employment champions, and obviously we did interview some employment champions, how are you measuring their achievements?

I think we set out in our letter to committee, in the evidence to the committee, Chair, the clear, strategic objectives that the employment champions are given when they take their role. There is a detailed work plan that sits beneath all of that, and those two things do form the basis of the regular performance reviews that you would expect to happen in the civil service. Chair, it is a civil service protocol, and I’m not sure that I would be able to disclose the nature of those performance duties, but the objectives and the work plan underneath do form the basis of those reviews. What I think has been good throughout this inquiry is the evidence that you’ve received on the role of the employment champions, proving that they are doing the right thing. It’s good that we have them, and we should look to use them more where we can. The very nature of those performance reviews I would find difficulty in handing to committee.

Yes. I wouldn't expect you to, but, basically, we wanted to know that you were measuring their effectiveness. 

So, I can confirm, Chair, that we do do that, in the way that I've described.

The other thing that we had evidence about was the Disability Confident scheme, and there was quite a bit of concern expressed about the effectiveness of that scheme. And one of the suggestions was that the Welsh Government should adopt a Welsh kitemark. Is that something you're considering at all?

So, Stephen and I had this conversation just first thing this morning, Chair, and I think the space that I'm in at present would not be to consider a Welsh-specific kitemark. I don't think any kitemark is perfect in its own right. We have Disability Confident; I think that will remain in place. So, the best use of our resource is making sure that we get the most out of Disability Confident. Having said this, Chair, if the committee was to be able to persuade me otherwise, then I'm always open to be persuaded on these things. But certainly we should be looking at expending our efforts to improving the effectiveness and the reach of Disability Confident. That's what I had a conversation with Stephen about this morning. Perhaps, Stephen, you would like to come in.

Yes. Just to add to that as well, the disability disparity evidence unit are actually working quite closely with the taskforce in terms of looking at the feasibility of different options in this area. But I think the Minister is quite right there in broadly setting out the challenge that we have. I think we have to accept that no kitemark is perfect. Disability Confident certainly isn't perfect. We absolutely recognise the trust and confidence issues with Disability Confident, many of which have been aired before this committee, but there are also concerns about the effectiveness and reach of that scheme as well. So, the challenge is: do we expend our efforts in trying to improve Disability Confident, or do we look to do something different in Wales, accepting, of course, that that comes with a resource overhead in itself? So, if we were to develop our own kitemark, it's not just the work of developing that kitemark; once you have a kitemark, you then have to energetically promote that kitemark. That requires resourcing, it requires a system of ongoing monitoring, if that kitemark is to be meaningful and not just a tick-box exercise, so you need to put resources behind that monitoring as well. I think we need to recognise as well that Disability Confident isn't going to go away. That's going to continue. That will continue to be promoted. Some employers will continue to engage in that. So, is there a risk that, in developing our own kitemark, we crowd the marketplace, that we cause an additional level of confusion? So, those are some of the things I think that we need to seriously consider.

Yes. Well, it's very good that you're considering them, because the questions reflect what people said to us, the evidence they give. And, obviously, one of the suggestions was a kitemark, but, if that is something you've come down against, I think it would be good to know what you would do instead to make it a more effective scheme. 

Again, I think it just highlights the importance of this inquiry into the work that we see. Again, conscious of where I think we need to exercise our resource better, and the promotion of Disability Confident, the disabled people's employment champions do have lots to do, Chair, and do do lots, but I think that is where their promotion of the scheme in workplaces, including NHS and other areas, will be more fruitful in the future; the conversation I alluded to earlier—I think, in my first response—the relationship with the DWP, and highlighting the benefits of joining such as scheme. So, the new year, again, will be a chance to have those training exercises, which will be another opportunity to encourage employers to become Disability Confident. So, we'll be working on this issue. I'm very aware, and I think we're all very aware, of the fact that we need to do more in this space, but I think we're committed to doing that. Rather than, at the moment, looking at a specific kitemark that perhaps doesn't get rid of the problem, we need to focus our resource on the problem itself and we how we tackle that, and we're committed to doing that.

Thank you for your frankness. Can I bring in John Griffiths, who's got some further questions on this area?

Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. Bore da. Yes, I have some questions on the public sector and social partnership. Sticking with the Disability Confident scheme, the committee has said that only one Welsh local authority has attained level 3 and three health boards in Wales have achieved that level. The RNIB told committee that blind and partially sighted people are less likely to be employed by the public sector. So, with that sort of picture, how is Welsh Government working with employers across the public sector to make sure that they are actually taking action and setting a good example?

Thanks, John Griffiths, for those questions. Perhaps just to use the opportunity as well to recognise the work of Pembrokeshire council and what they've done to become disability confident, but actually use the opportunity, Chair, as well to encourage more local authorities to follow Pembrokeshire's lead. They are showcasing that this can be done and should be done and we would encourage them to do so.

Chair, without the risk of repeating myself on some of the things that we've already been over in this space, perhaps I want to point to the work of Guide Dogs Cymru and their Open Doors campaign, which urges businesses to fully comply with law. We were discussing earlier in the session some of the differences between localities within Wales and the regions, and I think the Cabinet Secretary pointed to transport being a barrier in some of this, not just employment barriers, but transport and access to employment opportunities, or general opportunities within life, as an issue.

I had the opportunity to discuss with Guide Dogs Cymru just last week, and what I was pleased to hear was the conversations they've been having with the Cabinet Secretary for transport in this space. They were very pleased with the engagement of the Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport on the issue. So, it goes again—this is a cross-Government approach to try and tackle some of these issues, and we're committed to working with all partners to do that, and, I should say, in the way of social partnership as well, where we will find a common solution to these joint problems.

Minister, in terms of that Disability Confident scheme, as the committee has heard, levels 1 and 2 are self-evaluation and they do not actually require any employment of disabled people. So, with that reality to the scheme, it is very disappointing, is it not, that only one Welsh local authority and three health boards have achieved level 3 and moved beyond that self-evaluation—what some may call a tick-box exercise? 

I think level 3 is the status to which I would be encouraging health boards across Wales, and indeed local authorities, but other organisations to be at. It's where it really makes a difference, doesn't it? So, I think again, to encourage as many people or many organisations as possible to become level 3 Disability Confident is the right thing to do, and we'll go on doing that using all of the forums that I've described, Chair.

Could I ask you as well, Minister, about public procurement and how that might be used to leverage progress to reduce that disability employment gap, and as part of that, do organisations need to have received the status of Disability Confident leader in order to tender for public sector contracts?

Thanks, John. I think the procurement opportunities within the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act 2023 do provide us with greater awareness of the Disability Confident scheme, and we can encourage, I think, through the guidance that we will set out, the need to get to, or the benefits of becoming level 3 of the Disability Confident scheme. I'm not sure, Chair, if we will be able to, within the Act, put that duty on businesses. I'm happy to take advice and update the committee away from today's session, but, indeed, we will look to encourage that scheme through guidance. That is certainly something that we can do.

I should say as another point on procurement and the use of socially responsible procurement in Wales—it's something that we, of course, will be encouraging in line with the legislation, but we should be seeking to promote that further than just what the legislation covers. So, private sector organisations should look to the upcoming guidance that will be able to aid them as well.

Just on public sector organisations and businesses within the third sector, those in receipt of public sector funding, we expect them also to sign up to the code of practice on ethical employment in supply chains. So, we will be revisiting that code of practice in the new year and we'll be looking to include commitments around the social model. So, Chair, there's an open invitation to the committee to consider, perhaps, what that looks like as well, and when we're considering and revisiting the code of practice, perhaps we may wish to include some of the committee's views on that.

Okay, thank you. 

Could I just finally ask about the social partnership council, Cadeirydd, and what role that has in this area, and what action, in the Minister's view, that council could take to help reduce the disability employment gap? 

So, the social partnership council—. Well, it's met four times already this year. The duty in the law says it has to meet three times a year and it's to look at strategic levers—so the draft budget priorities, the consultation on the legislative programme, but also the Welsh Government's well-being objectives. I think I'm very clear and the Welsh Government is very clear, as well as the council, that, actually, it goes further than that. So, we've met four times. We'll be meeting again for a fifth time this year in the next few weeks. And in this very space, John, the council does recognise the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion. It took steps to embed equality, diversity and inclusion practices into its work, so when it does a piece of work, whether that be through a working group or whether that be through the key strategic drivers that I set out earlier, it will make sure those practices are taken forward within that work. 

One of the points, Chair, that the council has taken forward that was included in a recommendation was the establishment of a task and finish group of the council to address specific emerging issues, and part of the remit of the group is that the EDI practices will be embedded in the work of the group. So, they do have a space and we are seeing that work happen as we speak.

Thank you, great. Julie Morgan. 

I wanted to ask you about flexible working. A number of witnesses have said how important flexible working is to extend opportunities for disabled people, and I know that guidance has been published by the Welsh Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. What further steps can you take to encourage employers to look at ways of improving flexible working or introducing flexible working?

Thanks, Julie, for those questions. So, flexible working from where we were to where we've got to—because the pandemic, no doubt, moved that space at a much more rapid pace than it needed to be, but, actually, when we look at what that brings and the opportunities that brings to disabled people now, it's a space where we, perhaps, should have been in anyway. You're right to point to the work that the Welsh Government does do already. We do provide remote working guidance through the Business Wales platform, and also case studies where that has taken place. So, I think sharing those with our organisations across Wales is something that we always look to try and do. And, again, the work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission is very welcome.

There are a couple of areas where I think we can perhaps do more, and, again, I know I've put a lot of pressure on and a lot of work on the disabled people's employment champions to provide that guidance. The role of the trade unions within the workplace as well—again proving beneficial to why trade union membership should be looked into. But, again, I think an area that excites me, and perhaps goes further, is the Employment Rights Bill that is coming forward—I think it's in its second reading in the Commons at the moment. That will also strengthen the right to request flexible working, and that's something that we'll be engaging on in our discussions with them, and looking to indeed support where we can. But it's a space where there is work happening. The UK Government have a big lever and a role to play here; we look forward to supporting them in that.

We've had anecdotal evidence given to us that employers have tried to perhaps row back on flexible working. Because I think you're absolutely right, the pandemic put us maybe where we should have been in any case. And so some employees have had to face having to, for example, work in an office for a number of days that they hadn't anticipated when they perhaps were employed. And I think there are examples of that. So, I don't know if you have any way of influencing what employers are doing.

So, I think it's the—. We do have, of course, influence and powers, and the encouragement of where the right to access flexible working and remote working, and the benefits of that to both the employer and the employee—of course, we will do so. I think the biggest lever here, Chair, is the Employment Rights Bill coming through at Westminster, and our support for that—to make sure it's in law, that it's strengthened in law, the right to request flexible working. I think that's probably the biggest lever that will help those people who've given evidence to your committee, which you've highlighted today, have a better space to be employed in the future.

Okay. Thank you.

Going back to some specifics, the TUC has called for a wider use of the reasonable adjustment passport, which looks like a good idea, so that if somebody has negotiated reasonable adjustments with one employer, when they want to move on to another employer, they don't have to re-tell the story and the employer doesn't have to waste time working out what is actually needed. So, I just wondered if you were able to tell us whether you've given consideration to that request.

Sure. So, I think the general principle of that approach is one that we do support, and welcome the TUC bringing forward that evidence. The point that needs to be raised is that those practices don't embed the social model approach that we are trying to encourage and that we've adopted as a Government. I think it just points back to the fact that the medical model is very much ingrained within this system as set out. So, in principle, we are supportive of the ambition. If there was a passport approach that embedded the social model, then, of course, I think that's something that we can certainly support.

Okay. Thank you. In your paper, you talk about Jobs Growth Wales+ and the levels of learners who self-identified as disabled being 23.8 per cent, which sounds good, and you've also removed the requirement for young people to attend the programme for a minimum number of hours, so making those reasonable adjustments if somebody can't do it full-time. But witnesses pointed out to us that a lot of disabled young people actually stay on in school or college until they're 19, and therefore, by the time they're trying to move forward in their career development, this option isn't available to them. And I just wondered what consideration have you given to expanding that to anybody who needs to be having that intensive level of support.

So, to answer your question directly on Jobs Growth Wales, and the support that that brings, I don't have plans to extend the age limit or age range in the current iteration of the programme as it is. We are in the process of mapping out future support and what future support might look like in that space, and, of course, age limits or no age limits could be very much involved in those discussions. I think the work that we're doing around the single operating model, where we are bringing in all of the support that we offer in this space, is an area where we could do further detail. Again, I'd be interested in the committee's views on whether perhaps there should be an age limit and what that might look like from the evidence that you've heard. I don't have plans now, but I'm happy to consider those options in the future.

Okay. Thank you. It is a cause for concern, because we've also had evidence that the UK Access to Work scheme, when people have tried to get that support, they've been told they'd have to wait six months before that was available and, clearly, no employer's going to wait six months. I just wondered what conversations you may have had with the UK Government on really trying to up their game on this one.

Well, thanks, Cadeirydd, for bringing that evidence to me. I haven't had the conversation at ministerial level yet. Officials may have had the conversations with them, and perhaps I'll bring Stephen in, but if there's a time when I need to have those ministerial discussions—. Because this is an area where we do need to do better work, and we have an opportunity, I think, with our partners now, but Stephen.

This is something that we regularly raise with the Department for Work and Pensions. There are basically two issues around Access to Work. One is that not enough people know about it, so it's almost in a kind of best-kept-secret-type territory. But also, as you've pointed out, Chair, some of the delays around Access to Work are significant, and so significant that they make things unworkable. So, we've pointed out both of those issues repeatedly to the Department for Work and Pensions. There are issues around their capacity, I think, to process some of this stuff, and I think they have made steps in terms of addressing some of that. But also I think there has been an issue, post pandemic, around the backlog that's built up, but again, they're assuring us that they are taking steps to address that, but it's something that we are repeatedly raising.

Okay. And just briefly, is there anything that you want to tell us about the learning from the Engage to Change project?

Yes. So, Chair, I had the opportunity to visit a few months ago now, with Hefin David, who talks very highly of the Engage to Change programme in his 'Transitions to Employment' report, which he produced for the Welsh Government. I was able to see first-hand just three of the people that it helped, and it quite clearly helped them in a way that will go on to help them for the rest of their lives, but also the organisation they were working for. Again, the work I mentioned around the single operating model and the mapping out of what future support looks like, I think the principles of Engage to Change and that tailored support will be something that we would want to try and support, as we map out that work. But I think the Engage to Change project is a project in which we got support right for the people who needed that tailored support, so if we can look to further enhance that in a future model, then I think we will look to do that. The practical steps of getting there, I think, are the ones that need to be ironed out.

Okay. Thank you. Joel James, you'd like to come in at this point.

Thank you, Chair, and apologies I was late this morning; unfortunately, I had a hospital appointment. I'm conscious that the Chair's asked some questions about the Jobs Growth Wales programme, and I just wanted to ask one question, if I may. I've been reading the interim report on the formative evaluation, and one of the lines stuck out to me, and I'll quote it. It said:

'a poor representation of individuals who may have had an adverse experience'.

So, you weren't able to get that opinion from those who might have had an adverse experience of the programme. Because the report itself is quite positive, and I just wanted to get some idea of that, to what extent would that have influenced the outcome of the report then, or why were you unable to get representations from those who might have had an adverse impact?

Well, Chair, I think the report is a good report because it is a good report and the programme reflects the experiences of the majority, I would say, in what the outcomes of the programme are. I'm sure there are some people with a different view of the programme. I haven't heard of anyone coming forward to suggest that. That's not saying they're not there, so I suspect that's why it's not reflected in the programme. There may well be some. What I would say to the committee and to the Member, if you are aware of people where we haven't got this right, then I would like to know, as the Minister responsible for that, so that when we do look at future programmes, we can have those conversations and get something better in place that reflects the needs of those people. I haven't had any conversations with people directly since being in post; that's not to say they're not there.

Apologies if these questions have already been asked when I wasn't here. I just wanted to get some idea of not necessarily the in-work inequalities, but one of the things that's been highlighted to us as a committee is basically how disabled students in school or in college aren't necessarily getting the same level of support that other students would have, and I just wanted to get some idea of what specific actions you're taking to ensure that those with disabilities leave education with the skills that they want to then enter into the employment market, really. Thank you.

I thank Joel James for those questions. I'm going to try and be careful not to go into an area of responsibility that isn't mine, but perhaps that of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Chair. There is work around the post-16 additional learning needs national implementation lead, which is for working with further education institutions around the implementation of the new Act and code. On those specific issues, perhaps the committee should write to the Minister responsible for those. In terms of advice and support going forward, the work of Working Wales and Careers Wales, I think, through Jobs Growth Wales and so on, is an example of where we do support people who need it.

I'll just reflect, Chair, on my most recent visit to Manchester, on Thursday of last week, where I was at a WorldSkills competition, the UK finals there. You'll be pleased to know that, in the inclusive competition of WorldSkills, we won 17 medals, which is an amazing achievement for all involved. We will go on supporting the WorldSkills programme, because that does not only give people the skills that they need to deliver their duties, but actually deliver the skills at the very best level across the globe, and we are punching above our weight in all the competition, but particularly in the inclusive competition. So, an example of how we are getting this right in areas.

Joel, can I just bring in Sioned Williams and then I'll come back to you?

So, I think flexibility within programmes, and making sure programmes work is ever so important, isn’t it? I think there are examples of where we are getting this right. Jobs Growth Wales: 57.9 per cent of disabled people reported a positive experience, so there are areas where we are getting this right. I think anyone would like flexibility within programmes, Chair. The principle of that is a good one; the practical steps of making that a reality, within all of the constraints the Welsh Government faces, for all the different reasons that we understand around budgets and all of those things, perhaps make it a bit more difficult. I think the principle of having flexibility in programmes is something that we—

For disabled people. Flexibility, as we’ve heard all around, in every bit of evidence that we’ve had— flexibility as regards employers, as regards working practices, as regards the availability of support, and as regards what that looks like in the education system—is absolutely key. Do you agree with that?

Well, I agree with the evidence that—. The most important thing here, Chair—and diolch to Sioned as well—is listening to those people, isn’t it, who have that direct experience. So, I would not sit here and not agree with that. I think what we’re here to do is to put in those steps—and we are doing that, in that space, with the role of the disabled people’s employment champion—in all of those spaces, including skills. It’s about where we listen to these people and then take forward the appropriate steps. Stephen, do you want to add?

Just to add, as well, I think this is where the work of the taskforce, actually, is going to be really beneficial, because it’s not just the employment and income working group that has an interest in these areas, there’s also a children and young persons working group as well. So, the Minister is absolutely right: it’s vital that we listen to the voices of disabled young people, and the experiences that they’re having, and, again, I think this is where the taskforce’s recommendations will be really informative to us in terms of how we can improve policy and delivery going forward.

Okay. Joel, back to you.

Thank you, Chair. And I suppose this sort of touches upon, again, what the Minister’s response was. I hope I’m asking the right person, really. It’s all about specialist careers advice, really. One of the things that’s been highlighted back to us when we’ve had these meetings is that there is a lack of specialist careers advice for those with disabilities. And this is also reflected then in terms of apprenticeships. I know it was just touched upon there, about a lack of information in terms of Access to Work, but there seems to be a lack of information in terms of specialist apprenticeships for those with disabilities, and that when they are there, they're all very much geared into the same sector, maybe like hospitality, for example.

I just wanted to get some idea of what the Welsh Government is trying to do to promote apprenticeships more, and the right apprenticeship for the right individual, and, ultimately, what sort of monitoring goes on then for those who have apprenticeships. Because one of the concerns that I have, ultimately, and we’ve seen it, for example, with people going to university and they study a course that’s not for them and there’s a high drop-out rate, and I wanted to see if there’s an evaluation of apprenticeship rates, whether or not they stay the course or they drop out. Thank you.

Thanks, Joel. I think I’ve referred to some of the work that we do around specialist job support. So, the Engage to Change pilot was obviously one area—we were granted only a pilot—where we can learn from that pilot and promote it in further and future models. I think that’s something that we would look to try and do. But that being said, Jobs Growth Wales, Careers Wales and Working Wales all provide specialist and tailored support. There may be things that we would like to do more of, or perhaps enhance that support, but it is an area where we do do work in this space.

On apprenticeships in general, I believe in the role of apprenticeships, in being the one way of getting people into the workplace from whatever experiences or backgrounds, whether you're disabled or not. I will always promote the role of apprenticeships in that space. Just a point, Chair, we're investing £143 million in apprenticeships at the moment. A piece of data that the committee may be interested in: in the year 2022-23, the academic year, 11.6 per cent of apprenticeship learning programmes were started by learners who identified as having a disability or learning difficulty. That's up quite a lot, Chair, from 5.8 per cent in 2016-17. So, I think it's going in the right direction, but we need to be able to offer those opportunities to all, don't we, and Medr will have the responsibility for delivery of apprenticeship programmes, and, if there is more to do in this area, they will be considering that with partners and having those discussions with partners. I think Joel suggested the evidence around drop-out rates, Chair. I don't have that to mind. I'm happy to pick this up again.

Okay. If you are able to get your hand on it, that would be useful to have. John Griffiths.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Yes, the disability pay gap and the Welsh Government's commitment to eliminate the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps by 2050, which, the Welsh Government's paper for 2023 seems to suggest, is not on track at the moment, because the disability pay gap for 2023 compared to 2022 showed a widening of the gap by 2.5 percentage points. So, I wonder, Minister, what the Welsh Government will do to redouble its efforts to meet that national milestone.

Perhaps if I make a start on that, obviously, this is a very ambitious and stretching national milestone. It's really important. It was originally just a gender pay gap milestone that we had, and then we included race and disability, and all of the work and all the evidence you've been taking and all of the responses the Minister has been giving, is about how—and, in fact, addressing the social model—we address that pay gap, and I think the Minister will want to just comment on the work that you're doing with the Employment Rights Bill with the UK Government. But perhaps I can just say also that we have got an opportunity with the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill. This is about extending pay gap reporting to ethnicity and disability with employers of more than 250 staff, and looking at measures on equal pay. Now, obviously, we have so many SMEs in Wales, so it is about how we can actually address that in terms of the smaller employers, but it is a step forward, I think—the race and disability Bill pay gap reporting—because it has been for gender. It has been effective. But now it's for the disability pay gap as well. Jack.

Thanks to the Cabinet Secretary for that. The milestone is an ambitious milestone, isn't it, but it's the right ambition to have. The Cabinet Secretary has pointed to some of the evidence that we've already given on this. All of the things that we've suggested that we are doing in this session and in our written paper is to try and tackle, particularly, that milestone that we want to meet. I think the point, Chair, is saying that we will not meet this on our own. We will need to meet this with all of our partners across the country as well, from all parts of society as well—so, the public sector, the private sector, the third sector. We all need to contribute towards the national milestone, and I think the evidence that we've provided is our part towards that goal. The Cabinet Secretary mentioned the Employment Rights Bill. So, I've had ministerial level discussions on the Employment Rights Bill. Again, access to trade unions and knowing your rights in a workplace to provide secure fair work, asking for decent pay and the pay that you are entitled to, shouldn't be a bad thing in 2024 in the UK. The Employment Rights Bill gives us the opportunity to look to strengthening that. It is the single biggest upgrade to workers' rights in a generation. I think, with that Bill, once it's in place and on the statute book, we will see more of a drive towards meeting the milestone, but this is not just for the Welsh Government; this is for everybody in society to play a role.

John.

Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. That's fine, thanks.

I suppose there's one outstanding issue on this one, which is the disparity between different regions. There's some mapping been done by the research service that shows really clearly that there are some areas that have got really significant pay gaps, and Neath Port Talbot and Blaenau Gwent are often highlighted, but the map has a really clear idea of the best and the worst. So, is this something that you've done any research on, to try and work out why it is so immense?

With the taskforce, and as part of the work of the taskforce, this issue has been debated at quite some length. I think we've already spoken today about transport, in particular, being an issue for many, particularly those in rural communities, and how we address some of that. Stephen, I know you perhaps—

Yes. So, the drivers of both the disability employment gap and the disability pay gap are many and varied. Some of those are within our control, some of those we can influence, and some of those are actually beyond our control and influence. Some of the things that would play into that and the variation at a different regional level or in different parts of the geography of Wales are things like the characteristics about particular cohorts of disabled people in that region. So, if disabled people have very severe impairments or multiple impairments, clearly they're going to face additional barriers. The age profile of that community makes a difference because, generally, older disabled people tend to have lower employment rates. So, if there's a younger cohort in a particular region, that will lead to a variation. Ableism and the culture and attitude of the employers within that particular locality will make a difference. There's the nature of the local labour market as well, in terms of the type of jobs that are available, but also the extent to which there are vacancies within that labour market. That will play into regional differences as well. So, there's a whole range of things that actually play into those differences that we see at a regional level across Wales. But, yes, the Minister is quite right—the work of the taskforce will be helpful again in this area.

We just wanted to briefly extend the session by five minutes, if that's possible, just to cover one further area. Is that acceptable? Thank you. Sioned Williams.

Diolch yn fawr, Sioned. The disability disparity evidence unit has been involved from day one with the disability rights taskforce, and, in fact, they are doing work on the data disparities and which are revealed through all of the work streams of the disability task force.

I think I referred earlier on to the report—the update of the disability equality, race, and disability evidence unit on their workplan, which went on the Welsh Government website, and there are quite a lot of features there that relate to the work of the disability rights taskforce that have come out of it. So, perhaps I could draw this to the attention of the committee again and share it with you, but I also want to make sure that the extensive work that they're doing, that people are more aware of it, not just this committee. But, clearly, it's crucial to all of our officials and, indeed, to the Cabinet and to Ministers that we have these units now in action. So, I will take that back to ensure that we can share not just their update, but their most recent update on the website with you.

Also, they're doing work on how we could deliver the disability rights taskforce recommendations. This is crucially important. Right from the word 'go', we needed to ensure that this was all feasible, that the Welsh Government could respond, clearly, to recommendations coming out of the work streams, and tackling data issues and gaps was part of that. So, you'll probably be aware, I'm sure, there's been a refresh of the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' and that the race disparity unit is developing the monitoring framework for that, because it is about us, the public and disabled people being clear and confident, from the work of the taskforce, and the plan that's published in the new year, what the outcomes are and how they are going to be monitored. So, the equality evidence units that we've got working are building this good practice about monitoring frameworks in terms of outcomes. I think it's something where tracking and measuring progress is crucial. It's at very early stages, but we're learning. With this question earlier on about all the different equality plans. In a way, it's so good that they're all working together on these so that you can apply the same methodology, learning about the outcomes from one plan for another plan. We want consistency, anyway, in terms of delivering on those, but I hope you could feel more confident, encouraged and reassured that the monitoring framework, tackling the data gaps, getting the best practice and the outcomes are what the evidence units are undertaking.

Yes—

Obviously, we've just been talking about our milestone, which is very challenging in terms of pay. We will be looking at reasonable expectations that we can have within a number of bits of legislation. We've just referred to the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill that's coming forward from the UK Government in terms of being able to test out the delivery of legislative expectations. But I think it is policy outcomes that we'll be looking for in terms of the monitoring framework, very much along the lines of both the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' and the LGBTQ+ action plan, but we also are bound by other milestones and other expectations.

You've already mentioned the milestone of reducing that disability employment gap by 2030. We were going to ask you about two key actions. Clearly, that is going to be related to that, one of them. Is there anything else that you'd like to say just before the close? What two actions would you hope to take to reduce the disability employment gap?

I think your inquiry is going to be very helpful to us in terms of looking at the key points that we need to respond to. Actually, it's timely in terms of what was coming out of our disability rights taskforce. We want to reduce that gap—there's no question—about employment and pay. We've given some statistics already about how it is reducing, but, obviously, we need to get to a better place, and I think that's where, Minister, you will be looking particularly in terms of the employment gap.

Yes. Thanks, Cabinet Secretary, for that. I think becoming level 3 disability confident and promoting why you should be level 3 disability confident is something that we need to do more on, which would add real value. I think John raised those things earlier. And then, more broadly, there's the work with partners across Wales, which I mentioned, to meet the milestone. This is not just a Welsh Government mission, this is everybody's mission. And there's the role that the UK Government will play, as well. We genuinely now do have a partner who is willing to work with the Welsh Government. I point to the Employment Rights Bill and strengthening workers' rights—the single biggest upgrade in a generation. I can see that being of value to some of this work, as well.

Thank you very much indeed for your attendance today. That is the final session of our oral evidence on this important inquiry. We hope to publish our report sometime in January, all being well, so that we can get our recommendations, which may be of help to you in finalising the action plan that you're going to be coming up with, and we look forward to that very much indeed. Thank you very much indeed for your attendance. We'll obviously send you the transcript in the normal manner.

The committee will now take a break until 13:30, when we'll be starting to receive further evidence on revisiting our fuel poverty inquiry. I wondered if we could all get back here by 13:25, in order to start on time.

Welcome back to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. We are now revisiting the inquiry we did in 2022 on fuel poverty. I'm very pleased to welcome Professor Philip Jones and Dr Simon Lannon, who are going to set the scene with some of the work they've been doing at Cardiff University. The floor is yours.  

I think the main thrust of what we'll be talking about is related to a mapping tool that we developed at the university as part of the low-carbon research institute programme of work, which was a European-funded programme that we managed at the university. It involved six other universities in Wales and it was funded by the European Union to the value of about £32 million, with something like 40 per cent contributions from industry. It involved a number of projects at a number of universities—in particular, starting laboratories in some of the universities. It was all concerned with the low-carbon research area. At Cardiff, we specialise in low-carbon buildings, so our bit was low-carbon buildings. There was marine, there was combustion and there was photovoltaics in the other universities.  

One of the projects included the development of this mapping tool. There were a lot of other projects, but this is what I think we're concerned about today. One of the other major projects was the construction of the Solcer energy-positive house, which you might remember, and which is still having an impact, I hope. But the FRESH mapping tool came really from an earlier mapping tool called EEP, and I think Simon is going to give a bit of the background on the development. But what we wanted to do was to overlay maps of housing standards, health and fuel poverty so that we could identify where the most need was for investment into dealing with fuel poverty. So, it gave us the chance to look at the income of people related to the standard of housing, and, from that, fuel use. I think it was quite a unique tool.

I chair a company called Warm Wales Ltd, who you may have heard of, and we are a community interest company. Our main goal is to tackle fuel poverty in Wales. We have about 45 staff now in offices in north and south Wales, so we've grown—sadly, we've grown, really—in response to the current situation. We took on FRESH and we applied it in practice. We use FRESH to identify where local authorities should focus on spending money, to get the maximum return on investment. We were able to get funding from Wales & West Utilities as part of their social programme. They've funded us for a number of years; it's been very successful, I think. We've worked with local authorities. We're working with Neath Port Talbot, Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Flintshire and Cornwall, and others have expressed interest. We set up the mapping tool, we identify areas where there's a greater need, and then we send people in to knock on doors. They have about 21 issues they deal with, from benefit advice to energy advice to smoke alarms and lots of other things that we can do at the same time.

The return on investment up to now is something like 2:1 in cash. So, for every £1 Wales & West give us out of their social programme, we are able to return £2 to the household. And we've helped quite a few households—I think around about 4,000 households. But the social return on investment in terms of improved health and well-being is something like 10:1. So, for every £1 we spend we get a social return of 10:1—or 9:1, it goes up and down from year to year. So, it's been a good success. We haven't really updated FRESH since the last census. We're in a position now where, if we extend the programme any more, we need to update it with the recent census results, because what we use is census data as part of the input to the model. So, that's the FRESH work.

I looked at your questions before coming, and there were three questions. One was, I think, the fuel poverty status at the current moment. The last survey was done in 2017-18, I think, and so it needs to be updated. And that was done on something like just over 3,000 households. So, the data was fairly approximate as well. So, in answer, I guess, to your first question, it needs updating to get a current view on fuel poverty in Wales. It's not something that FRESH does explicitly, but it goes side by side.

The other question you asked related to the reduction in fuel grants. At Warm Wales, we've had a think on this, and it seems to be that, in Wales, the figure is something like 400,000 households will be affected by this loss of the fuel grant. It seems, of those in—

You mean for older people. 

For older people, yes. Those of pensionable age that don't receive pension credits would be exempt from the fuel payment. So, it's likely to bring a lot more people into fuel poverty, if they're not there already. So, that would be our initial feedback on that. Again, I guess FRESH is the sort of tool that could be used to help with those figures.

The other thing you mentioned in the questions is the Warm Homes programme. The Warm Homes programme has replaced Arbed to some extent, and Nest. Currently, I think there's something like £30 million a year going into vulnerable households through the Warm Homes programme, which I think is somewhere around 1,500 houses a year. Now, if you look at that in the context of 400,000 being affected by the lack of fuel grants, 1,500 a year is—. And if you're going to get rid of fuel poverty by 2035, it's a tall order.

Thank you for that. Good information.

The ECO scheme that's around, which Warm Wales manages for about five local authorities in Wales at the moment, the sorts of measures that we're able to deliver through ECO are similar to Warm Homes. Because, originally, Arbed, it was mainly boiler replacement and things. But now we have a whole-house approach through both Warm Homes and ECO. So, it's not only boilers, but it's insulation, air-source heat pumps, solar PV—not battery storage at the moment, and that's one thing that might come in future ECO. But, ECO, I think there's something like £1 billion available UK-wide from ECO, and Wales can draw down as much of that as it can use, so there's no formula for it. And when you look at that in relation to Warm Homes, we're trying to expand our ECO to all local authorities in Wales, and we're discussing, but the ECO money is UK money not Welsh money, whereas Warm Homes is Welsh money. So, from a Welsh perspective, it seems we should be getting as much out of ECO as we can, maybe not necessarily increasing Warm Homes. If we can get money from the UK, it's not money from Wales, is it? So, that's our current thinking in Warm Wales. And again, we've been discussing, Simon and I, that one of the issues with ECO and maybe Warm Homes as well, to some extent, is that there's no monitoring of the schemes. So, we're applying all these measures—you know, heat pumps, insulation. Our ECO figures at the moment in Warm Wales are the same, if not slightly higher, than what is being achieved with the Warm Homes. We've got 3,500 houses we've been able to improve in two years, compared to the Warm Homes figure of 1,500. So, we're similar.

So, we've got all this work going on and we're not really assessing the outcomes. I think it would be fairly easy to look at a number of levels, maybe even at just a fairly high level, and, from the measures that are being applied through these programmes, we can get an assessment of the carbon savings. We can maybe even get an assessment of the health benefits. So, that's another thing that maybe FRESH could be extended into. So, I think that's my initial response of the three questions, and Simon and I have discussed this, but Simon can maybe give you a bit more background on the FRESH programme, which started from a model called EEP, energy and environmental prediction, some, when was it—?

1994.

1994. Gosh. Yes.

Do you want me to go through—?

Yes, if you could do that, Simon, that'd be great.

Do you want me to go through the history of it?

Yes. We've obviously had a bit of a briefing from the research staff. I think there are, obviously, some questions that arise from that, but is there anything you wanted to—? You know, I've had a look at the data, the link to the foundation data for robust energy strategies for housing. I suppose, for me, you gave us Cardiff, which is obviously a geographical area I'm familiar with, and it doesn't really capture where the worst problems are, which is in the private sector. So, for example, Cathays, which is full of student accommodation and some poor elderly people, that doesn't show up as being particularly problematic. So, I wanted to challenge that, simply because it's something I'm able to spot.

Yes. I think there's an interesting thing around—. Maybe if I explain some of the data maybe that would help, and a little bit more about—

Yes, okay. All right.

—how do we get there. Because Phil's given quite a nice overview of why it's used, perhaps. We started in 1994, from some UK Research and Innovation funded research, and we were very much focused on energy efficiency. So, this was not about fuel poverty; it was about how do we deliver an energy efficiency response to some of the Acts in Parliament at that time. Local authorities were unsure how they might respond to the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995, so they were very keen to work with us on the model, as it was called, the energy and environment prediction model. So, we kind of went through this process of evolving that energy efficiency part of it.

Back in 2000, we were asked by Neath Port Talbot to look at their stock, and we spent 18 months walking around Neath Port Talbot assessing their homes. That's 18 months of person power. That's a long time to just create the data that allowed us to understand how the housing stock worked. So, we realised that was a big of a no-go. We tried various techniques and things like Google street view came along, so we had this process of actually trying to understand the stock, and then what became really clear is that data was a problem, and I think that you were alluding to some of the issues around data there, where these places aren't highlighted. So, one of the things that became available to us all, in some sense, is with energy performance certificates. So, the EPC data set started to appear in 2008; it really started to motor by about 2016, 2017. I'm not exactly sure of the date, about 2018, perhaps, it became freely available. So, we could now get a bulk download, and that started to really generate the data.

Now, EPC data, I'm not sure if you're aware, there are 1.3 million EPCs for Wales; there are only 1.4 million houses. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. They have a 10-year lifespan; there are many duplicates. At the moment, there's about 765,000 EPCs. Now, there may be duplicates in that, but that's an enormous data set. Over 50 per cent of the housing stock has actually been assessed. So, rather than us walking around the streets, suddenly we've got this—. There's an argument as to whether or not it's good quality, but we don't use it in its depth. We look at very much the simple things around what that EPC will give us, and that's things like tenure. No, sorry, it does indicate a bit of tenure, but it indicates the typology, size, what heating systems you might use, what energy efficiency might be there through the rating. So, we're getting a better view of what the houses are like. So, some of the houses in Cathays might actually be allegedly quite efficient because of the nature of the homes, because they're rented, and, actually, there's a huge turnover, it might be gas fired, so there's an interesting thing around that. 

So, then we thought, 'Okay, well, we've got this energy efficiency model that we're really comfortable with'; we tested it against subnational energy statistics. So, we're really comfortable that this energy model works at a scale—not individual homes, at a scale; sort of lower super-output area. And this is where the FRESH mapping is indicative, it's not a definite answer. We started to think about how do we go down in scale, how do we get further and further down. So, we have this house data—so, we have lots of house data—but we also then have the income data, which is very porous, and Welsh indices of multiple deprivation areas are at the lower super-output area, which is about 1,200 to 1,400 homes, whereas an output area, which is where you get the census data, is down to 120 dwellings. 

So, we're starting to try—. That's what the FRESH mapping is doing, it's starting to draw down this granular data from the housing and put it together with census data, and that's where some of the issues might be emerging in terms of accuracy, that the census data might be out of date, and it might have changed since. So, is that helpful? I could go on, but perhaps we'll pause.

I'll just add something. I agree that the private sector is the big problem, because the social housing sector, there are programmes that deal with that. But the private sector, from our experience—. We've done quite a bit of work on retrofit of housing within the low-carbon resources initiative, and I think there's some work going on today at the university, and, Warm Wales, we're quite concerned with that. It's the private sector where you have maybe older people who are not well and have no money, and so they can't do anything to their house, and often you find somebody in one room with an electric fire trying to keep warm. They can't afford to upgrade the house, they can't afford to run their heating properly, and so they really have problems with affordable energy and they probably have health issues at the same time that are made worse by the situation.

So, I think you're dead right, it's the private sector fuel poor, really, more perhaps than the social housing, where there are problems. So tenure comes into this. You've got the affluent people who can afford to pay for heating and who are generally healthier anyway, because wealth is health—it’s that sort of argument. You've got the social housing, where there are programmes to upgrade social housing, and most of the housing associations are involved with upgrading in some form or another. But then you've got this big wedge of private sector fuel poor, which is a big issue, and it's very difficult to see how that can be resolved, I think, at the moment.

But I think FRESH does identify some of these areas. Because it's EPC and census data, it will consider the private sector, and I think a couple of things we found in Cardiff were that there were some odd areas appearing, which we thought was due to, effectively, people in poverty living in their own house.

I was lucky enough to get some work with Rent Smart Wales, who are very much in that sector, and they looked to us to say how do we understand the EPC data set that they have, because obviously they have a data set there. So, we did a little bit of work with them to actually understand the building stock that they're responsible for. And that allowed us to work as a team, and they then applied for some funding and they got funding—I think it’s £2 million [correction: £1 million] they had of funding—that they would then allow to landlords to target particular interventions. So, the narrative there is that, actually, the mapping technique, the FRESH mapping technique, the way of using the EPC data, but, in this instance, not with income data, it was just about data that was around tenure, allows you to focus.

I think that that's the narrative of FRESH. It's not that it's fuel poverty mapping; it's actually multiple maps, and if you bring them together—. I love maps, obviously, and, looking at a map, you see the difference between two, which is really important. It's when you see one and it says the areas that you'd expect in Cardiff to be deprived, which is the southern arc of deprivation. What Phil was mentioning is that—. We weren't looking at those areas, because they're quite well supported in some senses, through the agencies. We were working with Cardiff Council and we were working with Action in Caerau & Ely, Care and Repair Cymru and Warm Wales, the three organisations, looked at the maps that we had here and worked in two different areas. So, Warm Wales went to south of, I think it was, Llanishen, just around north Llanishen, and Care and Repair Cymru and Action in Caerau & Ely then focused on north Llandaff, which is around the Cow and Snuffers area. But it was not just the Gabalfa area, it was the area beyond that. Those allowed interventions to happen and everybody who got the interventions—. They were quite small numbers, but there were there was a narrative from Warm Wales, I remember them saying, that people were saying, ‘Well, nobody ever calls here. Why are you coming around? Nobody ever supports us in this area, because we're not we're not in this area of support that's apparently needed.'

So I think there's there is a narrative there of actually using the maps, in whatever form, to actually overlay tenure, to overlay income, to overlay age and overlay child age as well, and also health as well, but that's all from the census data. So, again, that waypoint every 10 years—things can change massively in 10 years.

Jenny, can I just ask—?

Yes, sure, Julie.

You gave us these maps, which I'll pass round now, so are you saying that these maps are all overlaid?

You can—. I think they form a part of discussion. I think that's what—. They don't highlight—. So, there’s some overlaying going on there. So, there’s some fuel poverty, there’s some fuel poverty with age, there’s some fuel poverty with children, there’s some fuel poverty with ill health as well. So, you can bring them together.

So, is that what you do, bring them together?

Yes.

So, for Rhondda Cynon Taf here, you’ve got quite a lot of different maps.

Yes. 

So, you’ve brought all those together, and then the local authority could determine where the most need was.

That’s right, yes. That’s absolutely correct.

Right. And are you doing that with five local authorities, did you say?

Yes, at the moment. 

And how did you choose those five, or did they choose you?

They come to us. 

They come to you. 

Or we mention it to them and they see the advantage.

Right. 

There’s a small—. Well, they have to fund putting the maps together. I think it’s about £5,000 a local authority. So, they pay us to set it up, basically.

And did they follow up on that, then? Do you know?

Well, we’ve been able to follow up with funding from Wales & West Utilities, under the Healthy Homes, Healthy People programme. It’s one of their social commitment projects. So, that’s enabled us, working with the local authority again, to put people out in the field to knock on the doors of these vulnerable areas and see what help can be given. The average I think we’re—. I mentioned the sorts of figures that we’ve been dealing with, but, on average, we bring cash benefits of £600 a year to people. Now, if you’re in fuel poverty, £600, £700 is quite a significant amount of money, when you think of that in terms of losing the £300 fuel grant. And it’s money that comes from existing pots, so it’s either savings, benefits advice, which is UK-based again, or it could be energy savings, water savings. We identify people who are vulnerable, and then they may have reduced water and energy bills. So, it’s those sorts of savings, so they are cash savings to the occupant. I mentioned the 10:1 social benefits in health, but there are cash savings as well. And, on average, they’re about £600, £700 per household.

Thank you. 

So, just to recap, the original local authorities who took part in the original research are Neath Port Talbot, Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Flintshire, and then Cornwall. So, that’s four in Wales. Are the five you were talking about now different local authorities?

No, Cornwall is the other one. Cornwall because—

So, there's still only four involved. 

Yes, because Wales & West deals with the west country as well. 

Yes. 

So, that's the reason why Cornwall were included, but much smaller numbers than in Wales. And we’ve really—. Because of the census data, we need to refresh it, really.

Sure. 

So, yes. 

Sioned. 

I think Arbed is being replaced, to some extent, by the Warm Homes programme.

Nest is the demand-led element of the Warm Homes programme. There's been a new iteration. It's been changed. But we're still awaiting to hear on the area scheme.

Yes, and we don't know anything about that, no.

I think this is an opportunity to target, and I think targeting is really critical, and you're absolutely—. We've not heard anything but would really hope Welsh Government would move forward with the approach, because it's an opportunity. The demand-led is very, very—. It's great the way it's evolving. It's evolved really—. Having watched it over the last five year, it's evolved very, very significantly into something that's quite fit for purpose in sense, and I think Arbed needs to do the same. It needs to look at where it came from and move on. We've done some reviews of the Arbed work and shown its value. When targeting, it gives you a very across-tenure response that allows for quite a sophisticated and innovative way of thinking. Welsh Government has shown, through its innovative housing programme and optimised retrofit programme, that it wants to innovate, and I think Arbed would be a really good way out of that—Arbed 5 or whatever you'd like to call it.

No new data, no. You're absolutely right. It is horrendous to say that we don't have good baseline data. Even things like the energy performance certificate, the energy price of that has not changed significantly, and there are huge arguments, I know, in the UK Government around why that is happening, and I think there's a real problem, particularly the differential between electricity and gas and the way that those aren't tracking as they used to. So, we're seeing some slightly odd results.

But in terms of data, there has been no new fuel poverty data since the last survey, 2017-18, I think. The census data now—that could be incorporated into FRESH, and that's something that we would like to get involved with in Warm Wales and in partnership with the university. So, it's two sorts of data that we're looking at. There is also the ECO, which is much more money available to do what we want to do.

So, are these four local authorities in Wales actually actively looking to encourage the take-up of ECO?

We're working with five, I think, on ECO. FRESH is one project—

Okay, it's one thing. Okay, so—

On ECO, we're working with just Powys, which is more advanced, and Neath Port Talbot, Wrexham, Carmarthen, Newport, and we're talking to other local authorities all the time. So, out of those, Powys, Neath Port Talbot, Wrexham and Carmarthen have been going the longest. Newport and RCT are now coming on board as well. And as I said, in the first two years of working with them, we've helped 3,500 households.

I think it's developing. It takes a while to discuss things. Some local authorities might think they have another way of doing it, of delivering ECO, but in Warm Wales we have the experience of delivering these big programmes, and more and more we're discussing with more local authorities, perhaps as they see the success in the ones that we're already dealing with. I think my colleague at Warm Wales, our chief exec, Jonathan Cosson, is speaking to either this committee or a similar one next week, so there will be more details. He is on the ground. I chair the board, and we meet pretty regularly. Jonathan and I meet regularly, but he'll be able to provide more detail on the on-the-ground stuff. But what we'd like to do is to apply FRESH to every local authority in Wales and work with every local authority on their ECO. So, that's our ambition. In size, we're 45 staff now, and that's doubled in the last year or so. So, we've seen quite a big expansion of the company, which is not good news, really, for fuel poverty, because there's more funding coming into this area.

There are several blatantly obvious questions arising out of all this, which is why has the Welsh Government not seen fit to commission you to upgrade this work in light of the new census, because if we're trying to target the worst first, you seem to be sitting on some pretty good data. 

Yes.

So, have you tried to get—?

We've had discussions with the Welsh Government. I believe that Jonathan has spoken to people—

Okay. So, we can talk to him next week.

—but I'm not sure how much has developed. As I mentioned, and I may be a little bit out with the figures, but I think it used to cost about £5,000 for a local authority. So, if we did all of the local authorities, it's not a huge amount of money for Wales. 

No, it's small change. 

I think the big question, then, is: how do we make sure it's used when it's been applied? And we've been lucky to get funding from Wales & West Utilities to enable us, then, to follow up on the ground. And that's the big question: it's all right to have a model and mapping tool, but how do we make sure it's used?

I think, for me, the interesting thing about Welsh Government, having worked with them on the decarbonisation of homes, the EPC A is my fault—well, not my fault directly, but in the sense of actually working with the Welsh Government, it's been really fascinating. They're grappling with lots of information, and I think that, maybe, we haven't had the opportunity, maybe from the academic side of things, to actually have that discussion point with them. And I think that, sometimes, that's an important part that we miss out on. So, maybe I should try harder.

Sorry, my hearing's a bit bad so I need to take the headphones off. 

Yes, of course.

Yes, I have a very good working relationship with some of the staff in StatsWales. So, yes, we have had discussions, but maybe it's just that we haven't hit the right—sometimes you've got to hit the right point, the right entry point on that. Maybe Phil has.

I think that one of the issues, maybe, is that if you are considering mapping tools, have a look at what we've done already, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, because it's always tempting to commission something new, rather than seeing what we've got and expanding on that. So, that would be a—. And the data group, maybe that's a discussion to be had with them.

In terms of this rather alarming figure of 400,000, how would you incorporate that information, with the withdrawal of the fuel allowance? How does that fit into your data?

Well, most of those 400,000 would be affected by the withdrawal. I think that includes the number on pension credits who would be still eligible for the fuel allowance. But many of them wouldn't be, they would fall through that gap. How do you deal with those 400,000? If you take 10 years to get rid of fuel poverty, or bringing it down to whatever, to 5 per cent, and through Warm Homes we're doing 1,500 houses a year, you've only got to do the back-of-an-envelope sums to show that that's not going to work. Drawing in more money from—. Back of an envelope, it would cost something like £10 billion to sort out 400,000 households. Roughly, the Warm Homes grant turns out to be about £30,000 maximum. When you draw down from ECO, there's no maximum, and it tends to be around about the £40,000. With heat-pump insulation, PV, for example, that package comes up to, typically, £40,000. So, if you've got to spend that amount of money on 400,000 houses, it's a lot of money. FRESH can be part of the solution, but it's not going to solve the problem alone. Drawing down more money from ECO could be part of it, but, again, there's only £1 billion available for the whole of the UK. And that would mean we'd have to get the whole ECO funding for 10 years to deal with just the Welsh houses.

So, I think, as was mentioned earlier, that maybe we could be looking at tenure more closely and targeting more the private sector in some way, and leaving the social housing providers to deal with their sectors. The affluent are not in there anyway, and maybe there is a need to be targeting different groups for improving their housing differently. Not one model applies to social and private houses. So, again, it's identifying the need, where the need is, and there are limited resources, and the FRESH approach is all about finding the most needy people and targeting the resources to them first, and I think that's the role of FRESH. Now, it's still a big ambition to deal with 400,000 houses in 10 years, but you've got to start somewhere, haven't you, and maybe tenure is one way of dividing the problem up into more manageable groups.

So, one of the maps that I haven't yet passed round, but I will, is one that you call the 'hardest to heat: EPC F, G energy ratings', and that does include a goodly chunk of Cathays, as I'd expect, knowing that the quality of the housing there is pretty energy inefficient. So, surely, that would be a good place to start for any local authority, because they are the worst and, therefore, potentially the worst carbon emitters. Clearly, if low income, they won't be; they'll just be turning it off, and then ending up in the hospital. But it does follow a slightly different path and does pick up, I would imagine, the private sector ones, which is where the original one was obviously just the generic. So, I think that if—. Do you want to pass this round? I think if you could send us, or is it possible to get a copy, the suite of the maps, or are they—?

Yes.

That would be fantastic.

Again, the private sector is private sector home owner, private sector private landlord.

Sure.

The private landlord is being addressed through re-rent, when they have to upgrade their property to a particular level, and that's going up, I understand. So, again, that's a different sector. We need to be looking at all these different tenure sectors and targeting solutions for each one, because they may be able to bring funding from elsewhere.

But, as you say, there are different sets of people here, and it does include people who do own their own home but are fuel poor. They own the bricks and mortar but they're living in one room, which is very bad for your health, just going in and out of cold rooms to warm rooms and back again. But they're the sort of people, if they're elderly, who will be very nervous about adopting new technologies they know nothing about. So, when the ECO people come calling with their leaflets, a lot of people simply don't trust this too-good-to-be-true offer, and they just do nothing about it. So, they're one set of people, some of whom absolutely would need some handholding, because they won't do it otherwise.

Obviously, the people who ought to be doing this for themselves are the people who do have resources, who own their home outright and can get a loan like falling off a log, but they don't do it because they don't understand what's involved. They put new roofs on their house and they don't put solar panels—it's extraordinary. They don't seem to understand that they'd be saving a lot of money if they did that.

But I think there needs to be more information on this, on what measures can you apply to your house, targeted at the house, rather than just general measures. How do you tailor a set of measures for a particular house? How much is it going to cost? What's the return on the investment in terms of energy savings, in terms of increased asset value, and the multiple benefits of being healthier? So, we've really got to provide information that people can understand about what they need to do, and that applies to the affluent people as well.

But one thing is understanding, and the other thing is trusting, because people can trust their local authority or Warm Wales community interest company, but they won't necessarily trust the private sector provider, because they've heard about Caerau.

Yes. I think what we find with Warm Wales is that we do tend to have a degree of trust from people, because that's what we exist for. It's not profit. We don't make a profit, we don't get paid—well, our staff get paid, but there's no profit, and any surplus we make has to go back into doing more work.

The social return, we don't do. Wales & West do it as part of their commitment, and they have to do the social modelling. So, there's an established model that they use for that, and we just get the results from that, really. But it doesn't do carbon. On the cost and the carbon, the data is there in some form, because we know what measures go into the houses and we can, even just statistically, get a feel for what the savings are then, and we can model that with the FRESH framework. All we have to do is put a sub-model in that will enable us to take the measures and then apply carbon savings.

Just to say, that's where the EEP model came from. So, back in 1994, that's what we were—

That's what we were doing, yes.

The 'what if' was really, 'What if we put hot water tank insulation in this postcode?' and that is at the core of it. When we were doing the work with Rent Smart Wales, we were looking at—and a couple of things were surprising about this—how many were flats above shops, which was quite dramatic. I wasn't expecting that. And those were the ones that were most difficult. So, we did a little bit of experimentation around how you might go from electric heating above a shop to gas—not so good for carbon, but this was some years ago. And it's that sort of narrative of, actually, once you get that little bit of data, the 'what ifs' become possible, but it's the data quality and the EPC data sets are getting better and better, because there's been more. But it's then how we target, as well, that is difficult. And I think, for some things like the income data, we've always kind of leant towards this idea of how do we get better income data, and particularly if we're to create better maps, and there is income data out there, but it's not accessible.

But it seems that if the Government is spending all this money on measures—for a relatively small amount of money, you can get a feel for the impact that they're having—that can be used then to raise more money. But unless you know what the impact is, it's never going to—. The impact is always reduced, you know? Simon and I have talked about it, and I've talked about it at the Warm Wales board, 'Why can't we just start getting some values back from this?'

Evaluation of ECO, you know, which kind of seems a bit—

And Warm Homes.

Yes, just an evaluation.

And it doesn't have to be a huge research project. All we need is the data in terms of what measures have been applied, and it's not a huge project then to map that out. All too often, you end up dreaming up huge, big research projects, when, in fact, a couple of not back-of-an-envelope but relatively small projects can deliver big impacts, sometimes.

Just to say, as kind of a research output, this FRESH mapping was part of our research submission in 2021 for Cardiff University. And so, the Welsh School of Architecture just submitted three case studies, one of which was around the SOLCER house and low carbon, one was the FRESH mapping, and another was about European improvement of air conditioning. So, very sophisticated case studies. And those three, we don’t know what the scores are on them, but all of them were internationally excellent.

They got a top rating.

A top rating. So, we got two 4s and a 3. So, one of them is 3—it might be FRESH, it might be others—so, this is considered as being something really important academically, and we want to continue that. 

Chair, if you'll bear with me, just to say about the current research we're doing, I'm actually working with Sheffield Hallam University and Professor Aimee Ambrose. We’re working in the north of England in Northumberland with truly off-grid houses, and it's really interesting working with—. We've been funded by Northern Powergrid and Northern Gas Networks, and it's really fascinating how these people who are actually completely off grid, some of them, because they're on Ministry of Defence land, and their narrative about—. The solutions that are standard—. So, the solutions that I bring to this from my work with decarbonising in Wales, they're saying, 'Well, we're not sure we want those, because the electricity grid is quite vulnerable; we wanted to have fuel powered'. And I think there's a real opportunity, with a targeted approach, looking at rurality, as well. We shouldn't ignore that. And I think, when you look at fuel poverty maps in your report, it is Powys, Ceredigion and Gwynedd. They're really strongly fuel poor, and that one-size-fits-all is quite problematic there because of how powerless the electricity grid is in rural environments. So, I think there's a really nice thing we can do as well. So, it's some current research—we haven't quite published it yet but, when we do, I can circulate that.

I just want to double-check: are you saying that it would only require a £5,000 contribution from each local authority to rerun these maps?

I believe so. I'd have to check with Jonathan, but—

Well, I mean, even if it was £10,000—

Yes. It's of that order. That's what we were paid in the first place.

Okay. Let's assume it's double that—

Well, yes, and I think—

That's just small change to any local authority. So, why are they not doing it? This is what I can't understand.

It has to fit in with a programme of then using the maps, somehow, to have an impact. We've worked on modelling with EEP, as Simon said, in the past, and you can develop a model for a local authority, but they don't have anybody to run it; they don't have the staff. So, it has to then involve a third party in some way, and Warm Wales can be that third party, as we are in our work funded by Wales & West. So, we're effectively—. On the local authorities where FRESH has been applied, that funding is in addition to the £5,000 set-up and that's been funded by, in our case, Wales & West Utilities. So, that has to be looked at as well. How then do we take it forward and apply it and use the model usefully? There's no point in just having it on the shelf. 

But, equally, this £5,000 or £10,000 per local authority, that could be funded by the Welsh Government as part of the fuel poverty programme, couldn't it? It would then be up to the local authority to understand how they're going to use that information, but revealing to local authorities where the demand for fuel poverty measures are, again, it's not a lot of money is it, compared to how much we're pouring in to the Warm Homes programme?

But, as Phillip Jones is saying though, there's no point in just having a report that goes on the shelf, they've got to be able to have an ability to do something.

Yes. But ECO is available to everybody, isn't it?

It is, but you've still got to have somebody—

To do the job. 

—to do the footwork of going round to the worst homes and saying, 'We think you need to apply for ECO, because this money is available, and we can help you either through Warm Homes or some other agent. We're not in this for any money, we just need to get this—.' Because when you stop having to spend half your income on heating your home, you'll have money to go and buy in the shops or whatever.

And we work alongside other organisations to deliver this; we don't do it on our own. So, we work with National Energy Action and people like that. So, we partner with other organisations to follow things up.

Okay. 

But it's something that could be—. Stage 1 is getting all local authorities into FRESH; stage 2 is, 'What do we do about it?', and we need to have a look at that as we develop stage 1. You might not have all the solutions and not every local authority might be able to implement things straight away, but there needs to be some strategy.

Well, there would need to be a commitment to at least go and tackle x number of the worst.

Quite.

And in any given local authority, for example, Ceredigion, you'd think that most of the housing there would be stone built, I'm assuming—making assumptions that it was that sort of age—as opposed to more modern housing, which would be in the towns anyway. 

Yes. 

As part of the research project that Phil mentioned, back in 2013, we had a really good relationship with Gwynedd, I've just remembered now, and we did a big report for them looking at energy efficiency and fuel poverty. And that was where we had a local authority coming to us, before FRESH, and saying, 'We want mapping.' I think that the person who was there was the conduit and that knowledge is sometimes lost, and I think that's a shame. But I think there is a really good bit about if you can get somebody at the water cooler, then suddenly it works. It's a shame that we can't really enforce it. You need to have it taken forward, because it is a knowledge transfer. And I think, with Rent Smart Wales, it was lovely working on a very small project, and they have then gone off and, as an organisation, have gone much further than us. And it's great for me, as an academic, giving Warm Wales this and going much further than I ever expected, and I think it is very much a very powerful tool, mapping, when used well.

Well, it's given us lots of food for thought. Are there any more questions that you want to ask?

You have to get the EPC up, I think it's from, usually, E/F—Simon would probably know—to a B, I think.

I actually don't know. I'm sorry.

So, it's the package of measures that you would need to apply to get you up there, and air-source heat pumps are one of the measures. To be honest, I'm not sure if a heat—. Air-source heat pumps: if you replace an oil-fired boiler, say, with an air-source heat pump, you usually have to either upgrade the insulation or make the radiators larger, because the temperatures coming off an air-source heat pump will be lower than those coming off a standard gas or oil boiler.

They're going up as air-source heat pumps, and ground-source, but it's air-source with these schemes—. The temperatures are going up all the time, but still you need to reduce the heat loss to enable the air-source heat pump to work. Now, what you can do is have a hybrid solution, which is keep your oil boiler, install an air-source heat pump, and when the weather gets really cold, the oil boiler comes in, because that can deliver the high temperatures. But for the majority of the time, the air-source heat pump can operate at an efficiency that makes it preferable to the oil, because the efficiency of air-source heat pumps is reduced in cold weather.

It's called the COP, the coefficient of performance, which is effectively the efficiency. So, for every 1 kW that you put in, you might get 3 kW out, in heat. But as the weather gets colder, you get 2 kW or 1.5 kW. It goes down. And then it might be more efficient to burn oil. So, that's the way that they work. So, you have to apply the air-source heat pump, usually, with a package of measures, or a hybrid system. But you can't get grants for hybrid systems at the moment.    

Okay.

Okay. And what about partial conversion, in the sense that most people spend most of their time in the living room during the day, or the kitchen? Ground-source heat pumps are fine as long as you've got a piece of land out the back, which in a rural area is a no-brainer. I think that one of the other things that we heard about in the last inquiry was that it is quite disruptive. You say that you need larger radiators. My own observation is that, actually, you need to change how you distribute the heat. So, you don't have radiators, you have under-floor heating with, presumably, pipes underneath. But that requires quite a lot of disruption to daily living during the period that this work is going on. So, are you aware of any partial conversions? So, you just do the ground floor, say, and people temporarily have to live upstairs or something, while you have got a building site going on.  

Yes, you are right. Under-floor heating is ideal for heat pumps because you need temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees, which is what comes off most heat pumps at their maximum efficiency. It's unusual, I think, to retrofit with under-floor heating, unless you are particularly wealthy—

Or you've got some other work going on anyway.

Or you've got other work—

Or you're converting or whatever.

Yes. But it might be—. I think the ECO schemes, I'm not sure about Warm Homes, but I think they’re whole house. So, you have to deal with the whole house.

You have to deal with the whole house, okay.

Yes. So, you can either increase the radiator size, or you could insulate the walls and top up the roof, but that could be disruptive. You might put external insulation on, and that’s improving in quality now. Internal insulation is disruptive. So, there are issues there.

Okay. Fine. I think you've given us loads of food for thought. If there are no further questions, we'll look forward to the session with your colleague Jonathan Cosson, which I think is next week—is that right—who may have more of the nitty-gritty. But if you were able to send us these maps, so long as they're not commercially sensitive, I think that would be really helpful for us all to have a look at them in advance of the meeting with Jonathan Cosson.

It's extremely useful to hear about something that sounds perfectly doable, as long as the will is there. Because, certainly, just looking at that worst-first map, you can instantly see which are the streets where people need to go and use their shoe leather to get around and say, 'You're obviously one of the worst-first houses, from all the information we have.' Bearing in mind that student accommodation is empty between July and September—it doesn’t have to be, but there’s a break in the contract—and that is the time when you could be overhauling the house, particularly if it’s in a terrible state.

Yes. There’s no formal agreement, but I do know a lot of the team and we do talk about various other data things. I suspect, hand on heart, I think it’s that we’re coming from different directions in terms of the way we deal with data. The Government uses statisticians to think of a very top-down approach, so that’s where the 3,000 homes that form that fuel poverty assessment, which is current, come from. I would term it as top-down, where you have a very simple view of the building stock and people across the whole of the nation, whereas Phil and I, very much from the school of architecture, come at it from a bottom-up approach, where we like going to individual properties, we like talking to individual people, and then we build that model up. So, it’s not that it’s impassable, but they’re very much focused on that top-down approach and we would focus on—. So, there’s maybe a slight misunderstanding between us, so we need to work harder at that.

And Warm Wales has had discussions as well with the Welsh Government, but nothing’s materialised yet.

No, okay. Diolch. Great.

Final question from me, you talked about different sources of money, Warm Homes, ECO, et cetera, have you looked at accessing the money that’s being generated by windfarm companies that’s going into the community funds? Now the contracts are better—the original contracts probably didn’t add up to much—now the contracts are generating a lot of money, and it’s being used for tarting up playing fields, which is fine, but it’s small change compared with this sort of thing.

We’re in discussion with a company at the moment in relation to—. They’ve identified Warm Wales as somebody who they’d like to work with in Wales, and they have significant amounts of money, but it’s going to the board at the moment. So, we are looking for alternative sources of funding. One of the projects that we've recently had is working with Neath Port Talbot, and they've made an amount of money—I think about £2 million—available for immediate relief in terms of white goods, or paying bills, or in cash, where we're able to assess the situation and quickly give money or goods to people in need. That programme has been really successful, but it's coming to an end; they don't have enough funds to extend it. And one of the things that we'd like to do with this company that we're discussing with is to extend that programme. And that could be applied to other local authorities, particularly in areas that are affected by windfarms or whatever. 

Because the windfarm money is only for the community of benefit, i.e. around the windfarm.

Yes. But this is a bigger energy company, who are not area restricted like that. We could help a particular local authority. But it's a good idea, I think, because these companies could provide this immediate relief for people in extreme difficulty, rather than, as you say—. I was involved, two years ago, in the—. What was it called, the quarry in—? They had funding. I was on—

Ffos-y-fran?

Pardon?

Ffos-y-fran.

No, it was the landfill—.

It was a fund set up by the Welsh Government. I was on the committee, and Rosemary Butler ran it. That was looking at—. We had about £1 million a year, I think, to give to various worthy causes. But that was difficult. It was difficult to identify suitable projects. Painting the car park or whatever toilets is good, but there are better things you could do with it. So, I agree, it would be useful to get funding from energy companies or whatever, and having a programme, then, of really putting it in the direction of those most in need.

Good. Thank you very much indeed for your time and your very interesting work. Hopefully, you're going to get commissioned to upgrade your maps, so they aren't chasing the people who no longer need it, if they've not bothered to—. People don't upgrade their EPCs necessarily, unless they want to sell the property, do they?

Yes.

Great. Thank you very much indeed.

We've got four papers to note. Are Members content to do that? And then under Standing Order—. Joel. Sorry, Sioned.

Yes, it's 4.1.

Yes, absolutely fine.

Diolch.

And there are other matters we can pick up in private session.

So, under Standing Order 17.42, can we go into private session now?