The First Minister has been questioned this week over the Welsh Government’s role in delivering the UK Government’s Work Programme in Wales.

North Wales Assembly Member, Mark Isherwood, raised the matter in the Chamber yesterday.

He said: "According to the Spotlight North Wales 2011 conference last November, the Welsh Government is playing a key role in this."?

Responding to Mr Isherwood’s question, the First Minister said: "Of course, we always seek to ensure that programmes designed to get people into work and provide them with the skills that they need are given priority. This builds on the numerous schemes that we have introduced to help the Welsh economy and that have been announced in this Chamber already."

?

In December, Mr Isherwood asked the Welsh Government why it keeps attacking the UK Work Programme in the Chamber when the Spotlight North Wales Conference was told that it is actually fully engaged with the Programme.

He said: "We hear much rhetoric in the Chamber, but at the Spotlight North Wales 2011 Conference, sponsored by the JobFit partnership, one of the agencies delivering the Work Programme in Wales, we heard that the Welsh Government was fully engaged with this programme. "The First Minister even spoke to the conference by video conference giving it his support . It has a pivotal role in the partnership organisations delivering the UK Work Programme, described to the conference as one of the biggest welfare to work programmes that the UK has ever seen.

"This follows news that almost half the youngsters on the UK Government’s Workplace Programme, which allows unemployed young people to try out work without losing benefits, have found employment.

"It also follows the confirmation today in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement that the £1 billion Youth Contract will fund incentives for companies to take on unemployed young people, and that it will also apply in Wales. Therefore, behind the rhetoric of attacking these issues, we now know that the Welsh Government is engaged. Members and the wider public deserve to know what form that engagement is taking."