Shadow Communities Secretary and North Wales AM Mark Isherwood asked the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children this week how he is applying co-production principles to help tackle poverty and other problems facing Wales.
Questioning the Secretary, Carl Sargeant in the Assembly Chamber, Mr Isherwood said:
“Given the figures from the End Child Poverty Coalition last week that 28 per cent of children in Wales are living in poverty - that is still the highest amongst the UK nations - how do you feel or what consideration have you given to an application of co-production principles to help you to tackle that, as you take forward new models for tackling poverty in Wales?”
The Secretary replied: “The Member uses the term ‘co-production’, but I don’t think it’s far away from the principles of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which was legislated for last year.”
Mr Isherwood added: “I hope you’ll agree with me that actually it’s not just not far away, but core to it, because last week’s Future Generations Commissioner for Wales ‘Talking Future Generations’ report gave many examples from stakeholder group meetings across the length and breadth of north Wales, including north-east Wales, where we both live, and she said that there’s a ‘need for change in cultural thinking within public bodies, making changes real…empowering local decision making, demonstrating leadership and appetite for delivery, overcoming institutional inertia’, and then specifically saying this ‘needs to be co-produced, taking into account community engagement, power sharing and sharing. Everyone has expertise’. Do you agree with the Commissioner?
The Secretary said “I don’t disagree with the Commissioner; I think it’s the use of language.”
Mr Isherwood added: “Clearly, it is language, but this is a global movement with a global term, to which hundreds of organisations across Wales have now signed up.”
Mr Isherwood also spoke of an report sent to him by the North Wales Women’s Centre, ‘Leading change: the role of local authorities in supporting women with multiple needs’. Although an England report, the North Wales Women’s Centre referred to the information being applicable to our aims and joint working in Wales. This report states that meeting women’s needs should ‘be complemented by working with them to develop their own strengths and to build resilience’, an approach sometimes referred to as “asset based”, placing emphasis on a person’s strengths rather than on their “deficits”.
He said: “That is, the core principle at the core of co-production. How, therefore, do you respond to that and to their statement that an evaluation of a project that sought to identify and address unmet need in young women concluded by considering: ‘how many fewer women might be in abusive relationships if young women developed resilience and self-esteem through projects such as this; and how many fewer children would be involved in child protection proceedings or in local authority care if young women were supported in their own right and not just in relation to parenting abilities/capabilities?’ That is, turning it upside-down and applying co-production principles.”
Mr Isherwood added: “It is deeply concerning that with hundreds of millions of pounds spent by the Labour Welsh Government on tackling poverty programmes over 17.5 years, the end Child Poverty Coalition’s new ‘Child Poverty Map’ of the UK’ reveals that child poverty levels in Wales are above UK levels and higher than in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The time to do things differently is long overdue.”