The Welsh Assembly Government published its Play Policy in October 2002. The policy is a broad statement of principles which recognises the importance of play to the development of children’s physical, social, mental, emotional and creative skills. A Play Policy Implementation Group was set up to develop a more detailed strategy.

The recommendations of the Play Policy Implementation Group were published by the Assembly for consultation between November 2004 and January 2005.  The Play Policy Implementation Plan which set out how the Assembly intended to implement the policy was launched in February 2006. It explained that the Assembly intended to:

• Include a duty to cooperate in addressing the play needs of local children and young people in its Children Act planning guidance
• produce guidance on what constitutes play opportunities
• work with children and others to develop standards for a wide variety of play provision
• support development of training resources on play for teaching and non-teaching staff in schools
• highlight opportunity for new play facilities provided by Community Focussed Schools
• support development of new guidance for Local Authorities on community play provision
• define a public benchmark of balancing risk against benefit of play
• produce a handbook for parents on what constitutes quality play
• commission research in Wales on psychological benefits of freely chosen play