Ministers always look at affordability.
Well, voters don't. In the situation regarding Welsh-medium, you answered that a little bit earlier, but I have concerns about capacity. Workforce capacity you've mentioned. To actually be registered you need staff who are qualified. There's clearly a need to get more staff, because in your own paper you say that the report in 2016 said you do not have the childcare capacity in Wales at the moment. Do you believe that you can actually deliver the workforce to meet that capacity, first of all through the English medium, but secondly through the Welsh medium as well? Because there's a clear need to look at it. You talk about 30 by 2020. By the way, 30 is nothing big when you consider the whole of Wales. Do you actually think you've got that workforce capacity set up before this is fully rolled out?
I hope, Chair, you'll appreciate that in our submission to you we've been very open. This is challenging. This is. To get to where we want to go is a huge challenge. Can we do it? Yes we can. And I don't say that glibly. Let me suggest some of the ways why. We have confidence that we can do this if everybody is working together across the sector, across the local authorities. Let me talk broadly about capacity, first of all, including English and Welsh-medium provision for children with complex needs, provision for children with disabilities—all of this. First of all, this is being—. The work that we're doing to increase both capacity in terms of trained staff and qualified staff: we have the 10-year plan that I mentioned, which has already been announced. We're working through it. We're working through it with the sector. So, we're identifying not only broadly at a national level where we need to develop those qualifications, but also at a regional, geographic level as well, and that's being taken forward. We've engaged with the 22 authorities—not just the pilot areas as well on this. So, beyond the pilot areas, we also have intense engagement. As you can see from what I've said before, it's rolling out progressively, but with all 22 authorities we're working with them on their childcare sufficiency assessments to identify where their shortages are.
What have the pilot programmes actually shown you about this, and how are you going to move this forward?