Oral - 'One Wales' Delivery Plan

'One Wales' is evidence of the Government’s commitment to improving the quality of life enjoyed by people in Wales and to transform our country into a better place in which to live, work, study and invest. The shared values, hopes and aspirations of us all, regardless of where we live and which sector of society we hail from, form the cornerstone of the Government’s programme.

The delivery plan sets out a programme of government over the next three years to achieve that improvement in the lives of the people of Wales. It identifies all of the 225 specific delivery commitments in 'One Wales’, and shows what we will do to deliver each of them. It reflects a programme that will build a strong and confident Wales and a healthy future, and which will create prosperity and jobs in lively and sustainable communities. Our aim is to ensure lifelong opportunities for learning, to create a fair and just society, to secure a sustainable environment, and to create a rich and diverse culture in Wales—both as a bilingual and a multicultural nation.

We have developed this plan to support our work because it is an essential piece of business planning to ensure that the government machine delivers the Government’s commitments. This document is also an innovative exercise in transparent democracy that will allow the people of Wales to see precisely what we will be doing over the next three years.
We are dedicated to the principles of open government. This delivery plan, which will be permanently accessible through the Assembly Government’s website, will enable ordinary members of the public to scrutinise our achievements and hold us to account. The plan will be updated regularly to reflect the progress that we are making. Therefore, it is in every sense a live, working document.

The delivery plan illustrates the good start that we have already made in meeting our targets. So far, we have achieved the following commitments: all sizeable new housing schemes to include a proportion of social housing; we have established the Climate Change Commission for Wales; support for indigenous woodlands to include planting a tree for all new babies and adopted children; reforming car parking charges in hospitals; establishing a single investment fund for business support, including provision for social enterprise and environmental incentives; we have supported and will continue to support the campaign for Wales to become a fair-trade nation; we will shortly complete, publish and implement a strategy for the dairy industry; we have vigorously pursued a programme of bovine TB eradication; we will progress the provision of universal affordable childcare with additional support including extended free full-time high quality childcare for two-year olds in areas of greatest need; and we have supported the idea of establishing a Kyffin Williams art gallery.

Over the next 12 months we will, among other commitments: progress the aim of halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020; pursue a radical reduction in class sizes for three to seven-year-olds; agree and implement a new approach to NHS reconfiguration; increase the supply of affordable homes by 6,500 over four years; introduce a cervical cancer vaccine scheme from 2008; eliminate the use of private-sector hospitals in NHS Wales by 2011; improve hospital cleanliness; ensure the right to education and training to age 18, backed by new money; improve the targets for recycling, with legislation and support for better waste management; increase funding to support social housing; continue to promote Wales in external markets; continue with free access to museums and galleries; refine and implement a refugee inclusion strategy, including the interests of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; establish credit unions in all parts of Wales; ensure that schoolchildren undertake at least five hours of physical activity each week; continue with pensioners and children getting free entry to Assembly-funded heritage sites; establish a Welsh-medium higher education network - the federal college - in order to ensure Welsh-medium provision in our universities; invest in community transport, cycling, safe routes to school and 20 mph maximum speed zones; introduce grants for some first-time buyers; enhance and link up cycle routes on an all-Wales basis; and, finally, among the projects that I am listing today, ensure that all projects seeking public funding seek to meet sustainability criteria.

We will use this delivery plan in our everyday work. Ordinary people in Wales can use it to see what we are doing. Our delivery partners in local government will be able to plan their work in the light of these published plans. Our delivery agents in the health service, and elsewhere, will have a clear direction for their work. We are launching this plan today, but it is a process not an event, and a process that is already well advanced. It is a process of planning our work and mapping out how and when our commitments will be delivered, and then keeping our plans up to date and open to the public gaze and to public scrutiny. It is a process of monitoring progress actively and reporting on it clearly and regularly.

This plan has become a living document - a practical document, that will earn its keep. It will be key to delivering the One Wales programme and to helping Wales to move forward in harmonious partnership between its Government and its people.