Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee. We are meeting virtually today. We haven't received any apologies. In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I have determined that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, published on Wednesday of last week. The meeting is broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video conference, and a record of proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation related to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. I would remind everyone that microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on or off individually. When someone is called to speak, the microphone will be turned on centrally. Are there any declarations of interest? No. Well, that completes item 2 on our agenda.

We move on to item 3, which is scrutiny of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales annual report. I'm very pleased to welcome Sophie Howe, our Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, and Jac Dafydd Ellis, change maker lead, also dealing with public affairs and international aspects. Welcome to you, both—great to have you with committee today. I wonder if I may begin our questions with some general matters, and firstly, really, commissioner, to ask what the main focus of your work has been over the last 12 months, since you last appeared before this committee. What have been the main challenges? I wonder if you could just give us an outline.

Thank you, Chair. Prynhawn da, bawb. In terms of the focus of my work, in the last year, the biggest focus has been around the production of the future generations report, which is the first future generations report, a statutory requirement for each commissioner—quite a lengthy and substantial document covering all seven of the national well-being goals and progress that's been made across them, and also some significant coverage around the general implementation of the Act, where we are with cultural change and so on. In addition to that, I started my first section 20 review into procurement. That was triggered just before the pandemic really hit us, and I did, therefore, pause it for a number of months. We've gone back to it now, and are reaching some conclusions there. We've done a huge amount of work around the climate emergency, publishing a temporary plan in particular, and following that up more recently, since May, in fact, the beginning of June, around a five-point plan for COVID recovery. We've worked with the Government on a national transport strategy, on the national development framework. I could reel you off a big, long list, but I know that time is short. And we've also seen the first cohort of our future leaders academy—20 young, bright future leaders across Wales who have gone through an intensive leadership development programme and have provided reverse mentoring to 20 chief execs across Wales. 

In terms of the challenges, I'm sure we'll get on to a bit more in terms of the challenges of implementation later on, but the most significant challenge that we've found is resourcing of my office. I'm still the lowest resourced commissioner, with the biggest remit, and that's incredibly challenging. Monitoring and assessing 345 well-being objectives across all policy areas—everything is considered now and into the future—is hugely, hugely challenging. And then I suppose a significant challenge for our office was, as with everyone else, changing plans due to the pandemic. So, we had intended this year to publish the future generations report, to do some further targeted resources around that and quite a lot of detailed hand-holding, training, development and so on with public bodies, but that has been put on hold as we focused our attention on the Government's approach to COVID recovery.

Okay. Thanks for that, Commissioner. We'll come on, as you say, to a number of those matters in due course. In terms of the resource issues that you mentioned, is there a process there whereby you make a case to Welsh Government and get some sort of response, or is there some other process, or is there no process?

Yes, there is a process. We put in our statutory estimate every year, and every year we say we don't have enough resources to do the job. Every year, we point out that the regulatory impact assessment was not based on the actual realities of what is included in the legislation and was based on—some of it taken in terms of what other commissioners do, but not necessarily looking at the breadth of the remit. In fact, interestingly, perhaps, for your committee, the corporate joint committees that are due to be established as a result of the local government Bill that is going through will place even more requirements on my office in terms of monitoring and assessing the new corporate joint committees. We have specifically submitted evidence to the Government around the regulatory impact assessment on the costs to my office of that, and I'm really disappointed to see that they have not included that in the regulatory impact assessment. So, it feels like it's a bit of a groundhog day here, and I think some of the significant challenges for the Act are around not just resourcing of my office, but, actually, resourcing of the whole implementation across the board.

Okay. Thank you very much for that, Commissioner. Your report states that there's been a marked change in political commitment and leadership in terms of meeting the aspirations of the Act, and that's taken place over the last year. Would you be able to point the committee to any specific examples that illustrate that, and would you say we've seen a real culture change in Welsh Government and other public sector bodies?

Certainly, I think we are seeing a marked change in political leadership around the future generations Act. In fact, the First Minister, Mark Drakeford—his first address to the civil service on taking up the position as First Minister very clearly set out his commitment to them and commitment to making sure that the future generations Act was implemented. Obviously, we've seen quite significant decisions, both around the decision to not proceed with the M4, and then, more recently, in the last week, the outcome from the South East Wales Transport Commission taking us off in a completely different direction. Aligned to that, we've seen the new national transport strategy, and I think it's fair to say when we were having—. We've been having discussions with Welsh Government officials for a number of years about the transport strategy, and I think it's fair to say that that strategy is now in a completely different place to what it was seeming that it was going to look like a year or so ago, which is really positive.

We are seeing, and we saw in the last budget, an increase in spending on the climate and nature emergency. There are still challenges there, particularly in terms of assessing the carbon impact of spend, but, nevertheless, there was a significant increase in both of those areas. The focus on the foundational economy, again, is very much aligned with the future generations Act. I think what is particularly interesting about that approach with the foundational economy and, particularly, procurement is that the last budget actually allocated some additional resources for implementing work around the foundational economy and procurement, rather than just saying, 'Here's a policy, and now everyone must do it' without resourcing that implementation. So, an organisation, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, are coming in and doing quite a bit of hand-holding with public services boards around that. I think what I'm wanting to see is far more of that focus—I think we say in the future generations report that we need to be as progressive and determined around implementation as we are in terms of putting out there progressive policies and legislation.

Okay. Thanks for that. Again, we'll come on to a number of those matters in due course with questions from other committee members. In terms of that future generations report, Commissioner, when you last appeared before the committee, you said that you'd consider reviewing your priority work areas following the preparation of that report. Do you see any significant changes to priority areas now, as a result?

In some ways, events have overtaken, I guess, and the focus has been a shift towards looking at what's happening in terms of COVID and reconstruction in particular. I think it's fair to say that, as a result of that, we have probably deprioritised a focus around adverse childhood experiences. That's not to say that that won't come back more prominently on my agenda before the end of my term. But certainly, on the approach in terms of COVID recovery, I think what is quite interesting is that, across the world, leaders—. So, the United Nations Secretary General, for example, is talking about investing in jobs and skills for the green economy, talking about monitoring climate risk in all of your funding decisions, and so on. So, again, that's very much aligned with a number of the areas that we had set as priorities back three or four years ago. Also, then, in terms of the reconstruction work, again, across the world, people are recognising that that reconstruction should centre around housing—so, building homes fit for the future and, indeed, in our case, retrofitting homes that aren't of good quality and are therefore energy inefficient; a focus on smart mobility, so modal shift, different modes of transport, and so on; and a focus on reskilling, particularly around green recovery and green jobs. And indeed, those were the areas that we set some four years ago. So, I think, dare I say it, that some are catching up. 

Okay. Well, we'll come back to the report. There are some further questions from other committee members, as I said earlier, but just before we do that, I'd just like to go off on a slightly different angle, really, and that's just in terms of your work and that of your office with Audit Wales and the auditor general. What would you say about your respective roles and responsibilities, and how, hopefully, you've been able to work together in a complementary way?

Our joint working arrangements are set out in a memorandum of understanding that we jointly signed a number of years ago. What that looks like in practice is that our two offices work very closely together to share intelligence. My staff attended a number of the examinations that the auditor general was doing to meet his duties in terms of the future generations Act, and we drew evidence from those. We focused those on where the audit team were particularly looking at areas in our priority areas. We worked very closely on the production both of the auditor general's report and then my future generations report, and you will see that there's a lot of alignment there in terms of the findings and recommendations. And then, going forward—. Sorry, I should also say that we've done quite a number of joint events and so on with their good practice exchange, et cetera, to try to embed the learning that we've taken from our respective work.

And then, going forward, the AGW is doing a consultation on changing his approach to audit, which is bringing together the value for money work that he does with his obligations under the well-being of future generations Act. We've advised him on that, and let's see what the consultation says, but I think that that's a very sensible approach. Value for money should be a core part of assessing progress on the future generations Act. They shouldn't be two separate things. So, I hope that that will go forward. And then the other intention, which is also reflecting on my limited capacity and resources across these 44 public bodies, is for us to work more closely with him around that new approach to make sure that the way in which his teams are auditing, we can actually take information and high-level information and intelligence from that, to use for our monitoring purposes. And my approach would then be that we wouldn't look across, every year, at the 44 public bodies, but we would use that information and intelligence to target particular areas that we think we need to look at where there might be issues or problems. 

Okay. Thanks very much for that. And now, Delyth Jewell.

Diolch, Gadeirydd. Going back to the report, what would you say the headline findings are from this? And I know that's a huge question, so if there was either one or a couple of things that you would like the Welsh Government and public bodies to take from it as a message, what would those be?

As I said, the headline findings are that there's been a marked change in the last couple of years, so that's really promising. We are seeing that every public body is doing something to implement the future generations Act, but they're not all approaching it in the same way. In the report, we use a diagram in which we categorise public bodies into four categories.

So, the believers and the achievers, which is where we want all organisations to be: these are organisations who've got their corporate centres and their objectives, planning, financing—still more work to do there, to some extent—aligned with the future generations Act, but they've also done work on cultural change within their organisation.

There are those that are perhaps too focused just on the planning side, so meeting the mechanics of the legislation, producing plans and so on, although we're seeing again that that has shifted on positively from the very mechanical approach that was perhaps taken in the early years.

There are some organisations that we define as kind of lone innovators, so they're doing some brilliant things in their organisations, but they're not necessarily connected back to the well-being objectives that they've actually set—so, things like Sport Wales powering their leisure centres with their exercise bikes. They weren't doing that before the future generations Act. It's something that is in line with it, but reporting that and corralling that around, 'These are the steps that we're going to take to meet these well-being objectives' is really important.

And then there are some who are still sort of overwhelmed or perhaps overconfident—less overconfident, more overwhelmed—and many of those are the health boards, who are struggling to find the time and space to address the competing priorities that come from Government. On the one hand, you're supposed to be planning for the long term; on the other hand, you have to produce a three-year integrated medium-term plan. So, there are those kinds of contradictions.

Just a couple more things. The complex landscape is a challenge to implementation—so the number of boards, partnerships and so on. Again, I mentioned the corporate joint committees, which are yet another layer of that. We're not very good at stripping things away; we tend to layer new things on top and that creates a really complex landscape. And then, we need to have a bigger focus on how we define our performance measures in the long term and our funding arrangements in the long term. So, if I had to give an overall assessment, I would say I can see definite improvements in progress, but still more to be done.

Okay. Thank you for that. You've mentioned throughout what you've been saying today that the picture is mixed, that there are pockets of good practice, that there are other areas where—it's not just that some organisations are doing really well in everything and some are doing terribly in everything, but that it is mixed. Has the reception to the report been mixed, or has it been universally welcomed? Do people welcome the challenges? I know it's come out in a really difficult time because of COVID, and that obviously, as you were saying, that has affected the way that you've been able to engage because of it. What assessment would you make of the reception it's had from the Welsh Government and from public bodies? Do they need to respond officially? Is there a process for that?

It's not a requirement on them to respond to the report once it's published. The legal requirement is they must take into account the recommendations within their reports in terms of setting their next set of well-being objectives. I think it's reasonable, however, particularly in terms of Welsh Government, to expect a response to the report, and we're working with them at the moment to work out how best to do that. Because I think it's fair to say that there are a number of recommendations within the future generations report that are really targeted at the next Government, and targeted at political parties for their manifestos. And indeed, as I understand it, when the legislation was crafted, that was done on purpose.

So, we've published a manifesto for the future, which contains 48 recommendations—big policy recommendations, which we hope political parties will adopt. There are a number, then, of other recommendations, which I suppose are things that the Government could do now—i.e. assess the carbon impact of your spend, change a particular programme so that they maximise a contribution to the goal rather than just focusing on one or two goals or objectives. In terms of Welsh Government, we are working through with them what are the things that they need to respond to now, what are the things for political parties, and what are the things that are process and what are the things that are policy. So, there is a commitment to respond to them.

In terms of the other public bodies, we've not had focused engagement with the public bodies on the future generations report, because we're acutely conscious that, you know, they're in the middle of a pandemic and of overwhelming them, and so on. What we have started to do—. As I said, our own work is probably about six months behind, because what we wanted to do was to take the recommendations of the future generations report and turn them into bite-sized and targeted pieces of advice to particular sectors and so on. So, we are in the middle of that work now, which is about six months behind where we'd originally intended to be, and what I'm planning on is, from the next financial year and so my next year's work plan, is a real focus on that more detailed engagement with public bodies, hopefully by which time they will be coming out of the immediacy of the pandemic and moving more on to reconstruction and recovery.

Okay. Before you go on, Delyth, I'll just bring Huw Irranca-Davies in at this point. Huw.

Thanks, Chair. Sorry, Delyth, for interrupting.

It's fine.

I'm just intrigued there and I wonder if you can explain, in terms of your role and the role of your office, producing a manifesto for the future sort of makes sense, but it takes the commission very much into a policy, if not even a political, sphere. Some people might say that. So, I just want to draw you out a little bit as we look at the annual report, as to why you think that's pertinent, relevant, appropriate, where within the legislation—. By the way, I'm not saying I disagree with it, but why should a commissioner get involved in issues of policy setting?

Well, because if political parties—and, ultimately, whichever political party or combination of political parties win the next election—don't have in their manifestos things that will push us more quickly and more progressively towards meeting those seven well-being goals, then we're going to be at a significant disadvantage. If, however, the programme for Government is formed around a set of progressive manifestos that does aim to do that, then my job in the next term and the future commissioner's job in the next term is going to be a lot easier. And, ultimately, my job is to be the guardian of the interests of future generations, and the Act specifies there's quite a bit of flexibility around how I exercise that role.

I'd also say that other commissioners, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, for example—I'm not sure she's published it yet, but it's about to be published—has published a manifesto of things that she thinks that are really important for political parties to sign up to in terms of protecting the interests of children. So, I don't think it's a new thing. I don't think it's particularly controversial. I think it's me doing my job in acting as the guardian of the interests of future generations, and recognising that having political party manifestos that take us in that direction is absolutely critical to achieving that.

Okay, thanks.

Okay. Delyth.

Just one final point from me. You've mentioned the barriers that are possibly standing in the way of different bodies from implementing the Act, like the crowded landscape in terms of the bureaucratic layers, with the CJCs adding to that. Do you think that the main barrier, or barriers, to implementing the Act and changing to the kind of vision that would need to be put into practice, then, is a cultural one? Or do you think it is more of the—? I don't want to say cultural concrete, I'm not sure what the opposite of culture would be. But, basically, do you think it's the constraints on time and how actually possible it is to do stuff, or do you think it's broader than that and that there needs to more resource and support for organisations to just change the way that they approach things like this, totally?

Spot on with the question. I think that it's a mixture. If I had to pick one, I would say it's cultural. However, why I talk about these multiple barriers around the complex landscape, around different performance measures and targets, and so on, is that what that means is, even if you've been enlightened and you're an officer in a local authority and you can desperately see that we need to do things in a different way and so on, the processes that you have to go through, in terms of individual decisions, often work against you doing that. Now, I've seen some really good examples of where some really tenacious public sector officials have managed to wade through those barriers, if you like, and they've managed to get to where they need to be, but the system, in many cases, is stacked against that happening. Now, bit by bit, I think that's stating to break down.

If I just give the example in terms of the work that we've done on transport. You had a future generations Act, we want cultural change and thinking we shouldn't just be building roads, that we need modal shift, and so on. You then had WelTAG—the transport appraisal guidance—which didn't say that, which said something quite different. We reform WelTAG. We've then got a national transport strategy, which was written in 2008 and which, again, now doesn't align with WelTAG or with the future generations Act, and you've then got Welsh Government making funding allocations and not checking whether the new WelTAG has been appropriately applied. So, if someone came up with, 'Do you know what? We don't want to build a road. What we really want to do is to focus on active travel and we're going to enhance the public transport network in this area, and so on and so on', I'm not saying that the Welsh Government—. Of course they wouldn't say 'no' to that, but it's just that the rest of the system is not necessarily pushing people in that direction. So, you've got to have some pretty committed and enlightened professionals to be pushing against them. So, a large part of my job, which I've often said is the not particularly sexy stuff, is wading through this mire of guidance and criteria for funding, and so on, to try and get it aligned so that for those people who are passionate—and I think that there's a growing number of them—it's easier for them to do the right thing.

Okay.

Is that okay, Delyth?

Yes, that's great. Diolch.

Jac. Did you want to come in at all, Jac, on this?

Yes. Thank you, Chair. Just to build on what the commissioner was just saying in terms of the Welsh Government's response to the recommendations, in regard to Delyth's question, I think COVID-19 has given us an opportunity to look, with immediate effect if you like, at some of those recommendations in the FG report. We've welcomed the response by Welsh Government in that way—looking at some of the key recommendations in the FG report where we've called for access to green spaces within 300m of people's homes. We're already starting to see certain departments in Welsh Government—the economy, skills and natural resources, for example—looking at 15-minute heritage grants and really understanding what green spaces have meant to people during COVID, and the ability of the majority of people in Wales, possibly, to access those, but more needs to be done. And that's just one example. Looking at the recommendations within the FG report, and there are many of them, COVID has given us an opportunity to reflect in that way.

And if I may just respond briefly to Huw's question as well, Sophie has illustrated, I think, why we've put together this manifesto, in the advising role of advising public bodies, of which Welsh Government is one of them, and I think this document does that in advising the next Welsh Government. So, I think it's appropriate that the commissioner's published this in that way. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you, Jac. We move on to Mark Isherwood.

Diolch. My other phone's going, so apologies. I'm hoping it will shut up in a moment.

You carry on, Mark.

Okay. Overall, you assess that progress towards the well-being goals by public bodies is mixed. You've said that some of the goals are less well understood, that clarity is lacking on how public bodies are meeting them, and you've identified a lack of integration between the well-being goals and objectives. Given all of that, which particular well-being goals do you feel are not receiving enough focus?

Thanks. So, I think that I would have been more vigorous in what I'm about to say a year or so ago in terms of the goal of a resilient Wales in particular. I have had concerns over the early years of the legislation that that was the goal that is least understood. I think it's fair to say that I am seeing some positive progress in that regard, possibly not through my first monitoring and assessing exercise, but certainly over the last year or so—so, investments in the climate and nature emergency from Government for example; some quite interesting approaches that are being taken in other public bodies, and the Valleys regional park is a really good example of some of that shift; the fact that we're seeing health boards create sites for nature; the Sport Wales national vision around sport, which had previously been very much focused on elite sport, is now more focused on things like social prescribing and access to natural resources, and so on. So, I am seeing a shift there. There are still some challenges with regard to the different duties within the legislation—the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and the section 6 duties in the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, which I still think need to be resolved. Overall, I think that it's certainly not perfect, but I can see progress being made from where we were a couple of years ago.

I suppose the other area that I would give a similar assessment is the goal of a prosperous Wales, where, again, similar to a resilient Wales, some public bodies are looking more at the headline of the goal, rather than the specific definition, which is a productive, low-carbon, innovative society that uses resources efficiently, proportionately and so on. Again, I can see some positive moves in that direction—the focus on the foundational economy, investment from Government in programmes for the circular economy and work towards zero waste and so on—but there are, I think, still some public bodies out there that are not necessarily really embedding that whole definition of the goal.

In terms of the point that you make on integration, what we are tending to see, certainly through the monitoring and assessing exercise, which, again, I think, is moving on positively since the monitoring exercise that we did, is that public bodies are sometimes missing opportunities to integrate their objectives. So, they may, for example, have an objective on improving the quality of homes. They will also have an objective, for example, on making sure that people across the county borough have access to the right skills for the future, but they're not necessarily making the connection between, actually, 'If we're investing in good-quality homes, we should also be investing in the skills that are going to enable us to deliver those good-quality homes.' So, that's just an example of where there are sometimes those opportunities, or they're missing those opportunities to integrate. In the future generations report, we talk a lot about the 'what' and the 'how'. So, what you decide to do—so, 'I invest in improving the quality of homes'—and how you go about doing that, then? They should be focusing on how to do that in a way that also contributes to their other well-being objectives, and that's the part that isn't always completely understood but where I think that there is some evidence of positive progress being made.  

Thank you. To what extent, where there's more work to do, is this linked to the five ways of working, particularly prevention, collaboration, involvement? Not just during the pandemic, but particularly over recent months, this committee and its members individually have heard from a variety on individual groups where things have been done through them or for them but not with them, with the consequence that bigger problems have developed. For example, the committee heard from Guide Dogs and the Royal National Institute of Blind People over street design—so streets being redesigned by local authorities for social distancing without factoring in the barriers that have been created for disabled people. 

As chair of the cross-party group on funerals and bereavement and hospices and palliative care, we've had this with the black, Asian and minority ethnic community, with lack of consideration for cultural and religious needs in funerals and bereavement support, for example. There are many other examples. I met a self-advocacy group of learning disabled people, adults, in north Wales, talking about accessible communication needs, which were pursued retrospectively by the Welsh Government after we raised them through a committee and cross-party groups. But although we've heard some excellent stories about county voluntary councils doing great work and we've heard of brilliant work from community groups, who've stepped up and done wonderful things, at the same time, we've seen too many statutory bodies failing to see the benefits of prevention, collaboration and involvement, so do you see a linkage between your primary concern and the practical issues I've identified?

Yes, absolutely, and I think that—. I've often said that this is a long-term cultural change programme that needs to happen, but if everyone was adequately applying both the five ways of working and, in particular, on that integration point, recognising how they go about doing things, assessing that through the lens of the seven well-being goals, then issues like redesigning streetscapes and so on without understanding the needs of disabled people wouldn't be happening. So, I think that there's still quite a long way to go on some of that. I think that public bodies are getting better at trying to look beyond just the immediate thing in front of them to try and address other well-being goals and other well-being objectives, but I don't think that they're doing adequate, completely holistic consideration across all of the seven well-being goals.

There are some things, some really good examples, however, that I can point to. I just last week met with the Valleys Regional Park, which is a really interesting programme, so, a collaboration between Welsh Government and a number of local authorities. They're looking at how they can improve natural resources and use the environmental resources on people's doorsteps to do things like social prescribing. So, they've got public health experts in there, they've got enterprise experts in there, they've got people who are land management experts and so on. So, that's really quite holistic thinking, and we're seeing more and more of those things pop up. But I think the decisions that you're referring to there are very indicative of the distance we have to travel in terms of that cultural change being embedded at every part of every organisation.

Thank you. What feedback have you received from public bodies on your 'The Art of the Possible' journeys resources and guidance?

So we published 'The Art of The Possible' work journeys just over a year ago, and we have asked for feedback. Not all of them responded to us about how useful it was, but Natural Resources Wales, Public Health Wales, Aneurin Bevan health board and Conwy council have all told us that they are useful tools to help them see some practical examples of the sorts of things that they should be doing to consider what steps they can take to meet their well-being objectives. We received feedback from 33 of the 44 public bodies in terms of implementation of the simple changes that we published—in particular, 71 per cent of those simple changes had already been adopted, and a further 12 per cent were being considered.

We're also receiving quite a bit of useful feedback on the journeys that we're picking up through the work that we're doing as part of our procurement review. So, some of the feedback, for example, that we're given is that those journeys need to be considered at quite a strategic level in order to have impact, and there are some challenges there, because what we were trying to do was to design something that would give a menu of choices, or a menu of ideas that people could take forward, or organisations could take forward, to take us towards meeting those well-being goals. This is one of the significant challenges of the Act; it's so all-encompassing, it's very difficult to bring it down to a very targeted, 'These are three things that you need to do if you're a local authority chief executive,' for example, because just three things won't be enough to meet the aspirations of the Act. So, this balance of giving really high-level strategic asks versus, 'Here are some really practical tools, sharing best practice and so on', is quite a challenge. But that's something that we're hoping to focus on now in this next phase, working into the next year's work plan, around doing some really intensive work with public bodies to try to get them to better understand and adopt the things that we've suggested in the journeys. 

Thank you. And to what extent would that be targeted, because there'll be some who both talk a good talk and walk a good walk, but others that talk but don't walk and some who don't do either. So, how do you address—whilst acknowledging and supporting those who are talking and walking right, engage with those who think they're doing it right but aren't, engage with those who are still just ticking boxes?

Yes, you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, it's forever the case that those who probably need the least help are always the ones who are quickest to engage and get involved, because they want to work with people to help them do the right things. We had a similar scenario in terms of the procurement review. So, one of the criteria that I used for identifying which public bodies I would have a more intensive look at as part of the procurement review were those who haven't engaged with my office and those who haven't responded to requests for information and 'show us your workings' and so on. I suppose there are various reasons for that. Also, our monitoring and assessing exercise, the peer-review approach that we devised and worked with public bodies on—we are paying more attention, or we will be paying more attention, to those who've told us that everything's fine and have scored themselves really highly across all of the areas of change, because where we've seen those organisations do a genuine self-reflection and genuinely have those debates between the three or four other public bodies that we matched them with, we're less concerned about them. They may not be getting everything right, but at least they're recognising the areas where they're not getting things right and know that they've got steps to put in place to improve. So, the focus of our work, particularly in terms of future section 20 reviews, will certainly be on those that are perhaps talking a good talk and not walking a good walk. 

Thank you. You've already made reference to your role in monitoring and assessing the public bodies' well-being objectives; you've also already referred to resource issues for your office. How sustainable is that role, that resource-intensive role, given the resource issues you highlighted? And does this impact on your ability to progress work in other areas?

The answer to that last question is 'yes', and the answer to 'Is it sustainable?' is 'no'. I don't believe that, when the regulatory impact assessment was done, the later additions of functions for the commissioner around monitoring and assessing were taken into account in terms of the funding allocations and so on.

And if you just do some really basic comparisons, if you look at an organisation like the Welsh Local Government Association, which has some advice and support and, of course, representative type functions, just for local authorities—so, just for half of the public bodies that I have to cover—they have more than double my budget. They have no monitoring and assessing role and so on. So, just to give you—. And I could point to a number of other bodies where the remit is—. If you think of Literature Wales, Literature Wales has only slightly less of a budget than my office, which is covering all 44 public bodies and pretty much all policy areas. So, it's one of the reasons why I've consistently fed into the Government that my office is not adequately resourced to meet the obligations as set out in the legislation. It's also one of the reasons why I am working jointly with the auditor general and moving that relationship, I suppose, to the next level in terms of how we could use the approach that he's taking for me to draw information, intelligence, from that, and then do my monitoring and assessing work in a far more focused and targeted way. But if people are looking for an annual account of how every public body is doing across each of the 345 well-being objectives that have been set, I think it's completely unrealistic and completely unsustainable.

Thank you. My final question: that being said, have you been able to review the annual reports from the public services boards that were due in July, and, if so, what were your key findings?

So, I think the first thing to say is that there are no requirements set out in law for me to monitor and assess the progress that has been made by public bodies—sorry, not public bodies, public services boards—and I think I've made the point in previous sessions, with this committee and with others, that I find that bizarre. My duties are to advise them on the setting of their well-being plans but not to monitor and assess the progress that they've made, so I don't think that that makes much sense. Nevertheless, that is how it is, and, given what I've just said around my resources and the challenges of meeting the statutory duties around 44 public bodies, it's impossible therefore to do a comprehensive analysis of what exactly the PSBs are doing.

Nevertheless, we do look through the annual reports and so on to identify good practice and identify where we think progress is being made or not, and some of that we will draw on to use in a more focused way in terms of the potential for reviews in the future. So, we're seeing some interesting examples, which I can either list now or perhaps send on to the committee, given the time constraints.

So, I think that the culture of PSBs is moving in a positive direction. There are still some significant challenges with PSBs in their relationship with Government. So, they are often bypassed in favour of other partnership structures. So, for example, the £7 million prevention fund that came from the parliamentary review went to regional partnership boards, rather than public services boards, who have this broader mandate in terms of the wider determinants of health. They don't get, really, any finance from Government; it's often sent off to other partnership structures and so on. And new policies, legislation guidance, often don't acknowledge the role of PSBs. So, I think that they could be a really good entity, and they are showing some promise, but I suppose it's back to the similar points that I was making to Delyth—they're almost operating against the tide, if you like, rather than with it.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Sophie. Okay. As Sophie just mentioned, we are running up against our time constraints, so we will need fairly brief questions and answers from here on. Huw.

Thank you, Chair. Can we go twice the length, because I've got loads of questions? [Laughter.] No, no; I'll keep them really short there. Can we turn to the Welsh Government budget now, the preparations for that? You've remarked previously on the work that needs to be done on integration of budgets—how across Government, how holistic, they are in their thinking; how they're thinking ahead of the curve. Have we seen any progress? What are your thoughts on that? And what do you expect to see as a result of your work on the budget improvement plan?

So, I think certainly during the new approach that's been taken to allocating budgets during the pandemic, as I understand it, a number of Cabinet Ministers are coming together and they are doing a—I suppose it's a Cabinet committee structure, where they're looking at spending proposals that are coming through and assessing how those things can be integrated. And I think some of the things that we're seeing as a result of that are very clearly aligned with the sorts of things that we would want them to be doing to meet their well-being objectives—so, the big focus around resourcing for active travel, things like the support for cultural, creative professionals and so on, things like the retrofit of housing. 

So, I think that's really promising, and I think that that structure is something that should continue. What I'm seeing less of is how—. I mentioned earlier this issue around the what and the how. So, deciding what they should do, i.e. investing in housing retrofit, they've recognised that that makes a contribution across a number of well-being goals and so on. When it gets down to the next level, so, how do we go about doing that, there are questions such as: do we have a skills pipeline lined up to be the housing retrofit workers, and is that skills pipeline meeting our goal of a more equal Wales and addressing socioeconomic and other forms of disadvantage by targeting people from BAME communities, women, those furthest from the labour market, disabled people and so on? At that level, that's where I have concerns. So, I think real progress at a strategic level, but the next level down is the one that now needs tackling.

In terms of the budget improvement plan, obviously I've fed in a number of additional pieces of advice to the Government, both in terms of a strategy around COVID recovery, which I'm really pleased that the Government has embraced large chunks of, and also, more recently, some specific and targeted capital investments that could be made with modest investments that could have a big impact. I'm hoping to see that we will have a more integrated approach in the next budget. I'm hoping to see that there will be a clear focus around decarbonisation. I'm less optimistic around the approach to preventative spend, which I think is still a challenge, and in a crisis situation is even more challenging.

In light of the remarks you made about resources for you, are you adequately resourced to do this particular role of budgetary oversight, the improvement, working with Government, pushing Government? Have you prioritised that as an area of your work?

Yes, we have prioritised that as an area of work. We have allocated—. So, some of my resources are allocated to working with economic analysts from the New Economics Foundation to help us with that work. We're also doing some very specific work around that skills pipeline issue that I just referenced, which will be coming out soon and does present some significant challenges that the Government will need to get into the detail of. I have the same challenges that you, as committee, and members of the public and any other organisation have—that wading through lines and lines of a Welsh Government budget, it's not always obvious where the preventative spend is, where the integration is, and so on. But I have spent my resources, I think, in—. We are very impressed with the work that NEF have been able to do on our behalf, and with the quality of the analysis based on the information that we could obtain and the broader discussions that we have with Welsh Government.

Okay, that's brilliant. Thank you, Commissioner. Can we turn to procurement? When do you plan to actually restart section 20 review of the procurement, and can you tell us something about the initial findings before you had to pause it?

Yes. So, we have restarted the section 20 review. We're working with nine different public bodies—Bridgend County Borough Council, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Denbighshire County Council, Flintshire County Council, the National Library of Wales, Velindre University NHS Trust, Wrexham County Borough Council, Welsh Government and Isle of Anglesey County Council—looking at the approaches that they are taking.

We did a research phase before we entered into this more detailed look at those particular organisations, and some of the concerns that we identified as a result of that were lack of leadership. So, there's this phrase, isn't there, which I think is pretty accurate, that procurement is not necessarily seen as a boardroom function, it's still seen as a kind of back-office function in many cases. We could see that there were some good things being done, but similar to a point that I was making in reference to an earlier question, we couldn't very clearly see—. We've set this well-being objective, say, to decarbonise, but we couldn't very clearly see how that is then being driven though in the procurement decisions. They were doing lots of other good things in relation to the broader principles of the Act, but we couldn't see that very clear line of sight. Also, again, some issues around the complex landscapes and the challenges that procurement professionals have in terms of complying with multiple different frameworks, guidance and so on and so on, and a need to perhaps simplify some of that.

All of that, really, is being reinforced through the more detailed analysis that we've done with individual public bodies, but we have also been really pleasantly surprised by some of the work that is going on. If I just highlight one example, the national library had intended to procure a new building to store all of their archives, I suppose. They actually went back to look at, 'Okay, so our well-being objectives are actually for the national library to have a better connection with the community.' They actually cancelled the procurement of that building and instead reinvested in community engagement; they put all of their archives in a digital format and spent the money elsewhere. Now, that's a really clear change in direction on the basis of, actually, 'How is procurement relating back to our well-being objectives?' And we've seen a number of other examples like that. But, again, the same as the point to Delyth, often that is still in the context of having to fight the system a bit.

You've partly answered my next question, which is how you embed that well-being budgetary approach within all public bodies. You've given us a clear example there. Listen, can I ask you? There's clearly been a trajectory with your work and the work of the office over the last few years in terms of driving this change, including in budgetary processes as well. Do you foresee a point when the well-being approach to budgets, the integrated holistic approach, the preventative side, is embedded to the extent that you can actually pull resource slightly away, or you and the audit office can pull resource slightly away from the monitoring, and focus on other areas, or will you always have to dedicate a lot of resource to this area?

I can't see that—. I think for the rest of my term there will be a focus on the budget, mainly because it's the single biggest driver of change, if you like, if you're thinking about things in terms of a decision or set of decisions. So, I think I will always need to focus on that. However, what we are seeing is that cultural change improving. We're seeing new decisions being taken. Everyone is still not completely applying the principles of the future generations Act, but I'm encouraged because we are making incremental progress.

But that's my point. As the head of a very large organisation, there must come a point where if you've done your work well and it's embedded culturally—they're doing it—you can actually then do management by exception rather than comprehensive oversight. It may not be during this term, I get that—it might be 10 years away—but there has to come a point where this approach is embedded and you can step away, you just pick up the ones who aren't doing it.

Yes, I think you're absolutely right, and I suppose, hopefully, in terms of Welsh Government, that won't be too far away. I'm not sure what I'll see in my term, but perhaps not too far after that. Of course, we haven't done this in-depth focus on the budgets of local government, of health boards and so on, so that's a whole area that remains to have, really, the same sort of attention that I've been giving to the Welsh Government. So, maybe the next commissioner will be focused in those area.

Okay, thanks.

Okay. Mandy Jones.

Thank you, Sophie. You've basically answered my first question with Huw, but I need to pick up on something in your transport policy recommendations. It says in there that you want to

'Move away from traditional transport planning (such as road infrastructure) and onto a combination of alternative solutions that support the reduction of carbon emissions.'

You also say that

'Decisions on transport must reflect the climate emergency',

'Achieve modal shift and reduce our reliance on cars',

while 'Embracing technology' and

'Consider mobility as a route to wider well-being'.

Isn't there a complete disconnect between the first two of those recommendations and the second two recommendations? Because it looks like you want to move away from road infrastructure improvements to reduce our reliance on the car to facilitate that, and reduce carbon emissions. But you can't do both: you can't embrace technology and mobility at the same time as not having that road infrastructure.

I think it's about where we prioritise. So, the approach that we've taken over many decades is to invest in traditional road infrastructure, and that's been at the cost of investing in public transport and active travel. So, for many years, Wales has had the lowest funding per head in terms of public transport spending. In a way, that breeds the reliance on the road and the need to further improve and increase the road network, and, if you like, the M4 issue was that whole case in point, in a way.

So, I think that we do need to be shifting towards public transport and active travel, and I recognise that there are some challenges, particularly with rural communities, for that. But the reason why I think that that needs to happen is because in deciding what we do and what we spend our money on here in Wales, and what our policy interventions are, we should be doing the things that have the biggest impact across the largest number of well-being goals. And the challenge with investing in roads is, yes, you may improve mobility, so it may have an economic impact of being able to get people from A to B in the quickest amount of time, but it's really bad for our health, because we're sitting in cars in congestion and we're living in air pollution. It's really bad for socioeconomic disadvantage. If you take the analysis on the M4, 25 per cent of people in that region—the poorest people—didn't even own a car, so in making investments in those areas you're not addressing socioeconomic disadvantage.

If we think about cohesive communities, the ability of people to walk and cycle around their neighbourhoods, one of the proposals that I've put forward is the concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods. That helps to promote more cohesive communities than everyone getting in their car and driving from A to B and not interacting. So, I think it's very difficult to argue, when we've got seven well-being goals and a future generations Act, that we shouldn't be making that really significant shift away from the use of the car and towards public transport and active travel.

Thanks for that. If you actually lived where I live—totally rural—none of those things would work around here. We do need cars around here. Our nearest petrol station and our nearest shop are 15 miles away and things like that. Transport, the buses, you know, you've got one every four hours and that's if they don't break down in between, so you've also got to think about that for rural communities. Surely, future generations will be travelling in autonomous electric vehicles with zero carbon emissions that will need good-quality road infrastructure again. You know, future generations may not own their cars but be transported by Uber-style electric taxis or vehicles that work efficiently to serve their transport needs. Don't you consider it necessary to ensure that the necessary road infrastructure is actually in place to help facilitate this?

Well, I think what we're likely to see in the future is multimodal transport. So, it might be, for example, taking your example of the community that you live in, that there are autonomous electric vehicles that take you from your home to the nearest train station or, in some cases, maybe to the nearest bus stop, and that then you're able to pick up that different mode of public transport and so on. So, I don't think we're going to be seeing a one-size-fits-all, and the problem is there is a finite amount of money, and if we only invest in road based solutions, we're never going to be able to make the investment in that public transport and active travel infrastructure that we need to have to have that sort of multimodal approach.

There's an analogy that I think is quite fitting for our approach to road building, which is that you don't deal with obesity by loosening your belt. And we have these hugely congested roads in many parts of the country. The predictions are that whenever you expand the road network, actually the roads just get full again before long, and that has happened in practically every example of expanded road networks across the country. So, there has to come a point at which we say, 'We are going to take a long-term decision to invest in public transport infrastructure, alongside the road infrastructure that we've already got, and things like electric vehicle charging points, and smart mobility and the technology around that, to try to shift away from pure dependence on single drivers in cars, towards a multimodal approach to transport.'

But you've still got to have that road infrastructure, whichever kind of transport you've got. Even if you're transporting me in an electric car to the nearest bus stop, you've still got to have that.

Right, I'll go off that. I want to come on to planning policy. On planning policy, is there a move not to allow planning for new homes that aren't served by public transport in regions like mine in north Wales that is pushing many young people out of communities they were brought up in into larger villages and towns? There's been a spike—a massive spike—since March, since COVID, in rural house prices. There are a couple of houses around here that were sold, say, 10 years ago, people are just making money on them, obviously, because of this crisis. Two of those houses have gone from £250,000 sale two years ago, one of them has just gone for £800,000 and one of them has gone for £900,000—you know, it's mad. So, one of our challenges is to ensure that young families can live in the communities they grew up in if they want to. How are we going to get around that with the planning, because COVID has just pushed the prices right up, because people in towns are willing to pay that, and you cannot really blame people in the small villages who are looking at that massive, massive profit of three or four times what their house is worth. How are we going to get around that?

I think it's a really valid point and it's something that needs further work. I think that, particularly with the new ways that people are working now, and, of course, the Welsh Government's aspiration to have 30 per cent of people working from home, you can see a potential very real consequence of that is that city dwellers think, 'Actually, I can still do my job without having to come into the office, and therefore, I'd quite like the lifestyle of living in rural communities whilst still keeping my job in urban centres', and so on. So, I don't have the answer to that. I think it's an area that needs further exploration.

I think that there are going to be a whole raft of things that have emerged—. And to be fair to Government, these changes to home working pattern would have taken years and years, but they've essentially happened in a, kind of, eight-week period. I think there now needs to be a period where—and this is part of the future generations Act, in terms of thinking about long-term trends and scenarios and planning your policy in that way, thinking about a preventative approach, so, 'What is it that we're trying to prevent?' In the case that you're describing here, we should be trying to prevent people from being priced out of the market in their local communities, and so on. But the next future trends report and any work that the Government is doing around COVID recovery, home building, planning policy and so on, should be looking at some of those things—that change in direction.

One of the things that I've highlighted, for example, is where there is a disconnect with that. So, just a couple of weeks ago on—I can't remember which way around it was, but on the Monday, Welsh Government published the targets for 30 per cent home working, and then, a few days later, published the national development framework, which are exactly the sorts of things you're describing here: 'Where are we going to build homes?' and 'Where are we going to build our infrastructure?' with no reference to the aspiration around 30 per cent home working. So, we need to get better at that join-up and that long-term future and scenario planning.

Okay, thanks for that. I'm afraid we've got seven minutes left and we'll have to move on to coronavirus recovery, and some of your answers, commissioner, take us into that territory. Dawn Bowden.

Thank you, Chair. Hi, Sophie, nice to see you. Just a couple of quick points. I guess it may be that we need some further written information from you. I was looking for you to expand on some of your priorities, really, for the recovery from coronavirus and how we could develop those, and what kind of discussions you've had with Welsh Government about your five-point plan for recovery.

Yes, thank you. The five-point plan for recovery, which I published in June, was, I suppose, a sort of early plan. It was before the Welsh Government's plan had come out. It focuses around jobs and skills for the future; the concept of something for something, so when we're bailing out particular industries, we should be ensuring that we're not baking in carbon-intensive industries and that we're asking for more progress from the private sector to working towards implementing the future generations Act; a modal shift; big-scale restoration of nature; and a focus on housing retrofit and improving the quality of homes in particular.

So, since then, we've met regularly with Jeremy Miles, who is leading the COVID reconstruction approach, with Rebecca Evans, with the First Minister, and with a range of different Ministers to put forward the five-point plan. I was very pleased to see in the Government's reconstruction strategy that, actually, all of those areas are identified as areas that the Government intends to focus on. I think it's exactly the right approach. Therefore, I'm pleased to say that—I'm sure it's not just my advice; I'm sure it's from many of you as well, but I'm pleased to say they've taken on board the advice.

I think, now, the devil will be in the detail, you know, and I think I said in the answer to Huw, or in illustration to Huw, earlier: making sure that investing in green skills is happening, but, at the moment, there is a big disconnect between what the projections are, in terms of the potential for green jobs, and whom we actually have in apprenticeship programmes relating to those green jobs, just in terms of numbers, and an even bigger disconnect in terms of who those people are—i.e. are they of a diverse background or not? So, the next level that we're getting into now, beyond that strategic five-point plan that has been adopted by Government, is that more detailed analysis, and we're continuing to work with Government on that.

Okay, so you seem to be saying—thanks for that, Sophie. You seem to be saying that you're fairly satisfied that the Government is planning to work in accordance with the provisions of the Act and sustainable development, but you need to see the detail of that. Can you also—you just touched on the green recovery stuff, so are you able to share any of the initial findings of the green recovery taskforce that was led by NRW? Are you able to share any of that with us at this stage?

It's due to be published later on today; in fact, I thought it would be out by now, but I haven't seen it come out. This is work that Lesley Griffiths had commissioned, to be led by David Henshaw from NRW, of which my office is part, and a range of others. Some of the headline propositions, if you like, coming from that are large-scale investment in a skills package—a green skills package—so, potentially with placements in the public, private and third sectors, but focused in green industries.

We're looking at ways—what we're recommending to Government is that this group that's been established now moves, potentially even in terms of secondments, into Government to move into an implementation phase around that, looking at things like how we can use the UK Government's kickstarter funding to help pump prime some of that, how it links back to the Government's funding for apprenticeships and so on.

There's also a number of—they also have a recommendation around investment in housing retrofit and making that connection back to green skills and jobs. Then, they also have a number of proposals around specific projects that could be taken forward in terms of nature restoration. I probably shouldn't say much more about the detail before it's published, but I think it's very much in line with the five-point plan that we published back in June.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you, Chair, that's fine.

Okay. Could I just ask you, as well, commissioner—? A lot of what you've had to say is relevant to building back better and the work of Jeremy Miles and Welsh Government. We know that there are opportunities in the middle of the pandemic to, perhaps, shape better ways of doing things and getting some positives out of the general misery and suffering. Are you satisfied that Welsh Government is on the right lines in what it said about building back better? Are you central, or have you been involved, in the work that's going on and ongoing?

Yes, we've been very much involved, as I said, from the beginning of us publishing that five-point plan, and then we've done some more detailed work around that. One of the particular things that we've done, which, maybe, is surprising, is that we've actually recognised that there are some challenges with join-up across Government and the various ministerial advisory groups that have been established. So, I just referred to the NRW green recovery group, and there was a similar piece of work happening on behalf of Ken Skates on green recovery; the two groups didn't know that each other existed.

We've then got a whole load of work that's going on from an equality perspective, for example, and how all of that comes together. One of the things that I've been doing is using a bit of a convening power to bring these different groups together so that we can align recommendations and make sure that we're joining up as best we can. I've also submitted a big paper, I suppose, to Jeremy Miles, in terms of some more detail on that green recovery work. And, some of those areas that I proposed, again—more detail on reskilling and retraining, nature and wildlife, tourism and land management, modal shift, and just more detail, examples of things that could be happening in each of those areas following the consultation that we've taken on board with a range of other organisations. 

And, then, finally, we are also doing some more detailed work on how we finance the housing retrofit challenge, because, whilst I welcome the approach that the Government has taken—I think it's £35 million of funding that's been allocated to the optimised retrofit programme, which is great—but, actually, we're probably going to be talking about £1 billion that's needed, so it's a real drop in the ocean, and some innovative finance approaches will have to be taken. So, we're doing some more detailed work to support the Government there. 

Okay, commissioner. I know Huw had a question he'd like to ask on decarbonisation. If you've got a few minutes more, commissioner, yourself and Jacob, could we deal with that question, and then perhaps we might write to you with some other points that we haven't been able to reach? Okay, Huw. 

Thanks, Chair. Yes, we'd appreciate your thoughts on where the Government is with decarbonisation, and how they've responded to the climate emergency, alongside the biodiversity emergency as well. Have you been involved as a team in helping shape some of the work and policies of the Government? Where do you think they're at? How much more do you think they've got to do? Are they going in the right direction? Marks out of 10, please, at the moment, and what do you think they'll be getting out of 10 in 12 months' time?

Okay. So, I think, probably, if I go back to the beginning of my term, they were probably on about a three out of 10, maybe a four. I think we're probably on about a six or seven now, but we still have a little way to go. So, we're definitely seeing decisions taken in light of the climate emergency and the nature emergency. So, we're seeing different spending decisions, different spending priorities. We're seeing them doing things like, 'What is it we could do to fund the nature and climate emergency whilst also addressing other issues?', hence the investment in housing retrofit, hence the focus around green jobs and skills and so on.

However, I still think—and this was one of my recommendations in relation to last year's budget—they still do not have an approach to forensically assess the carbon impact of their spend. Now, in between last year and this year, one of the big challenges I gave last year was, there's no point in putting £220 million into the climate emergency, which they did, whilst, on the other hand, 70 per cent of your infrastructure investment plan is to be spent on roads. One is cancelling out the other. And you need to take an approach that is looking at, overall, 'Is the spend that we are committing to either carbon neutral, is it going to generate more carbon or is it going to take us towards that?' They still do not have that comprehensive approach to doing it. 

I think, instinctively, they are taking different and right decisions, but can anyone tell you—and certainly the Government cannot—that they have, overall, decarbonised through their spend? I don't think they can. 

Okay. Thank you, Chair. I know we're tight on time, so that's fine. 

Yes. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Huw, and thank you, commissioner, thank you, Jac. You will be sent a transcript of these proceedings to check for factual accuracy in the usual way. Diolch yn fawr. 

Diolch. 

Okay. The next item on our agenda today, item 4, is papers to note. We have one paper, which is correspondence from an individual regarding safer streets and disability equality, and particularly the difficulties faced by wheelchair users when it comes to safer streets and those equality matters. I wonder if I could seek Members' views on this. We could, if Members are content, write to Welsh Government on these issues and also raise it with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and possibly consider it in terms of the legacy report of the committee, because obviously these are important issues. Anybody like to offer any thoughts? Mark.

I agree, I think, with the course of action that you referred to. Obviously, I can't represent this individual because they're in Cardiff, but they contacted me because of the chairing role I have on the cross-party group for disability. Although she's identified issues in Cardiff, of course it's not unique—the problem isn't unique to Cardiff. My own researcher, who lives in Newport, has a daughter at a school who's a wheelchair user; I know they've had similar concerns, without saying too much to breach their confidentiality. So, yes, it would be helpful if we could pursue this both in terms of legacy report, but in any other means feasible with the time remaining to us, highlighting this with the Welsh Government.

Okay. Thank you, Mark. Huw.

I'd agree, Chair. Because it is very much, as the writer points out, a massive issue. I suspect we'll be pushing at this for the next decade and more. In my own area, we speak to the Bridgend Coalition of Disabled People, they'll say there's been progress—great progress—but much, much more to be done, across the range of issues that the letter writer has within their correspondence. So, I think escalating it to that level as something we need to return to would be very good. And perhaps the response we'll have back will point us to specific areas we need to look at. So, I'd support that.

Okay. Well, thank you for that. I think all Members of the Senedd will be familiar with these issues, and obviously they are important ones, so we will raise them in that way. Okay, thank you very much.

Item 5 is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also the meeting on 7 December. Is committee content with that course of action? Yes, okay. Thank you very much. We will, then, move into private session.