The next item on our agenda is a statement by the Minister for Social Services and Public Health on Sport Wales, and I call on the Minister, Rebecca Evans.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’d like to update Members on the way forward in relation to the board and governance of Sport Wales. Members will recall, late last year, the decision was taken to suspend the board’s activities, following clear indications that relationships among some board members had become strained, and, as a result, it was not in a position to discharge its duties effectively.

As I said to Members at the time, the suspension of the activities was a neutral and temporary act, designed primarily as a cooling-off period in order for all of those involved to reflect, and to provide time for me, as Minister with responsibility for Sport Wales, to be briefed on the background to the situation that had arisen, through an assurance review carried out by civil servants. My overriding objective throughout, and my responsibility as Minister, is to secure a sustainable future for Sport Wales and to ensure that there is a well-functioning and cohesive organisation.

The assurance review found that a clash of cultures had developed between the chair and other board members. This clash of cultures and styles led to a deterioration in the relationship between the chair and other board members and, ultimately, to the no-confidence vote being taken last November.

I have a duty to take action when it is needed, however difficult or complex the problem. This has not been an easy process for anyone involved, and my focus has been on trying to find a strong and stable way forward for Sport Wales, its staff and the board, who are the ultimate custodians of more than £20 million of public money annually. At this point, my concern is to ensure that staff have the support they need to work effectively, and I pay tribute to their resilience over the last few months—they deserve great credit.

Because of issues relating to data protection and confidentiality, and on the basis of legal advice, it would be inappropriate for me to comment in any detail on the findings of the assurance review. I do want to make clear, for the avoidance of doubt, that the conclusions are principally related to a significant breakdown of some interpersonal relationships at a senior level within Sport Wales. There are some outstanding issues to be addressed as a result of the assurance review process. In addition, a number of formal complaints have been received by the Welsh Government subsequent to the review being finalised.

Based on advice I have received in relation to these, I have decided to take the following actions: I have suspended the chair, Dr Paul Thomas, in order for a proper and formal process to be undertaken as a result of the complaints received. I stress that this is, once again, a neutral act and in no way prejudges the outcome of the process. Dr Thomas has been informed of this development.

I have also suspended the vice-chair, Adele Baumgardt, due to separate concerns that have arisen around the cohesive functioning of the board and its relationship with Welsh Ministers. As with Dr Thomas, this is a neutral act, and she has also been informed.

I would like to see the remainder of the current Sport Wales board stay in place, under interim leadership. My officials have spoken to board members today to inform them of the situation and to ask them to carry on. From today, therefore, I am reinstating the board’s activities. This will enable a number of important steps to be taken, for example the budget-setting process ahead of the new financial year in April.

I am today appointing Lawrence Conway as interim chair. He has over 40 years of public service, with specific experience of the interface between Government and sponsored bodies. He will help to guide Sport Wales through this difficult period, and shares our key objective of restoring organisational stability. I have also asked John Taylor, the former chief executive of ACAS, to work with him in a consultative capacity in order to ensure that the board can operate as a cohesive functioning body. It is not possible or indeed desirable to give a timescale for the current temporary arrangements, but I want to reiterate the importance I place on due process being followed, out of fairness to the individuals concerned. I would like these processes to be concluded as swiftly as possible.

Looking to the future, it is important that Sport Wales as a whole remains fit for purpose as an organisation. The contribution of sport at both an elite and grass-roots level to the physical and mental well-being of our country is vital, and Sport Wales must remain at the forefront of that. I therefore want to see the review of Sport Wales, which commenced last year, completed, preferably by a member of the existing independent panel and reported to me as soon as possible. I’ll update Members further on this in the very near future.

As I said earlier, this has been an extremely difficult period for all, and I regret I have not been able today to give the certainty about the future that I would have wanted. However, what is needed here is a long-term solution, not a sticking plaster, and I need to be assured that the governance of Sport Wales is fully fit for purpose and resilient in the coming months and years. That, I believe, is an objective that can be shared across this Chamber. Thank you.

Before I reply, could the Minister please confirm who Lawrence Conway is? Is it the same Lawrence Conway who headed up Rhodri Morgan’s office? [Interruption.] Yes? Is that right, Minister?

You have an ability to ask a number of questions or you can only ask one. If that’s the only one, you can sit down.

No, it certainly isn’t. I think it has been confirmed by the Chamber that we are talking about the same person. Really, Sport Wales is just another disaster of a recurring theme of your Government, really. We have a crisis that you hadn’t seen coming and things have got so bad that you’ve had to undertake major surgery instead of resolving things at an early stage. I’ve already raised serious incompetence on the behalf of your Government earlier, adding up to £53 million. I’ve raised concerns about the allegations from Public Affairs Cymru, where your Government has leaned on voluntary organisations to stop them saying things that they don’t want to hear. The thing about Wales is that sport is such an integral part of our culture. So, if you have to get one thing right in Wales, it has to be sport. If you look at the second paragraph on page 2, I’m very concerned at the lack of transparency, and I’d like your assurance that, at some point in the near future, everything will be published. Maybe, if things are unable to be published, then they could be redacted instead of things being hidden completely.

I really must raise, as a matter of concern, the history of the chair, because, as I mentioned earlier, he seems to have very strong Labour Party connections. Concerns were raised by none other than the former Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Government when Mr Conway was appointed as a special adviser to Labour Cabinet Members in 2013, because civil servants don’t often switch between a neutral role and a political role. For many of us, this is just another example of the Labour Party card being used as the main criteria to fill a public sector post. This is the kind of nepotism that causes problems in the first place. The first question, Minister, is: why didn’t you see this coming, and why didn’t you intervene before this crisis arose? As I said earlier, major surgery. Why can’t you give us a date for when these interim arrangements will come to an end? How much is the chair being paid when he is suspended, and how much are the new people costing the public purse? And why didn’t you appoint a clearly independent person to chair the organisation, rather than somebody with such open Labour connections again? Let’s be honest: there are so many appointments undertaken by the Welsh Government where there are clear, clear political connections. Is Sport Wales carrying out its proper function? This is a really important question given the context of what Public Affairs Cymru has said: when the chair produced a report—or came out with a report—that said that the organisation needed a major overhaul, did you shoot the messenger, or have you appointed somebody who will come out with the party line instead of maybe a conclusion that you don’t actually agree with or enjoy? Finally, and certainly not least importantly, what about the 160 staff employed? Your statement offers no assurance to them, so can you please give the staff some assurance about the longevity of the future of the organisation and their place in it?

I thank you for those questions. We’ll start with the bit we can agree on, and that is that sport is very much an integral part of our life and our culture here in Wales. The role of Sport Wales is extremely important in that. A strong part of my statement today has been about the importance of the staff at Sport Wales and seeking to offer them some assurance, and to express my personal gratitude for the professionalism with which they have conducted themselves and continued working with such passion for sport in Wales over the recent weeks and months, which I know have been difficult for them. As I got to my feet today, a statement went around to all staff at Sport Wales again expressing my gratitude to them.

You asked when the concerns first came to the fore. Well, as I said in my statement in November, those concerns came to the fore in November. On Tuesday 22 November, there was the unanimous vote of no confidence passed by the board in the chair, and then I took action on 23 November, with the full agreement of the chair and vice-chair, to suspend the activities of the board until this assurance review could be completed. That, as I said at the time, was a neutral act. I think that the Welsh Government did act swiftly when concerns were first raised.

You referred to the review of Sport Wales that the chair was undertaking. The assurance review itself didn’t consider the review that the chair was undertaking or the wider effectiveness of Sport Wales as an organisation. However, the review did find widespread support for the review that the chair was undertaking. As I said in my statement, I want to see that review completed and reported to me as soon as possible, and I would like one of the members of the independent panel that was advising that piece of work to conclude that work on my behalf.

With regard to Lawrence Conway, I am extremely grateful to him for taking on this role at such short notice and at no cost to the public purse, I have to say; he’s doing it without remuneration. His credentials, I think, speak for themselves. He has over 40 years of public service experience, with specific experience of the interface between Government and sponsored bodies. He will help guide Sport Wales through this difficult period. He joined the civil service in 1968 and worked in various roles throughout his career in the Welsh Office, including a secondment to the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation in the early 1990s as assistant to the chief executive. More recently, he headed the division in the Welsh Office responsible for sponsoring a number of arm’s-length bodies, including the Welsh Development Agency, and was appointed head of the Cabinet Secretariat and subsequently the First Minister’s department in 1998. He served in that capacity until his retirement in 2010. He will certainly be undertaking his role within the context of the Nolan principles, in which we would expect all people in these positions to operate.

Can I thank the Minister for her statement today, and can I also state that I think that it is particularly important to thank the staff, who have been through a very difficult period? Many concerns have been raised by staff not of their making, and I think tribute should be paid to them through this difficult time. The organisation, as a Government-sponsored body, has been accused of being unwilling to listen, lacking transparency and being obsolete in its thinking. So, now you have had time to reflect, can I ask: do you believe that you did act early enough and at the right time, and were the correct governance procedures in place before you suspended the board? Can I also ask: can you give an assurance today to the Chamber that you think the right governance procedures are in place now and, indeed, ongoing?

Can I also ask when you expect the review to be completed and made public? Also, with regard to the chair's previous review on the effectiveness of Sport Wales—I wasn't quite sure when you previously answered this question—do you intend to investigate the structural issues identified in there as part of your all-encompassing review? I’d just like some clarification on that.

You have provided the credentials in some detail of Lawrence Conway, so I thank you for that, but I wonder if you could also provide us with some more information on John Taylor. Clearly, there’s a big task of work to do, and their ability to fulfil the roles is, of course, a question that I think we all need to have some assurance on, so, please, some more information on John Taylor's credentials.

And finally, could I ask how the business as an organisation has been affected? And by that, I'm referring to the day-to-day running of Sport Wales, but also more long term as well, especially with regard to financial planning. You mentioned it in your statement about making these changes now for the new financial year, but have some of those issues of financing with regard to the new financial year been affected as a result of the suspension of the board?

I thank the Member for those questions. With regard to the review, it was specifically a governance review, so we didn't ask the reviewers to explore those wider issues of the effectiveness of the organisation and so on. Those were issues that were being looked at by the review that the chair was leading on, and now we’ll be asking a member of the panel that was advising and helping in that works to take forward that. I would expect that work to be concluded in the coming weeks—it's not a piece of work that I would expect to go on for a long period. I understand a substantial amount of work had already been completed, and I look forward to seeing that review in due course, and, obviously, I'll be updating Members on that.

With regard to the governance that we have in place for Sport Wales, I can confirm there is a framework document in place. There's also a remit letter in place, but I intend to issue the board with a refreshed remit letter in the light of where we find ourselves at the moment. There's a Welsh Government-approved business plan in place with the organisation, and Welsh Government internal audit service conducted an audit in October 2015 and did provide those reasonable assurances that the controls are in place to ensure effective oversight within the organisation

With regard to your questions about further information on John Taylor, well, John Taylor has held a range of posts, mainly in the public sector, before serving as ACAS’s first chief executive for 12 years from 2001. His previous roles included being the chief executive of the Development Board for Rural Wales and the south-east Wales training and enterprise council in the 1990s. In more recent years, he's been deputy chair of the University of West London, chair of the careers service for Wales, the Workers’ Educational Association, and is currently chair of the major contractors committee for the electrical contracting industry. So, again, I think that he and Lawrence are both well suited to undertake this interim arrangement that we have in place for Sport Wales. Again, I would just echo the comments that you have made about the professionalism with which Sport Wales have undertaken their work as staff members in the recent period, which I know has been difficult for them, and to reassure you that there have been no issues of policy or finance that the board would have to have dealt with, but there are things now that the board will have to deal with in the very near future, such as setting the budget for the next financial year and various matters that will have to be signed off relating to national governing bodies and so on. So, there's plenty of work for the board to get back to doing now that their responsibilities have been reinstated.

Thanks, Minister, for your statement. There do seem to have been some problems at the top end of this organisation in recent months. The Minister may well recall that the last chair, Laura McAllister, stayed in post beyond her intended term of office because the Welsh Government felt that a suitable replacement couldn’t be found at that time. You then came up with Paul Thomas, but he’s seemingly quickly fallen into dispute with the rest of the board. Now, I don’t pretend to know the reasons for this, but I hope that we do get a full report on this, and, more important, that the board quickly becomes a functioning operation once again.

Sport Wales plays a key role in delivering a lot of Welsh Government targets in important areas, which could potentially increase physical activity and tackle the huge problem of obesity. So, this is the crucial thing: that Sport Wales does get on with its remit, regardless of any boardroom shenanigans or internal politics. So, echoing what Russell George was asking you earlier, I wonder if you could amplify a little bit on how the organisation has been performing without the guidance of the board in recent weeks. How has it been delivering its day-to-day functions? I know you said the budget setting hasn’t been affected, which is good to hear, but can you shed some light on, or give us some assurances, rather, that the performance hasn’t been adversely affected by recent events? Thanks.

I thank you for those questions, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to provide you with those reassurances that performance hasn’t been affected, and the day-to-day functions of Sport Wales have continued seamlessly throughout. Again, that’s due to the work of the staff who have been doing that. I’m very pleased that you recognise the role that Sport Wales has, and the potential that Sport Wales has, for so many of Welsh Government’s priorities, including the physical activity agenda as well, because Sport Wales has incredible potential to make a huge impact on both the elite end of sport but also the grass-roots end, and the physical activity end as well. I know it’s doing good work and I look forward to working closely with the board as we move forward.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.