3. 3. Statement by the Chair of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee on the Committee’s Approach to its Remit and How it Plans to Engage with the Public in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:40 pm on 28 September 2016.

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Photo of Bethan Sayed Bethan Sayed Plaid Cymru 2:40, 28 September 2016

Diolch. Thank you, Suzy. Thank you for the endorsement, I think, which we all agreed to, that we are trying to do things differently. I think, from my perspective, the reason why I personally—and I’m sure other Members will have an opinion—wanted to allow for the public to directly decide on what we did was because—and this isn’t meant as an offence to anybody sitting here—sometimes we do have our own pet projects and sometimes we do then push those forward, and we may not know—we may not know—that that is what people want us to discuss. So, this is merely a pilot to see whether this works. I’m not saying it will be the answer to all our problems but I think that it’s something we should at least try. We have five years as a committee and I feel, as a communications committee, it would be remiss of us not to try and look at those new ways of working and to try and seek to reach those people who don’t necessarily talk to us on a regular basis. But also, as you will know, we have an excellent outreach team and I hope they can help us with this activity so that they can then delve deeper into talking to people who are not the usual suspects. I think that may go a long way in helping us along the line also.

In relation to Historic Wales, yes, I’m not the person to be able to answer that—that would be elevating myself to another position if I did—but I think that it would be something that we potentially could look at as a committee. If there are going to be quite stark changes—we don’t know yet; there is a group looking at it—I think it would merit us at least having a view. But, of course, we would have to make that decision as a committee, as you will know.

I do agree with you on the arm’s-length agenda, personally. I know that the Cabinet Secretary gives a remit letter to such bodies, such as the Arts Council of Wales, but I think it would aid us in understanding their work better if we had them in. It doesn’t have to be formally: it could be us visiting like we did today with ITV and BBC. But it would be good, I suppose, to get it on the record so that we can understand fully how they operate.

So, I hope that answers most of your questions. On the cross-cutting issues, of course we may want to look at, for example, Welsh language education. So, of course, then we would want to discuss with the Children, Young People and Education Committee if they were doing work. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to duplicate it. We harp on enough about duplication from the Welsh Government. I don’t think it would look very good if we started doing it here in this institution.