Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, Mark Isherwood AM, has challenged the Welsh Government this week over its plans for Local Government.
Responding to the Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government, ‘The Working Group on Local Government - Next Steps’, Mr Isherwood asked a series of questions in relation to the proposals and put forward the concerns of a colleagues in Local Government in North Wales that “there seems to be a continual obsession with playing around with local government - can we be left to get on with what we know needs delivering for our residents and Welsh Government can get on with what they should be doing?”
Speaking in the Chamber, Mr Isherwood said:
“You say in your Statement that the Group agreed a clear set of shared principles to underpin discussions and any future delivery of regional working, placing regional working firmly within a framework of democratic control and accountability.
“How do you envisage that might work where different local authorities have different council chambers, with different sets of elected leaderships and elected members, each of whom will be seeking to hold to account and to scrutinise the workings of potentially shared regional bodies, and possibly having different agendas between different councils, and even groups within councils, accordingly?
Mr Isherwood also asked the Minister whether she is planning to replace Regional Partnership Boards.
He said: “You refer to the creation of a joint working vehicle, currently referred to as a Statutory Joint Committee - the blueprint design for local authorities working together. How will that work with and avoid replication of the work of Regional Partnership Boards, which were meant to be a new way of regional working across public services that would be mandatory and systematic and drive the strategic regional delivery of social services in close collaboration with health, but also with Public Services Boards for each local authority, designed to improve the economic, local, environmental and cultural well-being of their areas, engaging with all public bodies and communities?
“Are you proposing to replace those bodies, or is this going to be another tier, with potentially the same people sitting around a different table discussing very similar and overarching issues?”
Mr Isherwood was also keen to know how the new bodies would ensure that third sector providers are fully engaged.
He said: “We know that Age Alliance Wales has continued to raise concerns about third sector representation on Regional Partnership Boards, feeling excluded, feeling not fully engaged, and they've repeated that again very recently. We've had feedback from, for instance, the Wales Neurological Alliance that people with neurological conditions are not being signposted to services or given a voice under existing Welsh legislation.
“Only yesterday, I and my colleague Darren Millar attended an event in North Wales, the Shared Lives scheme. We heard from representatives from Gwynedd and Anglesey through to north-east Wales, and the key point they made was not only is this good for individuals, but it's also good for councils and health boards that want to save money. They said that it costs less than other forms of care - an average of £26,000 a year cheaper for people, for instance, with learning disabilities - and people have much better quality of life than other kinds of care.
“So, how will this new body finally break through that wall, which is generating continued concerns from third sector providers that they're still on the outside?”
