The next group of amendments, group 2, relates to publication requirements in relation to facility time. Amendment 2 is the lead and only amendment in this group, and I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move and speak to the amendment. Janet Finch-Saunders.

Amendment 2 (Janet Finch-Saunders) moved.

I move amendment 2 in my name, but when I do so, I do it on behalf, actually, of the Welsh Conservative group here today. This amendment refers to the powers to require the publication of information on facility time and to impose requirements on public sector employers in relation to paid facility time. To clarify, this amendment does not seek to remove or stop facility time, or the benefits it is purported to bring. And I have real concerns in relation to how this has been misrepresented in the explanatory memorandum. Facility time may indeed result in a reduction in employment tribunals, a reduction in days lost to workplace injury and illness, and a reduction in dismissals and early exits, and we do not dispute that. And we're not stopping facility time or time spent by an organisation's staff on trade union duties and activities during working hours. What we are aiming to promote here is a culture of openness and transparency in relation to how much staff time is spent in this area. There are several reasons for doing so and a number of benefits.

During evidence sessions, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government noted his belief that successful use of facility time means that there are savings to the employer and to the Treasury, therefore, as a result of a reduction in employment tribunals. Yet, without further scrutiny, further evidence and transparency, we are unable to back this up in a quantifiable manner. Of course, there must also be a balance with the use of taxpayers’ money, and without knowing how many working hours are being spent on facility time, it is impossible to be able to assess the true value of it. What Government passes legislation when they cannot evidence their own argument?

Yes, this is an agreement entered into voluntarily between employers and unions, but the role is paid in so much as it is undertaken during paid working hours. So, questions to need answering as to why the Welsh Labour Government is so reluctant to ask public organisations to publish this information. Llywydd, this information is not private; any one of us could request it by freedom of information at any time, yet a Government—the Welsh Labour Government—fails to even do this. However, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires every public authority to have a publication scheme and, crucially, to publish information proactively.

The key point here is openness, transparency and accountability to the public, our electorate, as to how public money is spent. Why, then, the reluctance with regard to facility time? Surely, this would be less of a burden to provide than multiple freedom of information requests. The indicative cost for such publication given in the regulatory impact assessment is £171,000—almost a third of the cost of check-off—yet here the Cabinet Secretary has decided the cost is simply not worth it, despite the inherent increase in transparency and openness it would bring. All we are asking for here is provisions for public sector bodies to publish this information clearly and to act quite clearly in the public interest and in line with the intentions of the Freedom of Information Act. I move.

I'm guessing the Tories will be happy that I'm not going to repeat all of the information I made in the last—[Interruption.] But there are some common themes, and, fundamentally, those are the opposition of employers to what is contained in the Tories' UK legislation and in this amendment and the complete lack of understanding by the Tories of what unions do and how they work. And the most important aspect of this amendment, I think, is to focus on the benefits of facility time and not get bogged down in the costly kind of reporting procedures that are being proposed.

Following publication of the UK Government's initial proposals for its Trade Union Bill in 2016, Warwick University's business school undertook research into facility time in the public services across the UK, and the conclusion of their research was that the presence of workplace representatives who rely on facility time to perform their duties is associated with higher workplace performance. Therefore, conversely, reducing facility time is likely to have detrimental effects.

And commenting on the Westminster Government's own data, the University's Professor of human resource management stated:

‘Overall, the evidence suggests that both full and part-time workplace…representatives help improve performance in the public sector and that managers widely recognise this to be the case.’

The proposed legislation to limit the amount of time that representatives can spend on their representative duties appears unnecessary and may reduce workplace performance in the public sector.

Now, I’ve already referred to the significant benefits of social partnership arrangements here in Wales. It should be recognised that, in addition to lay official involvement, a significant amount of work undertaken in partnership working comes from paid officials of the trade unions, at no cost to the public purse. These officials invest union resources in work that is integral to the official delivery of, and changes to, public services in Wales—something, again, the Welsh Conservatives are seemingly unable to grasp. But, of course, it goes well beyond that. At workplace level, the public service employers understand what, clearly, the Tories don’t. Former WLGA leader Bob Wellington commented:

‘Facility time enables councils to consult and negotiate with trade union officials representing the workforce, and therefore actually saves considerable time and resources’.

It is therefore

‘essential in our view, and very much in the interests of council tax payers to see it maintained.’

The Welsh NHS Confederation and NHS employers have said:

‘Trade union representatives provide a vital role in developing and working with NHS workplace policies and procedures. They support staff and their members with mediation and navigation through policies and workplace issues which supports the smooth running of the service.’

Will the Member give way? If all this is as positive as she describes, why not just publish the information so the public can see how much of this time is given?

It’s bureaucratic nonsense and unnecessary. The facility time itself, as research has shown, provides the public, the council tax payers, with benefits and savings through the work that they do.

If the Tories were able to set aside for a moment their anti-trade union prejudice and talk to public service trade unions, they might begin to get some understanding of what they do, and learn that most lay representatives will spend the majority of their time working with the employer to jointly tackle workplace issues as well as supporting health and safety, training, and management of change initiatives. A lot of this work they do in their own time, in addition to any facility time given by the employer.

The unwarranted reporting requirements that would result if this amendment is passed would carry with them another unnecessary cost, but would also be a distraction from the important work undertaken by accredited and trained trade union representatives working with their employer to address workplace challenges and build good industrial relations, which, in turn, reduces the likelihood of disputes and days lost through industrial action, again demonstrating that such arrangements are actually a cost benefit to most employers. For these reasons, Llywydd, I shall be voting against this amendment.

One reason that strike action in the public sector in Wales is comparatively rare—and I will make a very rare comparison with England here, because I don’t usually do that. But we have seen in the last few years high-profile disputes in England within the public sector, like the one the junior doctors staged, and it was bitter and it was vitriolic. We haven’t had that here in Wales, and we haven’t had that in Wales because we have the social partnership that has just been described. That works extremely well, and I for one am really proud that we do operate under a social partnership, and a partnership that is clearly understood between those working in the public sector and for the public bodies.

Both sides—the employers and the trade unions—understand that that actually is to the benefit of all. Facility time—that is, let’s be clear, the time permitted to employees for carrying out trade union duties—is crucial in the success of that partnership. I don’t know, actually, where Janet Finch-Saunders was, but she certainly didn’t hear the evidence in the same way that I heard it, and that others heard it, when it was given to us at committee stage. We heard time and time again both from the employee and the employer about the benefit of that facility time. We also heard, as she must have, that very often that time is actually given free of charge, and some of the reasons have already been alluded to by full-time trade union officers, but also by people who actually represent their colleagues in their own time, not in their work time. And I’d like to ask you how you think you might account for that under your freedom of information. We heard evidence from the Welsh NHS Confederation and NHS Wales employees. In their evidence to committee, and I’ll quote:

‘Facilities time provides significant benefits to industrial relations, as well as providing savings and benefits to the organisation and the service as a whole.’

And it would be extremely difficult, wouldn’t it, to quantify that. I think it’s a very odd situation for the Conservatives to propose that we add in more red tape. That’s what they usually call it, don’t they? Anything you have to account for is red tape. But facility time is actually used to keep people safe in work. It’s also used to make sure that the terms and conditions, on both sides, for the employee and the employer, are to the satisfaction of both. The only conclusion that I can reach is that Janet Finch-Saunders has put forward these amendments today driven on pure ideology, because it certainly wasn’t driven in any way at all by any of the evidence that we were given. And, when we talk about a cost, there is a cost that was put forward to actually reporting on facility time, and the Wales Trades Union Congress did point out that disapplying the 2016 Act provision requiring all Welsh public employers to report on facility time would save money. And they did put a cost of £170,700 in reporting costs. You all know, because you tell us very often from that side of the Chamber, that red tape costs money. This red tape will also cost money, and all it will do is destroy everything that we have built up over the years in Wales in those social partnerships. It is pure ideology, absolutely nothing else.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government.

Diolch, Llywydd. So, the Conservative party here tells us that they are all in favour of facility time—they’re just simple seekers after truth; it’s simply a matter of wanting to record how much facility time is being taken and the costs of it. But what they fail to tell you completely, Llywydd, is that they are not interested at all in reporting to the public what the benefits of facility time are. All they want is a one-sided account in which everything is articulated as a cost, and all the things that those employers who turned up to the committee set out as the advantages for employers from facility time, all of that goes unreported altogether. This is not just a simple wish to put information into the public domain. It is a deliberate attempt to provide a biased, one-sided account of what is a bargain, a bargain in which facility time is provided in order that employers are able to make sure that their businesses run effectively, and that trade unions are able to carry out their legitimate work. The committee of the Assembly said:

‘we are in no doubt that facility time is a prudent investment in public services and we believe it should be viewed as such.’

And if you make a prudent investment then not only will you want to account for the costs of that investment, but you will want to account for the return on that investment as well. This amendment entirely ignores that. UK Ministers, when they were putting their Trade Union Bill through, were at least candid enough to say that the reason for wanting to report on facility time was so that it could be borne down on in the future, and that it could be reduced. That’s what all this is about. It’s that attack on the work that trade unions do, disguised as simply a seeking for information. The amendment doesn’t deserve to be supported, and I hope Members here will vote against it this afternoon.

I call Janet Finch-Saunders to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Llywydd. Well, do you know what? We decided to do your work for you, Cabinet Secretary. And so, therefore, we put in a Welsh Conservative freedom of information request in order to bring some openness, transparency, and accountability to our argument and to proceedings here in the National Assembly for Wales. Out of the 28 public bodies able to respond in full, 63 officers were on full-time facility time, working a total of 2,459 hours per week. Out of the 26 public bodies able to respond, 272 officers are also employed part time, and 15 out of 22 authorities pay for their full-time officers on union facility time, equating to 33 officers. We have a right to know this. Our members of the public, our electorate, have a right to know that too. Days lost to strike action impede the economy, and there is no disputing that. The Trade Union Act 2016 introduced by the UK Government was introduced because of a 77 per cent increase in working days lost due to industrial action, from 440,000 days in 2013 to 788,000 in 2014. In 2015, Wales had the fourth highest amount of working days lost out of the UK regions, with six per 1,000 employees. So much for your partnership working and the touchy-feely approach that you have. Days lost to strike action rose again across the UK in 2016. Up to 31 October 2016, 281,000 days were lost to strike action, an increase of 65 per cent. It has been estimated that the Trade Union Act’s 2016 provisions will save 1.5 million working hours a year and boost the UK economy by over £100 million over the next 10 years.

Llywydd, by extending the requirements to publish information on the time and money spent on facility time, requirements that already currently apply to the civil service and to the wider public sector, we can ensure greater transparency and openness with this amendment. Fundamentally, we believe it is right that the Government monitor this practice to ensure it is a sensible use of taxpayers’ money, and that this will ensure that levels of facility time remain appropriate. I will clarify once more: we are not seeking to remove it. A freedom of information request found—[Interruption.]

Will you take an intervention?

Allow the Member to continue, please—. Oh—

A clear—. No, I want to carry on.

No, she’s not taking an intervention.

Our freedom of information request clearly highlighted the need for more transparency in this regard. So, whilst this amendment does not dispute the value of facility time, I think it’s fair and justified to be calling for this to be published. It is critical that transparency and openness are ingrained across the Welsh public sector—it’s critical that they are ingrained in any workings of this Assembly for Wales—to ensure that facility time works for union members, works for public sector delivery, and, fundamentally, works to ensure cost-effectiveness across our public services.

The question is that amendment 2 be agreed to. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We’ll proceed to an electronic vote. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 12, no abstentions, and 43 against. Therefore, amendment 2 is not agreed.

Amendment 2 not agreed: For 12, Against 43, Abstain 0.

Result of the vote on amendment 2.