Prosperity for All: the national strategy · 2018. 10. 3. · Prosperity for All identified five priority areas which had emerged repeatedly as those which could make the greatest

Prosperity for All: the national strategyAnnual Report 2018

Prosperity for All: the national strategy | 3

Contents

© Crown copyright 2018 WG35440 Digital ISBN: 978-1-78964-231-5 Mae’r ddogfen yma hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg / This document is also available in Welsh

Foreword 4

Introduction 6

Prosperous and Secure 8

Healthy and Active 11

Ambitious and Learning 14

United and Connected 17

Early Years 20

Housing 22

Social Care 24

Better Mental Health 26

Skills and Employability 28

Decarbonisation 30

Well-being Objectives 32

4 | Prosperity for All: the national strategy

Foreword

We published Prosperity for All: the national strategy last Autumn, setting out our ambitious programme for government, and our priorities for delivering for the people of Wales.

One year on, we are making good progress. We have already delivered the £80m New Treatment Fund, which ensures that people everywhere in Wales can have the same, fast access to new drugs and treatments.

We have delivered tax cuts for small businesses right across Wales, through our High Street Rates Relief Scheme.

We have increased to £40,000 the amount of money people can keep before they have to fund the full cost of their residential care, providing real financial benefits to hundreds of people.

We have extended the number of places where working parents can access 30 hours of free childcare for their 3 and 4 year olds, with more than half of local authorities now covered by our pilots.

Our flagship, all-age apprenticeship programme will deliver 100,000 new places over this term – with 16,000 starts in 2017/18 alone.

We have continued to prioritise schools spending, and are on track to invest £100m on improving our schools’ performance, alongside our structural reforms to the curriculum.

This is a Government that is delivering for Wales. Two years into this administration, we are driving forward our challenging agenda. We are delivering improvements to people’s lives today, but also laying the foundations for longer-term benefits that will be felt well beyond this government term.



We are building on our strong track record since devolution. Our approach to a modern and sustainable health service has always gone beyond funding the NHS – reflecting the importance of social care and wider societal factors on our health and well-being. Spending on health per head of the population is higher in Wales than England and our health spend is increasing at a faster rate too.

We are delivering the most generous package of support for students in higher education anywhere in the United Kingdom. We have delivered sustained improvements in educational attainment, through our investment in school improvements and in a modern education estate. We are delivering changes to what children learn and how teachers teach which will maintain this progress.

We have delivered these improvements despite a decade of cuts inflicted by the UK Government - we have not allowed this to be the defining feature of this government. We know that as austerity continues to affect the lives of people in Wales, they need our support more than ever.

We are now preparing ourselves for the reality of a future for Wales outside the EU. Whatever form Brexit takes, there will be disruption and we must continue to prepare for all possible outcomes. We are arguing for a Brexit which protects Welsh jobs, Welsh businesses and Welsh public services. Our priority continues to be to fight for the best outcome for Wales, advocating our interests and priorities. As the UK leaves the EU, we face potentially long-lasting economic and social damage. We are working tirelessly against that possibility.

Our key message continues to be that Wales remains a great place to invest and work - a message at the heart of the Economic Action Plan. We continue to support Welsh companies in existing markets and finding new markets globally and have seen the value of exports from Wales increase by well over 10% since 2016.

Our strong record for attracting inward investment to Wales has meant that this financial year, job creation from overseas companies has increased by more than 20% on the previous year.

April of this year marked the introduction of the first Welsh taxes for almost 800 years; land transaction tax and landfill disposals tax. The ability to raise taxes gives us new levers to deliver our ambitions for Wales. We will strive to deliver an approach to Welsh taxation which is transparent, fair, and which meets the needs of the people, businesses and communities of Wales.

This government will continue to use all powers available to it to build prosperity for all, leaving no-one behind. We remain firmly committed to social justice and equality and will put the needs and interests of the Welsh people at the heart of everything that we do.



In September 2017, we published Prosperity for All: the national strategy. The strategy set out our central mission to deliver a prosperous Wales that benefits everyone.

Our long term aim is to build a Wales that is prosperous and secure; healthy and active; ambitious and learning and united and connected. To deliver this aim, we identified twelve well-being objectives which set out where we can make the greatest contribution to the National Well-being Goals, placing the Well-being of Future Generations Act at the heart of our decision making. Within our strategy, we identified the steps we will take to meet these objectives, how we will join up services, and how we will focus on the things that have the greatest impact.

Prosperity for All identified five priority areas which had emerged repeatedly as those which could make the greatest contribution to long-term prosperity and well-being and which required us to work better across government to realise their potential. Over the last year, we have been delivering the specific actions in each of these areas and working to better integrate services.

This Annual Report sets out the progress that we have made towards delivering our well-being objectives. The report is accompanied by an annex setting out the progress against each of the steps we committed to deliver in Prosperity for All and the actions in Taking Wales Forward.

The Report captures actions we have taken across the whole of the Government to reduce carbon emissions. From the outset, this has been a cross-government priority and is reflected across the whole of the strategy. The Environment (Wales) Act commits us to reduce emissions in Wales by 80% by 2050, an ambitious target that we can only meet if we change how public services operate, as reflected in our ambition for a carbon-neutral public sector by 2030.

Over the last year, we have been developing a set of actions which will contribute to these ambitions. A key message is that we need to increase the focus on decarbonisation and that the benefits of reducing emissions will be felt widely and contribute to many of our priorities, leading to improved health and well-being and opening up new economic opportunities.

As a Government, we have therefore agreed that decarbonisation will also be an area for priority cross-government action.

Taken together, the six priority areas reflect the support that people need throughout their lives and when the right help can have a dramatic effect on their life course. These are areas where it has been shown that early intervention and co-ordination across services can have a significant impact and each makes an important contribution to a number of our well-being objectives. The six areas are: Early Years, Housing, Social Care, Mental Health, Skills and Employability, and Decarbonisation.

Introduction


Prosperous and SecureOur aim is to drive a Welsh economy which enables people to fulfil their ambitions through secure and sustainable employment and creates the right environment for businesses to grow and thrive.

Healthy and ActiveOur aim is to improve health and wellbeing for individuals, families and communities in Wales by shifting our approach from treatment to prevention.

Ambitious and Learning Our aim is to instil a passion for learning in everyone from the earliest age, inspiring them to be the best they can possibly be throughout their lives.

United and Connected Our aim is to build a confident nation where people take pride in their communities, their Welsh identity and language, and our place in the world.

Priority AreasAn individual’s experiences during their early years play a significant part in shaping their future, and are critical to their chances of going on to lead a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling life.

The bedrock of living well is a good quality, affordable home which brings a wide range of benefits to health, learning and prosperity.

Compassionate, dignified care plays a critical part in strong communities, ensures that people can be healthy and independent for longer, and is a significant economic sector in its own right.

One in four people in Wales will experience mental ill health at some point in their lives, so getting the right treatment at an early stage, coupled with greater awareness of conditions, can in many cases prevent long term adverse impacts.

The better people’s skills, the better their chances of getting fair, secure and rewarding employment. And the stronger the skills base in Wales, the more chance we have of attracting new businesses and growing existing ones to improve prosperity.

A clean and healthy environment underpins a good quality of life for everyone. Decarbonisation not only gives us cleaner air and water, but can also deliver economic opportunities, better quality jobs, more comfortable and efficient homes, and improvements to our health and well-being.


Support people and businesses to drive prosperity

We will enable people to develop the skills they need to get the jobs they want, supporting businesses to start, innovate, and grow, creating decent, secure employment.

This year has seen a major shift in the way we drive economic growth and deliver prosperity across Wales. Since September 2017 we have already supported over 31,000 jobs and published Prosperity for All: Economic Action Plan which sets out our how we will pool the resources, expertise and knowledge we have in Wales to strengthen our economic foundations and future-proof the Welsh economy.

The plan sets out five calls to action to help businesses overcome the key challenges of the future: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Headquarters; Exports and Trade; High Quality Employment, Skills Development and Fair Work; Research and Development, Automation and Digitisation; and Decarbonisation. The new Economy Futures Fund brings together a series of funding streams, focusing them on the calls to action.

To ensure we can build strong foundations for inclusive growth we have launched the new Economic Contract, with a number of contracts already signed. We are now supporting businesses which commit to the shared principles of growth, fair work, reducing carbon footprints, health, skills and learning.

Through our £50m EU Transition Fund, we are taking specific action to help Welsh businesses and organisations prepare for Brexit. The newly-established Development Bank of Wales has significantly increased investment levels, and launched a number of new funds which total some £233m, including the Wales Flexible Investment Fund and Angel Co-Investment Fund.

Small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of the Welsh economy and we are directly supporting them through programmes such as the High Street Rates Relief Scheme, reducing the tax burden for 13,000 small and medium-sized high street businesses across the country.

As well as supporting businesses of all sizes to create jobs, we are reforming our approach to making sure the Welsh workforce is highly skilled and able to benefit fully from the opportunities of sustainable economic growth. The Employability Plan sets out the steps we will take to help people into the right jobs and equip them with the right skills to progress. Together with the roll out of our childcare offer, we are removing barriers to employment for everyone.

We are also working together across Government and with industry to help drive innovation and productivity in our economy. For example, we are investing more than £30m in health innovation, bringing together clinical, academic and business expertise to develop and deploy new, innovative products and services within the Welsh health and care system.

Prosperous and Secure


Tackle regional inequality and promote fair work

We will target interventions to the different economic needs of each region of Wales, ensuring all parts of the country benefit from growth, and promoting every worker’s right to a fair deal.

We are committed to seeing every area of Wales benefitting from economic growth and prosperity. Key labour market indicators in Wales continue to improve, showing the highest rate since comparable records began. The latest evidence also indicates that the gender pay gap in Wales is now at its lowest level to date and the second lowest of the UK countries and regions.

The Economic Action Plan puts the distinctive opportunities and challenges of our regional economies front and centre with an approach to regional economic development grounded in supporting distinctive regional strengths and collaborating on a clear footprint with businesses and other partners.

We have already appointed three Chief Regional Officers in North Wales, Mid and South West Wales and South East Wales who are actively working with people and business across their regions to drive growth. This approach will bring decisions on investment much closer to stakeholders and support thriving local economies and supplement the actions we are taking to directly support our regions.

The £1.2bn Cardiff Capital Region Deal is already investing £38m in a world-leading technology cluster in Newport, to create more than 2,000 jobs, while the eleven projects underpinning the £1.3bn Swansea Bay City Region City Deal are being developed to drive growth across the region.

Negotiations are progressing towards North and Mid Wales Growth Deals, working closely with bodies from across the public, private and voluntary sectors in the development of Growth Bid propositions.

Earlier this year, Wales’ first dedicated science park was opened. Menai Science Park within the Anglesey Enterprise Zone brings together businesses from the ICT, science and research sectors.

Through the Valleys Task Force, we have helped more than 1,000 economically inactive people start work, advised and supported 1,000 people and small businesses and supported the creation of more than 100 new enterprises.

To maximise the impact of our infrastructure we recently announced the creation of more than a thousand new jobs (including 450 apprenticeships) as part of our own Transport for Wales Train Service and South East Wales Metro.

We remain committed to promoting Fair Work. Our new Calls to Action and Economic Contract mean that the businesses we support must commit to Fair Work - providing decent, secure and rewarding employment. We have established a Fair Work Commission to advise us on the changes we need to make, including security of income, fair and guaranteed hourly earnings, fair opportunities for paid progression, and access to sick pay and pensions for all employees.


Drive sustainable growth and combat climate change

We will build prosperity in a way that supports and sustains Wales’ stunning natural environment, ensures that current and future generations will continue to benefit, and makes a tangible contribution to the fight against climate change.

We are firmly committed to delivering sustainable economic development, both through helping existing industries adapt as well as seizing the opportunities of green growth and future technologies. Wales recycles more of its waste than anywhere else in the UK, with rates continuing to improve. Renewalable energy generation has also continued to increase in Wales.

We have already embedded this commitment within our new Economic Action Plan with Decarbonisation as one of the five calls to action and the new Economic Contract requiring sustainable and clean growth from those businesses who seek our support. In recognition of the role all parts of Government have to play in leading the transition to a low-carbon society, we have added Decarbonisation as a sixth priority area within Prosperity for All.

We are committed to innovating in order to reduce carbon emissions, for example through the new £9.2m Reduced Industrial Carbon Emissions initiative led by the Swansea University in partnership with University of South Wales, which will draw on world-class expertise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large and heavy equipment and facilities, and help drive a stronger and cleaner economy.

This year, Wales was confirmed again as the UK’s best recycling nation. To support our ambition to become a zero waste nation we have also allocated £7.5m to help local authorities further improve recycling services. We are taking forward a range of actions through Towards Zero Waste to meet our aim of Wales becoming a circular economy.

To mitigate the impacts of climate change we are delivering a £56m programme this year to improve flood and coastal erosion defences and support flood risk management activities across Wales.

The EU Transition Fund is providing dedicated development assistance for our agricultural industry, to support farmers to identify improvements to their businesses to help them become more competitive and be in a better position to prosper following the UK’s exit from the EU. For example, we have allocated £2.15m to support the development of the red meat sector in Wales.


Deliver quality health and care services fit for the future

We will deliver high-quality, timely treatment, as well as supporting and promoting good health, well-being and independence, recognising that future sustainability requires everyone to play an active part in shaping their own health.

We are focused on providing high-quality and timely treatment that supports and promotes good health for everyone. More people are starting the treatment they need within the target time. Almost 90% of patients had been waiting less than 26 weeks for treatment in July 2018, the highest for 5 years. We have prioritised health spending to ensure the NHS in Wales and the wider care system have the resources needed to deliver this aim, while planning for a long-term, sustainable future.

This year, we launched the New Treatment Fund, providing faster access to new drugs and treatments across every health board in Wales. We know demand for services is increasing and Wales’ changing demographics are placing new and different demands on our models of treatment.

Bringing care closer to home, with less reliance on hospitals to deliver one seamless system of care for Wales will be the basis for the way NHS and social care is organised in the future. Earlier this year, working with partners across the system, we developed a shared vision for the future. A Healthier Wales: our Plan for Health and Social Care is the blueprint for a system where support and treatment is available across a range of community-based services, whilst at the same time ensuring that when hospital based care is needed, it can be accessed more quickly.

Through our £100m Transformation Fund, we are supporting reform of health and social care services as well as investing in new integrated health and social care centers across Wales. The Canolfan Goffan Ffestiniog centre in Blaenau Ffestiniog is an example of how services can be reconfigured and integrated so that health, social care, third sector and well-being services are provided in the community.

We are continuing to develop the innovative primary care clusters supporting professionals to work together to share information and join up the variety of services (such as housing, leisure and education) that support people to stay healthy.

To help secure the sustainable services we need, we are supporting innovative projects to prevent and treat illness and disease.

We are bringing together academics, clinicians and industry to pioneer research into cutting-edge technologies, for example through the £13.5m AgorIP scheme. The project will help to drive forward new concepts and research to grow our knowledge economy and help create highly skilled, well-paid jobs.

Healthy and Active


Promote good health and well-being for everyone

We will support people to adopt healthy lifestyles, breaking down the barriers that ill-health place on employment and opportunity, and tackling the generational cycle of poor health and inactivity.

We are driving forward our objective of a healthier Wales with a series of significant interventions, including new legislation, initiatives and additional funding. More people are being active, with a third of adults taking part in sport at least three times a week.

A new integrated Healthy and Active Fund, with £5m over three years, is designed to support collaborative projects to improve people’s mental and physical health by helping them to lead healthy and active lifestyles, with a focus on strengthening or developing community assets.

Our Integrated Care Fund provides housing to support people’s health and social care needs, intervening earlier to reduce avoidable hospital admissions. This work supports integration of services across health, social services and housing, recognising the significant role that appropriate housing can play in reducing the pressure on frontline health and social care services.

Our focus is on preventing ill health in the first place and on addressing problems at an early stage. We continue to support people to stop smoking with our smoking cessation services and the new Help Me Quit contact centre directs smokers to the service best suited to their needs.

We have also taken further steps to extend the smoking ban to hospital grounds, school grounds and playgrounds from next year. This year, we passed legislation to introduce a minimum price for alcohol in Wales, making an important contribution to addressing alcohol misuse.

Wales is now the first country in the UK to ban intimate piercing for those under 18, protecting young people from the potential health problems associated with these piercings.

Screening and early identification programmes also play a major role in prevention - we have expanded our cervical screening programme and will now be testing for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and making the HPV vaccination programme available to boys to help prevent other cancers.

We are bringing forward initiatives to help people to build physical activity into their everyday lives. More than three hundred schools in Wales now take up the Daily Mile, getting children out of the classroom to walk or run for 15 minutes a day.

The Welsh Network of Healthy School Schemes continues to support schools in providing a whole-school approach to physical, mental and social health and well being. A further 25 schools achieved the prestigious National Quality Award over the last year, bringing the total to 179.


Build healthier communities and better environments

We will tackle inequalities between communities and deliver more services closer to home, acknowledging the importance of communities and the wider environment for good health and well-being.

Our community and local environment play a big part in keeping us healthy. We are committed to tackling inequalities so that where people live does not impact on their ability to stay as healthy as possible or access services that support well-being.

There is growing evidence on the impact of air quality on health. To improve air quality, we have introduced a range of actions, including a new £20m Air Quality Fund, a draft Clean Air Zone Framework and temporary speed restrictions on some Welsh roads to tackle emissions hotspots.

Our Clean Air Wales Programme reflects a cross-government approach, for example we have published guidance for NHS staff and we have consulted on a new Planning Policy Wales covering air quality and soundscape.

We are making it easier for people to choose clean ways of travelling. We have invested £2m in a network of electric vehicle charging points, making it more convenient for people to use electric vehicles, reducing costs and improving air quality.

Active travel plays a key role in both health promotion and our vision for Wales as a low-carbon nation, we invested £24m in active travel infrastructure to encourage people to choose walking and cycling instead of cars.

Along with providing thousands more affordable homes, we are investing in energy efficiency and insulation schemes. Through our Warm Homes Programme, we invested £19.5m in improving the energy efficiency of 4,600 private homes. Through our investment, 93% of social housing has achieved adequate energy performance.

Providing accessible areas in which to play and take part in physical activity is also an important aspect of healthier communities. We are helping local authorities to expand and improve play opportunities for children and young people, including improvements to open space play areas, park areas and woodland areas.

Access to local health services is vital to healthy communities. Around 65,000 people see a GP each weekday, with almost nine out of ten people satisfied with the care that they receive. Our international campaign to show Wales is an attractive place for GPs to work and train has seen an increase in the numbers going into medical training, creating the highly skilled community workforce of the future.

Our Pharmacy First scheme is rebalancing healthcare, removing the need for people to see or speak to a doctor for a range of common ailments. We are also developing the role of the multi professional primary care team, to include a range of professionals, working alongside doctors and providing person-focused care at the very heart of our communities.


Support young people to make the most of their potential

We will provide the best start in life for all, with support from birth, through education, and beyond, making sure everyone has the chance to fulfil their natural potential.

We have seen sustained improvement in educational attainment over several years, and this is a firm foundation for further delivery. The numbers of pupils leaving primary school competent in Mathematics, Science and either English or Welsh has significantly increased and stands at 90%.

We are moving forward with our ambitious programme of education reform, working collaboratively with schools and teachers to deliver our national mission. More than two hundred pioneer schools across Wales have helped accelerate progress on the new curriculum, designing areas of learning and experience.

Great leadership is central to our approach, and this year we launched the National Academy for Educational Leadership to support school leaders of the future to be the driving force behind our reform. We have also introduced new professional standards for Teaching and Leadership developed with the profession, and overhauled our approach to training the teachers of tomorrow, including more part-time and employment-based routes to becoming a teacher.

We have continued to target the attainment gap, focusing substantial and increasing funding on those young people who need it most, ensuring that everyone is able to achieve their potential from the very beginning.

We have expanded the Pupil Development Grant (PDG) to provide an enhanced support package for disadvantaged learners by increasing the Early Years PDG to £700 per child and continuing funding for pupils eligible for free school meals and looked after children at a rate of £1,150 per learner.

Given the positive connection between smaller classes and attainment, particularly for pupils from poorer backgrounds, we introduced a new £36m fund to reduce infant class sizes. The fund will target classes where learning needs to improve and where there are high levels of deprivation.

We have introduced a Small and Rural Schools grant to encourage innovation and collaborative working and to raise standards. Rural schools make a vital contribution to their communities, and we have established a presumption against their closure.

We have also legislated through the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 to make provision for a new statutory framework for supporting children and young people with additional learning needs.

The £1.4bn 21st Century Schools programme this year reached a major milestone with the completion of the 100th project in the first wave of investment, with another 63 schools under construction or improved, indicating it will significantly surpass targets.

Ambitious and Learning


Build ambition and encourage learning for life

We will widen people’s horizons and lift their aspirations by creating a dynamic, entrepreneurial culture and ensuring they have opportunities to grow and achieve more throughout their lives.

Ensuring that everyone in Wales has access to the opportunities and support they need to fulfil their ambitions is vital. We have continued to see the qualification levels of adults in Wales increase. We are undertaking a series of reforms to ensure a system that delivers on the needs of Wales in the 21st century, both for people and businesses.

We have reformed our support for students following the Diamond Review, to bring in the most generous system anywhere in the UK, meaning all Welsh students – whether studying undergraduate, full or part time – will now receive support for their living costs equivalent to the UK national living wage.

By investing in enhanced support for postgraduate and part-time study alongside full-time undergraduates, we are ensuring that the mission to widen access is fit for the pace of change in the new technological and economic age.

Across our educational system we are working to reduce the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training. This year, the proportion of 16-18 year olds who are NEET fell below 10% for the first time in a decade, indicating that our approach is paying dividends, and helping more young people make a positive step into work or training.

This year, we have taken the first steps to reform how we fund post-16 education, introducing a pilot approach to planning what further education institutions provide, and a more tailored regional approach to skills provision. We have also consulted on ambitious plans to establish a single funding body covering further and higher education to further drive integration and economic value.

We are ensuring that research and innovation in Wales, whether in businesses, universities or the wider public sector, are better supported, and focused on delivering results for the Welsh economy. For example, the £24m Accelerate programme brings together clinical, academic and business expertise to develop and deploy new and innovative products and services within the Welsh health system.

As part of the £50m EU Transition Fund, we have awarded £3.5m to a programme run by Wales’ universities to drive international partnerships and promote Wales as a study destination.


Equip everyone with the right skills for a changing world

We will enable people to develop their skills in line with the rapid changes in the global economy, to keep Wales competitive and secure employment in an uncertain world.

We are committed to helping everyone in Wales grow and adapt their skills throughout their lives, to access work, and to progress throughout their careers.

Our flagship all-age apprenticeships programme will deliver 100,000 new places over this five year Assembly term – in the first half of 2017/18 there were over 16,000 starts on apprenticeship programmes, 63% by women, giving people the right industry knowledge and job skills whilst in paid employment. This year, we began a new programme of degree apprenticeships backed by £20m of investment over three years.

This year, we published a new cross-government Employability Plan, fundamentally overhauling our approach to delivering these services. The Plan sets out a more integrated, streamlined system, with a simplified gateway for people to access the help they need more quickly and easily.

Digital skills are increasingly important if we are to compete in a global marketplace. A vital part of our national mission is to equip all learners, at every age, with high-level digital skills that ensure Welsh workers are digitally competent to become enterprising, creative and critical thinkers.

This year, we launched ‘Cracking the Code,’ a plan to improve coding skills. Backed by over £1m of funding, we are working with regional education consortia, businesses, third sector partners and universities so that more learners have the opportunity to develop these skills. This year, the number of coding clubs in Wales increased by 220, to 520 active clubs.

Construction started this year on our £20m Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute in Broughton, providing enhanced technical support to businesses involved in new manufacturing skills and processes. Through its ‘open access’ offer, it will ensure collaboration between industry, academic partners and entrepreneurs in order to drive innovation, up-skill the workforce and provide a catalyst for economic growth.

We are undertaking a major review of digital innovation, artificial intelligence and automation, future-proofing the Welsh economy for the challenges and opportunities facing it over the coming years, and the transformative effects these emerging fields are likely to have on the Welsh economy and the structure of our future labour market.


Build resilient communities, culture, and language

We will build a country characterised by vibrant, welcoming and cohesive communities, with pride in the present and ambition for the future – a truly bilingual nation celebrating its unique culture, heritage and diversity.

We want to empower those who want to make a difference in their local communities, and support local facilities that bring people together. Most people in Wales are satisfied with where they live. A partnership approach is at the heart of our long-term plan to secure prosperity for all in our communities.

To enable more people to volunteer in their local communities, we established and rolled out a new digital volunteering platform, Volunteering Wales. Hosted by the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, this new system went live earlier this year and allows volunteers to find opportunities, log their hours and skills gained from volunteering. More than 3,000 organisations are already using the platform.

Communities that people can take pride in are communities where they feel safe and valued. A key aim of our This is Me campaign which launched this year is to challenge gender stereotypes. The campaign is raising awareness of the underlying reasons for violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence to challenge those behaviours and build a society with zero tolerance for this. We are also working closely with community leaders, the voluntary sector and local services to counter the threat of extremism and hate crime in communities.

Over the past year we have been laying the foundations to support delivery of our vision for a million Welsh speakers: Cymraeg 2050 and have awarded £4.2m to 77 organisations across Wales to promote Welsh as a living, vibrant language. More than 4,000 people in workplaces across Wales have participated in Work Welsh courses over the past year, exceeding the targets set at the start of the programme.

To empower and engage more people in local decision-making, we have consulted on proposals to trial reforms to the democratic process, modernise the elections process and introduce votes for those aged 16 and over. These proposals will now be taken forward in a Local Government Bill, with the intention that 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote at the next local elections.

Following widespread public engagement, the Ministerial taskforce for the Valleys delivery plan, Our Valleys, Our Future, has identified three priority areas: good quality jobs and the skills to do them, better public services and my local community. This includes the development of seven strategic hubs in areas where economic potential is greatest and will benefit the largest number of people.

United and Connected


Deliver modern and connected infrastructure

We will invest in the 21st century connections we need to thrive and compete, joining up people, communities, businesses and services to drive prosperity.

We are pressing forward with a major programme of investment in Wales’ digital and physical infrastructure to drive economic growth and competitiveness.

This year we reached a significant milestone in delivering a high-quality, safe, affordable and accessible public transport network in Wales when we awarded the 15-year, £5bn Wales and Borders Rail service contract. Passengers can look forward to the transformation of their rail services including improvements to the frequency and quality of services and reduced journey times. Before the end of this year, several service improvements will already be underway.

Under the new service, Transport for Wales (TfW) will deliver the South Wales Metro, which will also inform the rollout of the model across Wales in North East and South West Wales. The people and communities of Wales will be better connected by new, improved and lower carbon services, opening up a wealth of employment, leisure and other opportunities.

We have created the building blocks to ensure strategic infrastructure planning provides an integrated approach to development and regeneration, supporting communities in all the regions of Wales by establishing the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICfW). The NICfW Chair has already been appointed and the Commission will be operational by the end of the year. The NICfW embodies our ambition for a better informed, better designed, long-term, evidence based way of working.

This year, we completed the rollout of the Superfast Cymru project, which has provided 733,000 premises across Wales with access to fast fibre broadband. Alongside this, our Access Broadband Cymru and Ultrafast Connectivity Voucher schemes continue to assist individuals, businesses and communities to find innovative solutions to improve connectivity.

In a future outside the EU, global connectivity is even more important. This year, Cardiff International Airport unveiled a Master Plan for the next 20 years, building on the 9% passenger growth over the past year. This has been further enhanced by the new, direct Qatar Airways service between Cardiff and Doha which opens up new routes to the Middle East, India, China, Singapore and Australasia.


Promote and protect Wales’ place in the world

We will ensure Wales remains outward-looking and fully engaged on the European and global stage, fostering new relationships for trade and investment, and promoting the best of our nation world-wide.

Our priority continues to be to fight for the best outcome for Wales as the UK exits the EU, and this has driven our approach to promoting Wales as an engaged European – and global – nation over the past year.

We have ensured that UK Government legislation on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU respects devolution, safeguarding devolved powers and policy in areas such as farming and fishing.

Working with partners across business, education, trade unions, agriculture, and the public and third sectors, we have produced detailed proposals to protect Wales’ economy and jobs following our exit from the EU.

We are identifying the opportunities for Wales to continue its positive relationship with Europe, for example working closely with the Irish Government to maintain our important trading links and establish a successor programme to the €100m Ireland/Wales programme.

We have also strengthened our relationship with regional governments across Europe; including Brittany, the Noord-Holland region of the Netherlands and Galicia, and we are exploring further collaborative opportunities with Catalonia, and the Basque Country.

We have opened new international offices in Montreal, Berlin, and Doha, with Paris and Dusseldorf opening imminently – some of our biggest and growing markets for Welsh exports and for investing in Wales. Alongside our existing 16 offices worldwide, these will help protect existing markets, build networks and pursue new trade and investment opportunities, promoting Wales to the world.

The value of Welsh exports continues to grow, increasing by £0.7bn in the year to June 2018. We have led a series of trade visits and missions to the US, Dubai, India, China, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Doha to strengthen trade links and explore new markets.

Over the last year, agreements reached with overseas companies will create more than 3,100 new jobs in Wales, an increase of more than 20% on the previous year, for example the Spanish company CAF has relocated to Wales to build our first modern train manufacturing facility, and will create 300 new jobs in the process. In North Wales, Dubai based Hotpack Packaging, and life sciences firm Ipsen are also creating hundreds of jobs.


We want children from all backgrounds to have the best start in life. Our aim is that everyone will have the opportunity to reach their full potential and lead a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling life, enabling them to participate fully in their communities and contribute to the future economic success of Wales.

Children in Wales increasingly have a positive start to their lives, with a decline in low birth weight babies, improvements in dental health and an increase in breastfeeding take-up over the last ten years.

We have made good progress with delivering 30 hours of free education and childcare for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds. From this September it will be available in 14 local authorities. More people and more providers are benefitting and early indications are that the childcare offer is having a positive impact - helping parents financially and enabling them to balance the demands of work and family life.

We are investing an additional £60m over three years to develop new childcare settings across Wales. This will allow childcare and the Foundation Phase to be delivered on a single site in more locations, as well as refurbishing existing settings to support the best quality childcare.

We are continuing investment in our programmes giving children the best start in life, including Flying Start, Families First and the Healthy Child Wales Programme. These programmes provide targeted and specific support, but people need to be able to move seamlessly between

services, accessing the support they need when they need it. Initially we are working closely with the Cwm Taf Public Service Board to develop a whole system approach to delivering the best start in the early years, reconfiguring these and other early years services to achieve this objective.

We are investing £400,000 this year to build on the work of the ACE Support Hub for Wales to raise awareness of ACEs and support individuals, organisations and communities to become ‘ACE informed’. This year’s focus has been on action to prevent ACEs and support for those who have experienced ACEs.

In addition our Parenting. Give it Time campaign provides advice and information for parents including hints and tips on a wide range of parenting challenges.

We are investing in support for parents, for example more than £430,000 to local authorities for engagement activities with families and an extra £32,000 to extend the CAFCASS Cymru Working Together for Children course, which helps parents to understand better how they can work together to support their children during and after separation.

As part of our package of measures to give children the best support in life and to provide support to parents, we are legislating to end the physical punishment of children in Wales. We have consulted on our plans to remove the defence of reasonable punishment in Wales. The responses from the public, parents and children will help us shape our proposals, which will be set out in a bill in the coming year.

Early Years

We are committed to widening access to work for everyone, while giving children the best start in life. That’s why the Welsh Government is investing in providing working parents with 30 hours of free education and childcare for up to 48 weeks a year. Buds to Blossoms Day Nursery in Blaenau Gwent was established by Lee Fowler and his business partner in 2016 and provides nursery care for 54 children aged between 12 weeks and 5 years old at their Beaufort setting.

Lee Fowler said; “At Buds to Blossoms, we take inspiration from the Reggio Emilia approach and are huge advocates of creating beautiful learning environments for children. We started delivering the Welsh Government childcare offer in September 2017 and we delivered the offer to 36 local children. This academic year we are delivering the offer to 35 local children but we expect this to increase as the year goes on. In 2016, when we opened the business, we had 8 employees – we have increased our staff to 26 staff across two settings, having opened a second nursery in September 2017, which offers Flying Start and the Childcare Offer for Wales.”


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HousingWe want everyone to live in a home that meets their needs and supports a healthy, successful and prosperous life. Good quality homes are the bedrock of good communities, and form the basis for individuals and families to flourish in all aspects of their lives.More than 90% of people in Wales were happy with their accommodation in 2017-18, providing a firm basis for their well-being.

We have made significant progress over the past year towards our target of providing 20,000 more affordable homes over this Assembly term. By providing record levels of funding in all parts of Wales, and working closely with housing associations, councils and the private sector, we are on track to achieve this ambitious target.

We have commissioned an independent review of affordable housing supply in Wales to advise on what more can be done to increase the supply of affordable housing, including innovative construction methods, while the Innovative Housing Programme is also creating demonstrator schemes to show the way for the type of homes we should support in the future.

Providing more and better housing has a significant economic benefit, and our commitment to supporting small and medium-sized builders has been strengthened significantly in the last year, with an additional £30m for the Property Development Fund giving these companies access to finance to build homes. This is complemented by the £40m investment in the Wales Stalled Sites Fund.

In the past year we have also launched two new schemes, Rent to Own - Wales and Shared Ownership – Wales which are designed to support people to own their own homes. Our established scheme Help to Buy–Wales has been a real success, supporting construction and sale of nearly 7,000 homes and providing a vital boost to the housing industry and wider economy.

We have also taken steps to protect our social housing rented stock for future generations by implementing legislation which will fully end the

Right to Buy and Right to Acquire in Wales in January 2019.

For those in the private rented sector, we are putting in place extra protection for tenants – by introducing our Renting Homes Bill to give tenants new rights to high standards, fair treatment and transparency.

Preventing people from finding themselves homeless is a key priority, and since the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 came into force, more than 16,000 households in Wales have been successfully prevented from becoming homeless.

We co-produced our Rough Sleeping Action Plan with organisations including Shelter Cymru, and members of Rough Sleepers Cymru, supporting people to access services and get off the streets as quickly as possible.

Recognising that those sleeping rough often have complex needs we are now implementing the Housing First approach across Wales. This recovery-focused approach centres on quickly moving people experiencing homelessness into independent and permanent housing and then providing additional support and services as needed.

The changing demographic picture means that all public services need to adapt in order to meet people’s needs. Appropriate and high quality housing, with rapid and responsive adaptations play a critical role in enabling people to live more safely and independently for longer, and maintain well-being.

This year, we have maintained the Supporting People programme at over £120m and provided an additional £6m to support more vulnerable people.

We have proposed widening membership of Regional Partnership Boards, which join up services across health, social care and the third sector, to include housing representatives, recognising the inter-dependencies with other services and the importance of accommodation led solutions to health and social care needs. This is alongside new investment of £105m over three years to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and accelerate hospital discharges, delivering a more seamless service where there are complex needs.


Providing the right backing to house builders is a priority in delivering our aim of improving housing in Wales and supporting the Welsh economy. Welsh house builder Lewis Homes has been able to expand its pipeline of new homes, including affordable homes across several developments thanks to the Development Bank for Wales and the Wales Property Fund.

This provides more opportunities for people to own their own homes, and creates quality construction jobs and skills in Wales.

Marc Lewis, Director of Lewis Homes said: “We’ve borrowed in excess of £11 million from the Development Bank of Wales since 2014. We’ve used this to build over 160 homes on two developments. The Wales Property Fund has enabled us to increase our work force substantially and to secure more land for the future growth of the company.”

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We want Wales to have a high quality and sustainable social care sector, with preventative and integrated services in the community, supporting people to lead independent lives.

Recognising the fundamental role social care plays in keeping people independent for longer and reducing admissions to hospital, A Healthier Wales: our plan for health and social care, was published earlier this year as a long-term plan for both the health and social care sectors. Our £100m Transformation Programme will fund the approaches that can have the greatest impact in developing and delivering new models of integrated health and social care.

We have further increased the amount of capital people can keep when entering residential care to £40,000 this year.

Being able to access the right care and support when needed, in a convenient location, is key to preventing health problems from escalating into more serious conditions. This year, we have agreed funding for nineteen new integrated health and care centres across Wales, with a total investment of £68m. This targeted investment will bring community heath and social care services together, closer to people’s homes, through a range of delivery partners.

There are important cross-cutting links between the housing and social care sectors, and this year we have committed £105m to the Integrated Care Fund. Over the next three years this will deliver more joined-up care closer to home and create more large-scale housing to support people to live independently in their own communities.

We know that the social care sector can struggle to recruit and retain workers and, therefore, recognising and incentivising high-quality care is our priority. We are working with care providers through a pilot with Business Wales to provide bespoke advice to ensure the sustainability of care businesses. We are also preparing the sector for the potential impacts of Brexit with a support package to all local authorities in Wales, and a further £200,000 to help fund research into the impact on the social care workforce in Wales.

Care workers play a significant role in our communities and we want to ensure that this is recognised and respected by boosting the profile and status of care workers. This year, alongside a £19m grant to support providers in implementing the National Living Wage, we introduced new requirements that significantly improve the terms and conditions of the workforce by reducing the use of zero hours contracts and by requiring more clarity around time spent on care and travel time.

Stepping in to take early action and strengthening edge of care services is essential to help children stay in families and has been a key focus of this priority area during this year. We have rolled-out the Reflect programme across Wales, supporting women to break the cycle of having their children taken into care. We have also supported more than 3,500 children to remain within a family unit.

We want to support vulnerable adults and care leavers in accessing services as they look to engage with work, training, education, and in securing suitable housing, particularly at key transitional stages of their lives. Our St David’s Day Fund has supported more than 1,700 young people on their journey towards independence. We now have teams of Personal Advisers across Wales, and will be extending our ‘When I’m Ready’ scheme to improve the range of accommodation options for care leavers, ensuring greater choice and control.

Social Care

Bringing all the services people need together seamlessly is a crucial element in keeping people in their homes longer. The ‘Man and the Van’ Service is run jointly between Care and Repair Cardiff and the Vale, and the Vale of Glamorgan Council. With delivery supported by the Integrated Care Fund, it provides a rapid response to requests for bathing assessments and adaptations, enabling an occupational therapist assistant and a handyperson to visit, carry out an assessment and install the majority of aids and adaptations there and then.

Richard Thomas, Care and Repair’s chief officer said, “The Man and the Van service provides a more efficient response to requests for home adaptations. It’s a great example of a seamless service that puts the citizen first, and means that people who need it most get the all the help they need in one go. We’re proud to report that every single one of our clients said they now feel safer in their homes and would recommend the service to others.”

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We want to ensure that mental health problems are not a barrier to achieving potential in all areas of life. For many the support of family and friends will be enough, but when more intensive support is needed, we need a system which is easily accessible, and focused on identifying and treating as early as possible.

We have continued to spend more on mental health services than on any other part of the Welsh NHS, which has increased by a further £20m to nearly £650m this year.

We are improving the quality and integration of mental health services by spending an extra £7m for an Innovation Transformation Fund, covering crisis support, Out of Hours services and Local Primary Mental Health support services.

We recognise that more people want better access to psychological therapy services and £5.5m has been made available annually to Local Health Boards to increase access for both children and adults.

A new £1.5m investment has delivered a community perinatal mental health team in every Health Board area, and we are developing a clinical network to share best practice across Wales. This investment complements our wider support for children and parents during early years.

Everyone has a role to play in promoting positive mental resilience in communities. Along with Cwm Taf Health Board and Big Lottery, we have provided £100,000 to Valleys Steps, a community organisation in the Cynon Valley. This will enable them to reach more people with free courses to teach techniques for managing stress and boosting well-being, and train staff and practitioners in GP surgeries.

This community based principle for new services that support mental health is further demonstrated through the well-being bond, and our social prescribing pilots which we launched this year with third-sector partners.

Our development of the new curriculum and assessment arrangements in schools will focus on well-being and mental resilience for young people. Our in-reach pilot projects over the past year gives our teachers enhanced help and support to respond to children experiencing difficulties and are exploring how Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services can work better with schools.

Better mental health support for those in work is also a key component of the new Economic Contract to benefit employers and employees alike. Our Employability Plan encourages employers to combat the stigma of mental health issues by putting into practice lessons from our Time to Change Wales campaign.

We have continued to fund the Healthy Working Wales programme to support employers, and, for those with mental health conditions in the workplace. It also provides support through our out of work service for those recovering from substance misuse problems to get back into employment, or improve their chances of getting a job with new qualifications and work experience, supporting more than 5,500 people by April this year.

We have provided £9m a year to enhance support in the community for those living with dementia. The Regional Partnership Boards will involve those living with dementia and their carers in deciding how the money can be used to make the biggest difference to them.

Better Mental Health

Supporting people to remain in work should they experience mental health problems, and building well-being amongst the Welsh workforce is vital. The In Work Support Service has helped thousands of people in Wales, providing free and rapid access to occupational therapy when it’s needed most.

The scheme helps both employees and employers, for example providing workshops on managing stress in the workplace and improving health and well-being of the workforce. Nearly 90% of participants say it has had a positive impact on their lives.

One company that’s seen significant benefits is the Bron Haul Residential Home in Rhyl. Manager Debbie Williams says the workshops have been extremely effective in helping to increase awareness of how mental and physical well-being help teams work more effectively together.

She said:

“I feel that staff are more open to discussion on their wellbeing and perhaps feel better for opening up. We all look forward to the ‘wellbeing monthly meet up’. We learned a great deal - the delivery of the workshop was really impressive and I think it’s so beneficial to have bite size sessions.”

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We want an economy founded on high quality skills, giving businesses the resources to grow and innovate, and people the ability to prosper. Every person should be equipped with the skills they need to get a job and the opportunity to develop new skills through their working life.

This year, we launched our cross-cutting Employability Plan, and implementation is now well under way. The plan sets out a long-term vision to ensure workers of the future have the skills businesses will need, and streamlines the support that everyone can expect to get on in work.

As we reshape our employability support, making it as simple as possible, and more responsive to the needs of individuals and employers, we are continuing to test and develop our Employment Advice Gateway, a new initiative for accessing employment support through a seamless referral and support service.

The Employment Advice Gateway will see greater co-location of Careers Wales, Job Centre Plus, Communities for Work and other community based services to enable simplified access and streamlined referrals to progress individuals onto education, training and employment.

Effective co-location and community outreach have also brought about considerable dividends in the delivery of our community employability programmes. This is evident in the areas of Cardiff and Llanelli, where effective community hubs have been established to bring together a range of public services and delivery partners in one place.

We have now launched the new £12m Communities for Work Plus (CfW+) programme, which will provide intensive mentoring and support to both engage participants and address the complex barriers to employment experienced by those furthest from the labour market. In its first four months of operation, CfW+ has engaged with almost 2,200 participants with some 400 progressing into employment.

Both the Economic Action Plan and the Employability Plan recognise the vital importance of building on regional strengths. Our new £10m Skills Development Fund will boost regional skills provision and target job-specific skills gaps as identified by the Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs). The fund also aims to reintroduce part time provision in particular, to increase employment opportunities for the unemployed and to up-skill those in low-paid employment.

The Employability Plan also focuses on removing diverse barriers to employment. Mental health continues to be a significant issue for some, and our new £2m Individual Placement Support (IPS) pilot will integrate employment advisers into clinical healthcare settings to enable access to both mental health and employability services in a joined-up way, tailored to the individual.

A team of healthcare professionals trained in IPS principles will work with patients and employers, aiming to help patients access and retain employment, and help employers understand and adapt to the requirements of employees taking part in the pilot.

Skills and Employability

Apprentices can make a huge difference to small companies, as well as enabling young people to improve their skills and earn closer to home. The innovative Aspire Shared Apprentice Programme, funded by the Welsh Government and delivered by Blaenau Gwent council, means that apprentices recruited onto the programme can share their time between a mix of SMEs and bigger companies, and further education through Coleg y Cymoedd and Coleg Gwent. Aspire is also working with local schools and colleges in Blaenau Gwent to raise awareness of the career opportunities available in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths in the local area.

Stephen Cowling, a former Aspire Engineering apprentice, said of his experience

“I began my training while attending college once a week to complete a level 3 mechanical engineering course. I was settled in very quickly and was enlisted onto a level 3 NVQ course. I was given a great amount of tools as well as a tool box from Aspire which would help me to carry out my tasks in the workshop. In addition to this I undertook many training courses including a forklift training course, a crane training course, a grinding wheels course as well as several health and safety courses. I feel I was very informed on safety as well as trained in many different aspects of the engineering environment.”

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We want Wales to play its full part in reducing carbon emissions, whilst adapting to the challenges and opportunities of climate change. As a globally engaged country, we take our responsibilities seriously and will support public sector, business and individuals to reduce their emissions. We will do so in a way that maximises the benefits to the people of Wales, building a resilient economy and ensuring that people benefit through better health, economic opportunities, security of food production and skilled jobs created by a growing, clean economy.

Public services account for just 1% of Wales’ carbon emissions, but action here has a lasting impact. We have committed £28m for energy efficiency projects in the public sector. Our Re:Fit Cymru service has supported energy efficiency measures at Powys, Blaenau Gwent and Pembrokeshire Council Buildings.

We are funding a £60m programme over the next three years to replace the ambulance fleet with more modern, low carbon models, improving emissions performance and reducing fuel and maintenance costs.

Through the Collaborative Change Programme, we have provided £15m over the next three years for local authorities to invest in service change, helping them to increase the range of materials that they can recycle, making it easier for individuals to play their part in increasing recycling.

Our capital programme can have a significant impact on emissions and on the behaviour of partners and is a key consideration in making allocations to the Wales Infrastructure Investment Programme.

The contract for the Wales and Borders rail service requires all energy for stations and overhead wire to be drawn from renewable sources. The electrification of the Central Metro Network and the bi-mode rolling stock mean we are reducing emissions now and future proofing the network for new technology.

Our low-carbon economy is already made up of 4,500 businesses, employing 11,000 people and generating £1.7bn turnover in 2015. Under our new Economic Contract businesses will need to commit to reducing their carbon footprint if they are to receive our support. We have invested an additional £5m in the Sustainable Management Scheme, to support resilient and low carbon rural businesses.

Our investment of £2m in electric vehicle charging points will make it easier for people to choose electric cars and help them to make the lifestyle changes that can help our wider objectives.

Decarbonisation

Decarbonisation is one of the Welsh Government’s key priorities as it cuts across so many areas, such as transport, agriculture and housing. We will be investing over £6.5m to support Swansea University’s new Active Building Centre as a national centre of excellent for innovation in housing and energy generation. Its vision is to transform the construction and energy sectors, through the deployment of active buildings powered by the sun, creating energy resilient communities, and significantly contributing to electric vehicle and decarbonisation targets.

Professor Dave Worsley, Vice President for Innovation and principal investigator for the centre said:

“The Active Building Centre aims to break down the barriers that prevent mass uptake of solar-powered buildings. I passionately believe that our partnership and collaborative approach is the best way to transform construction and energy.”

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Prosperity for All: the national strategy was published in September 2017 and framed the priorities for this government term around 12 well-being objectives; these being the areas that allowed us to make the largest contribution towards the well-being goals. This placed our well-being objectives at the heart of government; a single set of Government priorities accompanied by the reasonable steps needed to deliver them.

Over the last twelve months substantial progress has been made against each of the well-being objectives. Work has commenced on the majority of the individual steps identified against each objective and detailed progress is set out in the attached annex.

In developing Prosperity for All – the national strategy five priority areas were identified as those areas where a whole of government approach would deliver most impact.

The areas identified were early years, housing, social care, mental health and skills and employability.

Each makes a contribution across multiple well-being objectives and collectively they provide the foundations needed for long term prosperity and well-being.

In reviewing of our well-being objectives, we have considered the progress that we are making with the specified actions, and considered a range of information and evidence, including the Annual Well-being of Wales Report.

We concluded that the existing set of well-being objectives remain the areas where the Welsh Government can make the biggest contribution towards the well-being goals. However, the importance of the decarbonisation agenda and the need for all areas of government to work together to deliver its ambitious targets has resulted in it becoming the sixth priority area. Although this will not alter our well-being objectives, it will provide a whole of government approach and strengthen the contribution decarbonisation makes towards the well-being goals.

Review of the Well-being objectives

Documents

Prosperity for All: the national strategy · 2018. 10. 3. · Prosperity for All identified five priority areas which had emerged repeatedly as those which could make the greatest