Part of 3. Questions to the Assembly Commission – in the Senedd at 3:12 pm on 24 January 2018.
Thank you for your answer, Commissioner. The cross-party group on faith recently held a discussion on the topic 'Faith-based chaplaincy, is it worth it?' and we heard from people serving as chaplains within public sector organisations and we heard from individuals who've been recipients of the benefits of chaplaincy services, which, of course, are helping to reduce disputes and disagreements between public sector providers and service users, they're bringing comfort to people in times of crisis and, of course, they're able to offer pastoral care, regardless of people's faith, beliefs, or whether they've got any faith at all. We felt that these were important benefits that might be of use to Assembly Members, to Assembly Members' staff and, indeed, Commission staff here on the Assembly estate. Notwithstanding the good work that's being done to support staff and Assembly Members here in the National Assembly, I do think that there's something quite unique in terms of the pastoral care that chaplaincy services can offer, and I wonder whether this is something that the Commission could discuss in depth to see whether there might be an opportunity to develop a chaplaincy service, which I certainly would welcome and I know that some other Assembly Members would welcome too, particularly given the sort of trauma that the Assembly suffered in the last three months of last year.