No, I'm not saying that they got it wrong and it's wholly wrong, but it is interesting, within that report, that it did identify that there were a range of factors here that play upon this. It's not only the childcare; it is the transport, it's the training and education, it's the employment support and all of those. And we agree with that, but we do think, and what we're seeing, live time, at the moment—maybe at some point, somebody else will produce a report beyond the Arad report in October that will say, 'Well, actually, the way this is designed, that they've done it in Wales, is having a material effect on those families, particularly the most disadvantaged families.'
But you're asking us to support a Bill here, albeit a framework Bill, to achieve a policy aim where you're giving us anecdotal evidence that it's having an impact, contrary to research that's previously been done, albeit with promises that, maybe, an evaluation sometime in the autumn might tell us a different story.
We know, and we are constantly told—I'm sure this is commonplace in constituency surgeries, as well—by parents who say that the biggest mitigating factor for them, actually, either going into work at an earlier opportunity or expanding their hours is purely the cost of childcare in front of them. We are picking up, even from the early term of the analysis—. I think our further reports, both Arad and as we go forward with the pilots, will substantiate this more. It'll go beyond the anecdotal, it will show that parents are having an enhanced opportunity to balance their work life, to make better choices, either in terms of expanding the number of hours they're working and increasing their disposable income within their families, or actually making it simply better for them in their family situation, where they don't currently have that offer. So, I get the fact that we have one report out there, but it's one report. It's a report, and we're not dismissing it entirely, but what we are saying is: we are now working with real-life piloting of an offer, and we are seeing the benefits coming through. As we roll this out, we'll be back in front of this committee saying, 'Well, this is now what we're finding. We can go beyond the real-life stories that I'm relating to you now, and we can say, "Well, here's some hard data that goes with this, as well."'
Okay. You reference in your paper, as well, another report, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, 'Starting Strong 2017', and it highlights countries that have, maybe, the most similar childcare offer to what's being proposed here in Wales. I'm just wondering what assessment you've made of those similarities, because, clearly, there'll be different economic contexts in different countries and different levels of public expenditure, et cetera.