 I'm sorry not to be able to be with you in person, but I'm very pleased to be able to contribute this video to open your spring conference. I welcome the theme of the conference, focusing on new approaches to the workforce and to delivery in order to support the core work of social care whilst developing innovative new approaches to care. It's very much aligned to our shared agenda for social care transformation. I'd like to talk to you about what we, as Welsh Government, are doing in collaboration with the Care Council for Wales, who I know are also represented here today, to support that agenda. Successfully supporting social workers as they grow and develop their skills is a core component of any successful social care system. You'll know that here in Wales we've already made substantial progress on this agenda. The Care Council has developed a four-stage career pathway from newly qualified to consults on social workers, and this is supported by a comprehensive package of continuing education and learning to enable social workers to progress through their careers. This package has now been fully implemented. I'm delighted that evaluation so far has indicated having a positive impact on social workers, and this can only support the successful delivery of our agenda. Clearly, the successful implementation of a new approach to social care doesn't just rest on the shoulders of our social workers. The role of care workers, those who provide care to over 90,000 of our fellow citizens every day, is equally important. For this reason, the Care Council for Wales has an important role in promoting and maintaining high standards in the training of this group, reflected in the development and quality assurance of training and qualifications for them. It's now collaborating closely with Qualification Wales and other stakeholders in taking forward the development of a suite of new qualifications for all workers in health and social care for implementation in 2019. Having talked about work which is ongoing now, I want to turn to the immediate future. From next month, Social Care Wales will come into being, and it will begin operating using a powerful combination of functions to strengthen services and the workforce that provides them. One of its first tasks will be to prepare for the extension of workforce registration to domiciliary care workers in 2020. This will involve supporting the workforce to achieve the relevant qualification level. To do this, it will use the Substantial Workforce Development Grant funding made available by the Welsh Government to the sector. I know that you'll all want to be a part of this process. Presently, the Welsh Government provides £8 million annual grant funding to the social care sector to support training and development. This grant is made available in response to regional training and development plans formulated by regional workforce partnerships. I want to acknowledge here the crucial role played by them in making sure our key people get the right learning and development in the right place at the right time. The regional partnerships provide a vital collaborative approach to workforce development across local authorities and the independent sector. Now our challenge is to harness that invaluable regional activity to the improvement purposes of social care Wales. For this reason, the delivery of this grant will be transferring to social care Wales to support its workforce development function. We recognise that training and development are only one part of the picture. We know that employment terms and conditions vary and in some cases are not what they ought to be. This is not good for the workers and we believe not in the best interests of those they care for and support. On that note, I am pleased that Trevor Palmer, a citizen member of our National Social Care Partnership Board, will be talking to you more about what citizens expect from services later today. In the light of these concerns about the domiciliary care workforce, we commissioned research from Manchester Metropolitan University in September 2015. This research examined the relationship between the terms and conditions of domiciliary care workers and the quality of care delivered. Following this research, we, as the Welsh Government undertook our own consultation on a range of proposals to address these matters. The consultation lasted 12 weeks and looked at issues around zero-hour contracts, the impact of paying the national minimum wage and travel time, calls of less than 30 minutes, call clipping, training, development and progression, raising the professional status of domiciliary care workers and improving the safety of domiciliary care workers. We published our analysis of this consultation in November 2016 and it was accompanied by a written statement from me outlining how we intend to support the provision of good quality care through improved recruitment and retention in the workforce. This included proposals relating to zero-hour contracts, compliance with the national minimum wage, training and development and raising the professional status of domiciliary care workers. The key message we heard from you through this consultation is that multiple actions are needed to improve recruitment and retention. These include reinforcing compliance with existing requirements such as the national minimum wage. There's also a case for increasing the transparency of processes, for example through differentiating clearly between travel time and call time. Finally, we'll be continuing to pursue opportunities to establish domiciliary care as an attractive, well-supported and rewarding long-time career. We are now taking policy and legislative action to implement recommendations from the consultation. In tandem with this, the Care Council for Wales has developed a five-year strategy launched earlier this week to strengthen the home care sector. They will do this through a comprehensive range of actions including improving training and development, commissioning practices and promulgating best practice. The qualifications development work and extension of registration to domiciliary care workers I've just described are all embedded in this five-year strategy. I talked earlier about social care Wales in relation to its workforce role. I also want to say a few words about the new service improvement role. This is an exciting new area of responsibility for social care Wales and one that will see it lead and drive strategic improvement across the sector. A great deal of work has taken place over the past couple of years with the sector to develop social care Wales. It has been a truly collaborative effort which has resulted in us having every confidence that social care Wales will start on a firm footing. For example, consideration has been given to the early strategic improvement priorities and to its role as a body that will share and showcase best practice. It will also have a key role in influencing and determining social care research priorities, including working with the sector to build up research capacity. Following a ministerial public appointment exercise, I've recently recruited and announced a new board for social care Wales. The board will be led by Arwell Ellis Owen as its chair and I was really impressed by the quality and diversity of applications and I have every confidence that new board members have the knowledge and experience to help shape our social services and social care in the future. As a Welsh Government we also recognise that we have a role to play in working with all of our partners to secure the stability of the sector. There are both challenges and opportunities in the social care sector at the moment. The national living wage is an example of this. Improving the pay in the sector has the potential to be really good news in terms of helping our wider agenda of making the sector a more attractive place to make a career. However, it also presents undeniable affordability pressures. I was therefore delighted to be able to announce in January this year that we provide an additional £10 million of recurrent funding to help manage the impact of the national living wage. Even more importantly, this investment will be part of a tripartite understanding between the Welsh Government, local government and employers to make progress on this issue. This resource must be used by local authorities to support the costs associated with the national living wage and other workforce pressures. It will complement additional funding available to local authorities in charge income as a result of the planned increases in the maximum charge for non-residential care commencing from this April. The increase to £70 per week from April will raise over £4 million for authorities to add to the £10 million being made available. As part of our understanding, employers will also need to contribute towards meeting these cost pressures. This is an investment to deliver a more stable workforce. I hope this has given you a flavour of the work which the Welsh Government has in hand with its partners in order to support new approaches to the workforce and delivery across the social care sector. I wish you well for what I'm sure will be an informative and stimulating conference.