Petitions Committee | A report on your petition - Ysgol Hen Felin (Text version)
The Ysgol Hen Felin Video Report was created to communicate the outcomes that came out of the Petitions Committee’s consideration of a petition raised by the pupils of Ysgol Hen Felin.
"Hello, my name is Bethan Jenkins and I am a member of the Petitions Committee that has recently been looking at your petition at the National Assembly for Wales:
'We the undersigned call on the Welsh Assembly Government to provide more funding for groups like VIVA to allow us to do more activities in the evening.’
The Committee decided that it would like to make a short film for you to explain what has happened to your petition and what you have helped achieve by raising this important issue.
The Petitions Committee looked at your petition for the first time on 21 February 2008. We quickly decided that we would like to hear more from you so we invited you to come here, to the Senedd, to speak to us.
After the Easter break, on 08 May 2008, Robert and Bethan came to speak to us.
[Move to voice-over and clip of evidence session]
They did a very good job of explaining what they wanted to achieve with this petition and we, as a committee, agreed to write to Jane Hutt, the Minister for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills to make her aware of your petition and the issues it raised.
The Minister is the person who makes the decisions on providing more funding for out of school activities.
The Minister wrote back to say that she was impressed by your commitment to do something - not just for your own club Viva, but to improve access to similar clubs for young people across Wales.
[Close up of letter]
She also said that she will be providing £1 million a year for at least another three years to support more play opportunities
The Committee looked at the Minister’s letter at our meeting on 25 June and we decided to ask the Minister another question. We asked her if any more money would be made available, on top of this £1 million a year.
The Minister wrote back to us to say that she had asked the other Welsh Ministers - the people in charge of things like transport, health, and the environment in Wales - to try and use money that they have to help young people as much as possible. We looked at this at our meeting in October.
We decided to wait and see how the Welsh Assembly Government would do this. On 03 November, the Minister for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, Jane Hutt, made an announcement.
She said that for the year from April 2009 to March 2010 an extra £2.75 million is available for things like more play opportunities and for local councils to provide short breaks for children with complex needs.
The Petitions Committee met again on 20 November, and we looked at what the Minister had said. We agreed that your petition had helped make this extra money available, and we thought that this is a real achievement that you should be proud of.
We hope that as a Petitions Committee we helped you in getting a successful result.
I would like to say thank you very much to all of you who helped raise this petition, and especially to Robert and Bethan who came here to speak to us. All the Members of the Committee - Val, Mike and Andrew, and I were all very impressed with how you helped us understand your concerns.
Before I go, I would like to ask you to do something for us. We would like to know what you think of the petitions process - what worked well and what could be done better, so please get back in touch with us with your ideas.
That brings me to the end of this short report on your petition - thank you for listening and well done."
