The Member describes some of the issues facing youth work and youth work services in terms of the overall situation of local government funding and local government resources. That is well understood and the Government doesn’t recoil or disagree with the conclusions of the committee on this. We understand that local authorities are in very difficult situations, facing some very difficult decisions. It’s the easiest thing in the world for a Minister to stand here and make whatever observations he or she may be tempted to do, but I think we have to recognise that it is a matter for local government to take these decisions.

You ask about accountability of local government on the day that nominations close for the local elections taking place next month. That is accountability in the rawest possible sense. Those candidates and those councillors who will be fighting for their seats over the next four or five weeks will have to account for the decisions that they’ve taken. It’s a matter for the people to determine their priorities for the next period.

But in terms of the strategic leadership, which I do believe is a more fundamental point—and Llyr addressed some of these issues in his questions—leadership isn’t simply standing here taking and announcing decisions. Leadership is also about having conversations and listening—and not just listening to what has been said but actually hearing what has been said as well. Leadership is about having a structure in place that enables us to provide the vision, but also to ensure that vision is informed by the experience of people on the ground or people who are delivering services and people in communities up and down the country.

So, I reject the sense of leadership being a singular activity carried out by a single Minister in a particular way. I think that leadership is about a much wider sense of how we approach these matters and a much wider sense of listening and hearing what is being said.

In terms of the relationship with stakeholders and other matters that the Member’s raised, let me say this: we do invest a great deal of time listening and talking to people. One of the recommendations of the committee’s report was to meet with the reference group as soon as possible. I actually met the reference group a few days before the committee report was actually published. You know, we do spend a great deal of time, both myself and my officials, having these conversations and listening to what is being said.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I would expect or anticipate stakeholders to agree with everything the Government does. That’s not the nature of political debate and discourse. I don’t expect, because we have a conversation with a group of stakeholders in this or any other field, that those stakeholders will then agree with the decisions that I make and take in the future. That is not the way that these things have to or should operate. My view is that we should always be able to have a very honest exchange of views, understand each other, but also then have the freedom to disagree where we feel it’s necessary.

In terms of the way of working and the approaches taken, I think I said in answer to Darren Millar’s points about the work of the board that I’m very happy for the board take the view that it takes about the way it operates. I don’t think it would work effectively if the board was appointed to do what the Minister wants the board to do. So, I think the board has to have a means of independence. We’re going through the public appointments process to ensure that the members of the board are independent. Then, I would expect to have an agreement with the board that will both guarantee their independence of operation but also the levels of authority that they have in order to commission the sort of work that Darren Millar described, and which I think will be absolutely essential for a well-informed challenge to Government.