6. Will the First Minister make a statement on the future role of community and town councils in Wales? OAQ51912

Well, an independent review is looking at the future role of community and town councils and what needs to be in place to enable them to play that role, and it will be reporting later this year.

Thank you. Over the past seven years, I've had many concerns raised with me regarding the functions of community and town councils, and in that time also I've raised them here. There have been two other reviews, so we're now finding ourselves in the middle of a review going forward.

Now, the Wales Audit Office has found 65 community councils have not even yet adopted a code of conduct for members—99 unable to provide evidence that they maintain and publish a register of interests. Eighty-one failed to comply with the statutory timetable for publishing audited accounts, 260 submitted annual returns that were incomplete or contained simple errors, and 108 do not have a website and have not made other arrangements to publish information, and we know that 81 per cent of town and community council seats last year were uncontested or vacant.

Now, I and many others consider community councils to be a very important level in our five layers, currently, of democratic governance. How can we be assured, First Minister, that you will actually show some sort of involvement in this and that this review will actually deliver a new way of moving forward for our community councils so that our residents and our community councillors can be assured that all those relevant processes are in place in terms of transparency, democratic accountability and financial probity?

Well, as somebody who was once a community councillor, some time ago, I know how important community councils are. I think there are several issues there that the Member raises that will need to be looked at as part of the process. First of all, we have a lot of community councils. There are 700 of them. They vary wildly in size. Some represent barely more than 100 people, others many thousands of people. I don't think it's realistic for us to expect the same of all of them, given their differences in size. For example, Barry Town Council compared to Merthyr Mawr Community Council in my part of the world has an enormous difference in size, and there are some parts of Wales, the Rhondda, for example, where there are no community councils at all. So, as part of the review, I think it's hugely important to look at numbers, to look at capacity, to look at how we can give more powers to town and community councils—it may be asymmetric, because of the size difference—and how we can empower them in the future. All that will form, is forming, part of the review that's moving forward.

I think I'm right in saying—the Member for Monmouth will enlighten me on this—there is one, I think, community council in Monmouthshire where literally one in eight of the population have to be on the council in order for the council to have a full quota of members. That's what I've been told. Well, in those circumstances it is hugely difficult to have a situation where all seats are contested. And it's right to say that in a vigorous democracy—not necessarily on party political grounds, but, in a vigorous democracy, you want as many people to stand for community councils as possible. 

First Minister, in Taff Ely and Pontypridd, of course, we have six very well-run, exemplary community councils who've put forward this submission towards the consultations under way—that's Llantrisant, Llantwit Fardre, Pontyclun, Pontypridd, Taffs Well and Nantgarw, and Tonyrefail. They've put forward a number of recommendations in terms of how they see the role of community councils developing. I'm going to ask you about one of those, because one of the things they suggest is that well-run town and community councils could well be a very effective facilitator for local heritage, sport and cultural projects. Do you think this is an area that we should be examining with regard to community councils endorsing, supporting and upholding the local community, the local heritage, where they have real grass-roots knowledge?

Absolutely. I think active and activist community and town councils are a hugely important part of our democracy. Local knowledge can't be underestimated. For example, when I was a community councillor, we had people on there with an encyclopedic knowledge of the local footpaths. We were responsible for them and they were maintained as a result of that. That was very well felt in the community, because they could see the footpaths being maintained. So, it is important to see what we can do, first of all, to have consistency in terms of the sustainability of community and town councils, and then look to see what powers they can be given—as I've said, there are bound to be big differences in size—to see what powers are appropriate for whatever size community or town council they might be.