Janet Finch-Saunders
I am really pleased to see another debate this week on the future of local government here in Wales. Across Wales, those charged with the delivery of some of our most important local services have been waiting with some frustration, anger and fear, following some of the actions coming from the Welsh Labour Government in recent months, especially with regard to the Williams commission proposals. Whilst many of us believe that that published report was a way to examine the workings of all public bodies in Wales, it soon became apparent that this particular report was a Trojan horse sort of exercise by the Welsh Labour Government to start their initial gerrymandering in terms of local government reform. But today, with the statement and map proposals that have come forward from the local government Minister. The person charged with the portfolio responsibility for local government in Wales, and also charged with providing strong leadership, guidance and support to our authorities, and the delivery of their own functions, is actually guilty of betraying local government. While I am not alone in seeing this as one huge fail, and one that comes at a time when many local authorities are facing unprecedented hardships because of the Welsh Labour Government, and despite the Minister stating that the statement was in response to around 700 or 3,000 responses, this report hasn’t been published and so we cannot scrutinise it.

I was present for the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Bill, which we’ve now seen taken forward into an Act, and I remember the Deputy Minister at the time very, very strongly and very, very articulately making the case for better integration of health and social care, and yet, this is completely missing from the reforms that the Minister has brought forward today. Term limits, as proposed in the White Paper, have been a contentious issue in my own authority and across Wales, especially given that Labour in Wales has failed over many years to increase opportunity and diversity in local authorities. But it does seem rather ironic and hypocritical that Ministers here, some of the longest serving Cabinet members in the western world, will accept to introduce proposals for a term limit on other senior elected politicians at local government level, so I’m jolly glad that you have listened to those concerns and that you will not be implementing those.
For our residents, too, council tax is rising in dramatic proportions, services are being cut, and now there is the prospect of costly reforms to gigantic proportions, and the question remains as to how this will improve our residents’ experience of the delivery of our vital services.

Peter Black
I really do look forward to visiting the library and reading the Plaid Cymru models, but up to now, from what I’ve read from your press release, it reads duplication, centralisation and confusion. Again, it’s uncosted. Under Welsh Labour, we’ve seen senior pay spiralling out of control without any intervention from the Welsh Government, unlawful payments to chief executives, pension fiddles, Porsche-driving procurement, and all at a time of increased council tax for our residents. Welsh taxpayers are certainly losing out in comparison to their counterparts in Scotland and England who have benefitted from a freeze in their council tax, one that could have been enjoyed here in Wales had the consequential funding coming over from the Conservative-led United Kingdom Government not been withheld and squandered on pet projects that have not shown any accountability on spend or deliverable outcome. And it is little wonder that public confidence in your abilities now as the local government Minister is at an all-time low.

Janet Finch-Saunders
Welsh Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that true devolution is empowering and supporting very local democracy, promoting an entrepreneurial spirit within our towns and villages, using co-production methods as a means to hold on to our very valuable community assets and see them prosper. Here in Wales, there is no intention to adopt the Localism Act 2011 that sets free these communities, and that is very much a lost opportunity as part of any reform of local government. Welsh Conservatives believe that cutting down the number of local authorities, at the same time seeing unprecedented job losses for our hard-working, front-line workers, against the backdrop of huge financial risk and challenge, is not the way to go. Local empowerment would allow those authorities that do wish to merge to do so, if it can be proven that there would be efficiencies of scale. Steaming ahead with ill-thought-out, non-costed risky mergers is a backwards step.