I'm interested, Deputy Presiding Officer, in the point she makes about the public being excluded from meetings. Members may be interested to know that I took the opportunity to attend full council in Blaenau Gwent last Thursday morning when I was in my constituency, and I was asked to leave the meeting at one point whilst they debated and discussed issues from which the public were excluded. Now, I take it in good faith and in trust that they are doing so for the right reasons and debate and discuss issues that should rightly be conducted in private. It is, I think, incumbent upon all of us who exercise public responsibilities to do so in a way that is transparent and open to encourage and enhance and root democracy, which we all care about.

The Member asks a number of somewhat related questions. In terms of the wider issues about transparency and accountability, for me, accountability is about being able to remove people and to hold people to account, where they fail or where they don't deliver. Now, it's not a matter for me to comment on cabinet appointments, but it is a matter for me to be put at ease that the frameworks that we have for local government provide a level of transparency, openness and accountability. For that we need simplicity in terms of our structures and our processes and our procedures. I hope that we can work together. I don't think there's a—. Siân Gwenllian talked about a tension between Welsh Government and local government in her questions, but I hope that we can all agree a set of important basic principles upon which we will operate. Trust, respect, openness, transparency, and a commitment to real partnership and collaboration is what I think local government wants from this Government, it's what this Government offers local government, and I think it's what both local government and Welsh Government have to demonstrate to our electorate.