James Evans has asked for an assurance that money intended to help pay care workers in Wales the real living wage is being used for that purpose.

The Brecon and Radnorshire MS and Conservative health spokesman told the Senedd this week that the long-term future for social care requires a long-term workforce.

But he said concerns have been raised about the Government's funding approach for the real living wage for social care workers as funding is provided for the local government revenue support grant without specific ring-fenced funding.

Mr Evans told First Minister, Eluned Morgan: “Organisations have expressed grave concerns about this method, noting significant funding shortfalls experienced by care providers across Wales in delivering the real living wage.

“They emphasise the necessity for clear, identifiable, ring-fenced funding to ensure social care providers receive the necessary support that they need to deliver social care and pay the real living wage to their staff.

“Given these concerns, could you detail what work the Welsh Government is doing to ensure that the allocated funds for the real living wage are effectively reaching front-line social care providers and are not being reallocated across councils to deal with funding shortfalls they're experiencing?”

Ms Morgan said she was pleased to hear that Mr Evans is in support of paying the real living wage to care workers in Wales.

She told him: “You’re quite right - what we do is we hand over money to local government through the RSG allocation, and it is not hypothecated.

“But we have made it clear to them that this is what, more or less, we expect them to spend, so there has been effectively a soft hypothecation.

“We would expect that to be spent in the areas where we have deemed that it should be spent.

“We are always having constructive discussions with our colleagues in local government, but that is a fundamental principle for us.

“If you don't pay the real living wage, then the difficulty of recruiting people in an area that is already stretched is going to simply cause you more problems in the long run.”