National Assembly for Wales

The Welsh Government is committed to ensuring our communities are safe and we continue to work with our local authorities and other partners to ensure that appropriate regulatory regimes are in place. In the first instance, the responsibility for the safety of sites rests with the individual landowners.

Engaging young people with nature is vital and we are doing this through e-schools, nature networks funding and the ocean literacy work of the coast and seas partnership. These initiatives align with the new Curriculum for Wales, supporting hundreds of thousands of pupils to become environmentally aware and engaged.

I provided a detailed, written update to Members about reducing workload and bureaucracy for school staff on 9 November, following on from my earlier statement on 13 July. This summarised the significant progress we have made to date working alongside our partners in the sector, and outlines our next steps.

Recruitment to primary programmes of initial teacher education remains strong, with unofficial figures showing that we have exceeded the required recruitment levels for a number of years.

The amount of funding set aside for school budgets is for local authorities to determine; the Welsh Government does not fund schools directly. Decisions on levels of funding available to schools and to other services are made by each authority as part of their overall budget and council tax setting.