First Minister’s Questions

Janet Finch-Saunders

In their manifesto launch this week in Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association have called for fair and flexible funding for local authorities, including the transferral of £916 million attached to specific grants into the revenue support grant, and multi-year financial settlements to enable councils to plan more effectively. What consideration are you giving, as First Minister, to those suggestions?

Carwyn JonesY Prif Weinidog / The First Minister

We always look to see how we can de-hypothecate some grants, and that’s an ongoing process. But I have to say that I don’t think you’ll have many friends in England tomorrow after the CSR, with local government facing cuts of maybe 40 per cent in England. That is the end of local government in England; it can’t possibly survive with that level of cuts. We will look to ensure that local government in Wales is shielded from the cuts that the party opposite would impose on them: a combination of astronomically high—eye-wateringly high—council tax rises with a reduction in services. That just sums up the Tory party in one sentence.

Statement by the Minister for Public Services: The Draft Local Government (Wales) Bill

Janet Finch-Saunders

Thank you, Minister, for your statement. Obviously, it’s good to see that there’s going to be more consultation going forward. However, we would want to ensure that that consultation is done with all transparency. Last week, in spokespersons’ questions, and I’m not alone in this Chamber, other Members—and council leaders, many of your own—have stressed that, really, your sole remit in the beginning should have been to look at what do we want local authorities to deliver. There doesn’t appear to have been any consideration of that. We welcome further consultation on the draft Bill, but we want to see a focus on the principles, and true principles, of localism, rather than your map proposals so far, which will see overcentralisation of local government like never before.

Let me be clear: the Welsh Conservatives are very clear on what we expect. Where councils can work together, share services and save money, then, yes, they have the backing and support of our group. But it has to be with the consent of local people. We support increased openness and transparency and welcome the proposed new obligations outlined for county councillors in this Bill, although we would want to see this transparency agenda taken much further, with all local authorities publishing their expenditure, publishing their freedom of information responses, streaming full council meetings online, minimising the number of meetings for which part, or all, are held in secret, excluding the press and public, and publishing audit, inspection and regulation bodies’ reports online.

In terms of merger costs, Minister, you have said today that you anticipate that mergers would pay for themselves within two to three years. I’d like you to tell the Chamber here today how you anticipate this. Where have you got this knowledge that none of us have seen as yet? Will you confirm whether this means that you intend for councils to foot the bill for the mergers themselves? In terms of clear principles and scrutiny, this Bill does not give enough credence to the need for scrutiny by the National Assembly for Wales, either in the Chamber or at committee level, for example, of merger proposals, or of ministerial intervention in local authorities. In terms of consultation, the WLGA have highlighted the clear need for discussions to take place with all local authorities. In response to the ‘Reforming Local Government’ White Paper, they welcomed the Minister for Public Services’s commitment to regularly meet with the 22 leaders through the WLGA co-ordinating committee and WLGA council to co-ordinate the local government reform programme. However, in response to my recent written assembly question, the Minister confirms that he has only met once with the WLGA council—in September of last year—and never with any of the co-ordinating committee, since his appointment to the portfolio. It hardly gives much cause to welcome your promises in that regard.

Now this is a real concern, given that the WLGA have highlighted a lack of consensus on the way forward, and we do hope that today’s statement will lead to much more open consultation. Put frankly, we have long opposed Labour’s marker-pen assault on our Welsh communities, and will continue to do so. The Minister knows his merger proposals are unpopular even amongst his own councillors. This Bill kicks the issues into the long grass, long beyond the next election. The projected savings are more empty promises from a Labour Minister who appears to have plucked a figure out of thin air. Communities will rightly question whether these figures, or, indeed, the Welsh Labour Government, can ever be trusted again on local government reform. And it’s local people who continue to be ignored by Labour. We regret that the public and local authority staff won’t have any more information before the election. The Welsh Conservatives remain the only party that would put power back into the hands of local communities, with any merger proposals subject to a local referendum.

My question, Minister: please tell us here today how much you anticipate the full cost of this local government reform, based on either eight or nine of the map proposals.

Leighton Andrews

The Conservative spokesperson welcomed the fact that we’re having more consultation, so I’m pleased that she said that. We set out, of course, our vision for local government in the White Paper we published in February, and that went into considerable detail about the role of local government, as we saw it, based on our vision of activist councils delivering modern, high-quality services for and with their local communities. I understand, from what she has had to say, that all the Conservatives are in favour of is keeping the status quo, but more shared services. I think that would be a recipe for the degradation of local government, particularly in light of the further spending cuts that we expect from her Government at Westminster.

She welcomed what we were doing in respect of openness and transparency. She called for audit and inspection reports to be published online—they are, currently. She called for meetings to be streamed live. Well, we’ve made provision for that, and we’ve also provided funding for that in the past. She called for expenditure to be published. Expenditure is published in annual reports by local authorities. She called for freedom of information requests to be published as well—at the very same time, of course, that the Conservative Government in Whitehall is planning to undermine the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

She asked about the costings, and the costings we have undertaken are set out extensively in the regulatory impact assessment. They are set out there for scrutiny, for debate, for comment, as we go through this process of consultation. And, in fact, of course, the conclusions that we have reached, in terms of potential savings, are very close to the savings projected by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, when they did similar work for the Welsh Local Government Association last year. We are saying that the net savings could be up to £650 million over a 10-year period, and we see the payback time for the cost of local government reorganisation—there will be an upfront cost—as taking place within the first two to three years. So, we’re very clear about what the costings are; they can be scrutinised, they can be debated.

She asked about local government footing the bill. Well, there is a consultation out there as to how we take forward the issue of those initial costs, and we look forward to people engaging with that consultation. The powers of ministerial intervention are set out in the Bill. We currently have powers of intervention already, of course. The Bill proposes ways of modernising those powers, and changing them. It proposes ways in which intervention can take place after there have been reports by appropriate regulators, including, for example, Estyn, or the social services regulator, or, indeed, the Wales Audit Office.

As regards meetings with the Welsh Local Government Association, well, I’m going to be going to the Welsh Local Government Association council this coming Friday. I have met regularly with leaders of local authorities in Wales at the partnership council, at the finance sub-group, and I’ve met privately with leaders across the whole of Wales. Last week, the Welsh Government and the Welsh Local Government Association jointly hosted a seminar on finance and the cuts facing local authorities. Two of my other ministerial colleagues joined me at that event and seven out of the 22 local government leaders came to that event. It was open to all 22 of them, of course, to attend and it was, as I say, jointly organised with the Welsh Local Government Association. So, there’s been extensive engagement with leaders of local authorities and beyond that, let me say, over this last 14 months.