The Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, Mark Isherwood AM, has called on the First Minister to ensure his Government includes and listens to communities to encourage more engagement in local democracy.
Speaking in the Assembly Chamber yesterday, Mr Isherwood said that while objectives in the 2015 Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act include people contributing to their community, being informed, included and listened to, “too often this hasn't happened”.
He therefore asked the First Minister what action his Government is taking to address this.
He said:
“Welsh Government has proved averse to implementing the Localism Act 2011's Community Rights Agenda, which would help community engagement. In 2012 the Welsh Government rejected the Wales Council for Voluntary Action's 'Communities First - A Way Forward' Report, which found that community involvement in co-designing and co-delivering local services should be central to any successor tackling poverty programme, and, although the Well-being objectives in the 2015 Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act include people contributing to their community, being informed, included and listened to, too often this hasn't happened either because people in power don't want to share it, or because of a failure to understand that delivering services this way will create more efficient and effective services.
“What action do you and your Government propose to encourage more engagement in local democracy by turning the ambition in the Well-being of Future Generations Act in these areas into understanding and delivering?”
The First Minister insisted that he is “completely committed to the notion that public services in Wales should be co-designed and co-delivered with those people who use them alongside people who provide them”.
He added: “The Member makes a fair point, that, at the heart of these things, often, are power relationships and that sometimes we have to work hard to persuade professional workers that they can share some of the power and the authority that they have at their disposal with people who use those services and that that doesn't represent a threat to them and is very, very likely to lead to better outcomes for the people who they are there to serve.
“I don't think that that requires specific pieces of legislation to bring it about, because I think it is a cultural shift in the way that people who provide services think of the relationship between what they do and the people who come through their door, regarding those people as assets.”
