2. What evaluation has the Assembly Commission undertaken regarding the facilities it provides for disabled people? OAQ51785

The Commission is committed to ensuring access to the Assembly estate for disabled people and regularly reviews accessibility to all our buildings and facilities. We complete equality impact assessments before undertaking refurbishment or improvement work to ensure accessibility and compliance with building regulations.

Thank you. Let me start by praising Assembly Commission staff as somebody with hearing loss, that, whenever a problem arises with technology, they are wonderful in seeking to help and remove those barriers. But in the early Assembly—. I've been here long enough to have sat in the old Chamber, and, in those days, Members with impairments, including those like myself with hearing loss, would be asked to road test the equipment or adaptations being considered before the Commission of the day—or the parliamentary service, as it was then called—would invest in those new provisions. That has not been the case in my experience since we moved to this Chamber early in 2006, before the formal opening then on St David's Day. Will the Commission give, therefore, consideration to restoring a system whereby, before investment in new disability adaptations for the Assembly estate is implemented, that Members, and potentially other disability access groups, are invited to road test and advise first?

I thank you for raising what is a hugely important issue, and that is that we provide, as a Commission and as an Assembly, the facilities that fit the purpose for which people intend to use them and it is the case, you know, that we have updated very recently the loop here and in 2015 and 2016 we upgraded the audio system, and we did the same in the committee rooms and the Chamber and committee public galleries and then bought the new system that you are now currently using, I believe.

But you can have my assurance, and, I'm sure, the assurance of my fellow Assembly Commissioners, that we will return to a system that seems very sensible to me, that, when people want to use a device or a system, we do ask those people who will be using that to road test it before we go out and purchase on their behalf what we hope might be appropriate. We will do that in every case, because I know that there are other issues that have been raised with me about accessibility at the front of the Assembly, where we have quite clearly put in the ramps and the lifts so that disabled people, wheelchair users and others can access the building, but we haven't backed that up with the signage and people are finding it to be somewhat of a maze, and that was never the original intention of doing that. There have been other issues about access to stages and platforms where we host events. So, all of those things are very much on our radar and I can absolutely assure you that they will be attended to.

Thank you. Question 3 is to be answered by Caroline Jones as the Commissioner for Security and Assembly Resource and the question is from Simon Thomas.