Leighton Andrews:Llywydd, in the White Paper, ‘Reforming Local Government’, which we published in July, my predecessor set out our overall approach to taking forward the recommendations of the Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery in respect of the merger of local authorities. The White Paper explained how we planned to implement the commission’s proposals in respect of voluntary mergers, with a Bill to be introduced into the Assembly in January 2015, giving Ministers the powers to merge authorities who wished to join together voluntarily.
Janet Finch-Saunders:First of all, may I congratulate Leighton Andrews AM on his new portfolio role for public services? I think that it is fair to say that you are now the third Minister in the three years that I have been elected as an Assembly Member to take on the mantle of local government. I think that it is also fair to say that, as I stand here today, local government in Wales is in rather chaotic disarray.
How do we sort the problems that we have? You have mentioned how we actually spend considerably more on local government in Wales than we do in England, but you, in your own statement, make mention of where we have seen significant failings: in efficiency, transparency and accountability. Quite frankly, there has been a feeling across Wales that there has been very poor leadership from the Welsh Government in terms of leading local government at these very difficult times. So, one thing that I hope is that you bring a strength of purpose to this role, a really radical approach and strength of leadership and delivery, because we have not only elected members, but thousands of very hard-working front-line staff across Wales, who, since the Williams commission report was published at the beginning of the year, have felt very let down by this Welsh Government.
As I move through your statement, you talk about how authorities wishing to merge voluntarily should submit expressions of interest by November.’
Strangely enough, in February of this year, Conwy County Borough Council and Denbighshire County Council were quite emphatic about not wanting to merge. Here we are now, in September, and it seems that discussions are now taking place with an amber light to go ahead to consider discussions. I am not aware whether other authorities are so far advanced, but let me just talk about Conwy County Borough Council. You talk about the prospectus that you have sent out. Having looked at the agenda for last Thursday, when this was discussed, I cannot see any mention of this prospectus as part of the actual discussions. You are expecting local authorities to merge, but it is almost a case of they go now or be pushed into it. There is this sort of fear now among local authorities. Do you actually believe, Minister, that local authorities can actually make a statement of intent and certainly make the feeling known in November with a view to having the business plans drawn up in 2015? I would also mention that there has been a lack of transparency, certainly in my own local authority, on fairly routine sort of delivery projects. At what stage do our actual residents and electors become engaged in this process, and how can you ensure that transparency and openness is actually driven through this process? I would certainly expect any local authority seeking to merge with another authority to have a fully costed out benefit appraisal and evaluation. Is that conceivable by November? I do not think so
You then talk about setting up a public service staff commission to assist in the transition process. Clearly, that has had the thumbs-up from the Wales TUC and leading unions representing public sector workers, but I am more concerned about the workers themselves. How have you decided who is going to be on this commission?
To actually reduce the number of councillors, you will have to work, obviously, with the boundary commission. Again, it will have to slice up and change wards around by this time in 2015. I will just give you a quote from some of the talks that are going on with Conwy County Borough Council. It states here, about some of the advantages:
‘There would be more opportunities for the councils to control their own destiny…One fewer set of elections would give more time and greater stability to plan the merger’.
It then goes on to discuss some of the disadvantages:
‘The proposed Shadow Authority, established in October 2017, would have over 100 councillors, with a Cabinet of no more than 10…. Managing this would be a real challenge…. If Denbighshire and Conwy managed to fall out during the process the reputational damage would be enormous and the culture of the new council, established in April…would get off to a very bad start, not to mention the wasted effort and money up to that point’.
It then goes on to say,
‘The Welsh Government’s financial planning can appear chaotic, so there must be a risk that any promises of funding and support, offered to encourage voluntary merger, would not be honoured’.
Minister, clearly you have quite a few obstacles to overcome, but it would help here today if you would actually respond to some of the queries that I raise genuinely on behalf of our hard-working council tax payers, our residents and our hard-working front-line staff across all of our authorities in Wales.
Leighton Andrews:I start by thanking the Conservative spokesperson for her kind remarks at the beginning. She said that local government in Wales was in chaotic disarray, but the structure of local government in Wales was determined by her party some 20 years ago.
The issue, I think, for leadership in local government at the present time lies with the leaders of the local authorities. They have the opportunity in front of them now to lead by example. I hope that authorities, such as Conwy and Denbighshire, will bring forward proposals for voluntary merger. They have a timescale, as I have said—28 November—for the submission of the expressions of interest, and then final proposals to us in June next year. I think that that gives considerable time for transparency, public scrutiny, debate locally, discussion with the workforce and with trades unions, and every opportunity there to tease out the issues that may be of concern to them.
In respect of the staff commission, as I said, I will bring forward further proposals in relation to that. We have not, at this stage, determined who should sit on that. We have ideas as to the kind of skill sets we need, but we will bring those proposals forward in due course.
The Member asks me to be radical; I am very happy to be radical. [Laughter.]