2. Will the Leader of the House report on the progress of the Welsh Government's digital action plan? OAQ51970

Yes. Work is progressing across all themes: leadership, transformation, skills and workforce, platform services, digital dialogue and engagement, and data. It's very important to me because it drives improvements in delivering the business of Government, and, of course, I oversee progress of the plan, which is owned by the Permanent Secretary, at the digital and data group, which I chair. 

Thank you for that reply. Leader of the house, I attended the cross-party group on hospices and palliative care at the end of last term. There, a barrier to more effective working and communications across disciplines was identified, and that is the inability of the various information technology systems to talk to each other, although I do understand improvements are under way. Only yesterday, during the statement on sexual health services, lack of effective IT systems were highlighted as a problem once again. I appreciate that health systems may not be in your remit, but this has got me thinking about public services innovation, and those services being fit for the present, never mind the future.

My research has led me to read your digital action plan 2017-20, a clear exercise in navel-gazing, if ever I saw one, with one paragraph—29—given to one of the main reasons we are here: our much-valued public services. The trail then led me to the 2012 'digital first' report. This was advice given to the Welsh Government, where leadership, strategy and direction were deemed vital to the future efficient delivery of public services. Now, this is 2018—this is the future. After 20 years of devolution, in a very small nation, can you please outline what leadership, strategy and direction the Welsh Government has shown in this key area?

I'll try and unpick that a little. The health services issue: my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for health and I do collaborate on health service issues, and, indeed, I attend the national informatics management board for the health service, which is NIMBY—always makes me smile, I'm afraid, but it doesn't mean what it normally means in normal parlance; it's the informatics board system. And the whole point of that is to co-ordinate IT progress across the health service, on a once-for-Wales basis, and to ensure that we do have systems that work—well, (a) that we have as few systems as possible, so we have similar systems across all health boards, and that, indeed, they do talk to each other, and that's very much a work in progress. And I'm sure the Cabinet Secretary for health would be happy to update you on exactly where we are with that. But I assure you, we are on top of that, and we have very vigorous conversations about it.

In terms of the Welsh Government itself, there are three aspects to your question, I think. One is the internal business of the Welsh Government, which I've just outlined in terms of the digital action plan, which is about the way the Welsh Government itself works. And the Member may know that we've just come off one of the big headline IT contracts, Atos, and we're moving to a more flexible system. The commission were several years ahead of the Government in this, and it's a different way of working. And that's what I was just outlining, and I'll be reporting on the progress on that plan very shortly. And then there's the work that I do with my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for public services, in local government and in the workforce partnership council, around digital innovation and improvement for the delivery of public services. We have an enormous agenda there, where we liaise with all public services—devolved and non-devolved public services in Wales—to ensure, again, that we have a similar once-for-Wales digitally connected system, where we roll out systems together. And my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance just spoke in his answers about the real success we've had with the Welsh Revenue Authority, which went live earlier this month—and I know he outlined it earlier—with all the online collection and management of the land transaction and landfill taxes all digitally enabled, and with all lawyers and conveyancers, and all the rest of it, all able to log on to that system, and do their transaction digitally.

So, we are very much ahead of that curve. There's a lot more to do, and there's a huge issue about understanding what the future looks like, in terms of the skills agenda as well. But the Welsh Government is very much, I think, on top of that agenda.

Leader of the house, there seems to be two aims of the Welsh Government's digital action plan—a more connected Wales and a more equal Wales. Now, you've published an update on your digital inclusion plan this morning, which I've had a read through, which cites good progress. But I have to say the reality is, of course, that thousands of my constituents, in Montgomeryshire, still suffer from slow or non-existent broadband connectivity at all. So, that means, of course, they simply cannot, and they are unable to, access Welsh Government services online. They don't feel more connected, and they don't feel part of a more equal Wales in this regard, and it will be, of course, of no surprise that I'm mentioning this to you. But can I ask for an update on the procurement of phase 2 of the Superfast Cymru project, and when will you be in a position to publish a full list of the 88,000 premises that will benefit from the next scheme?

Well, I have to say, I congratulate the Member for managing to get broadband into a conversation about the digital action plan of the Welsh Government, and I think there are a number of other questions later on the agenda on that. But the short answer is: I will be making a statement towards the end of May about the progress of Superfast 2, the three tendered projects, and the bespoke community issue, and I will expand further on that in later questions, Llywydd.

It is fair to say, of course, that there is for more interface between public services and the public happening online, so I think it’s a valid question. I have to say that many of my constituents have had enough of the empty promises that they’ve received in the past from people such as BT Openreach, or Openreach as they are now. Villages like Ysbyty Ifan to all intents and purposes have been misled by a company that clearly is more interested in protecting the interests of its shareholders than in providing services to the communities that it is supposed to serve. And even worse than that, the Welsh Government has given some false promises to constituents, with copies of letters that I’ve seen dating back to November 2015 promising resolutions in this area—one of them from you in a previous role as Minister for Skills and Technology from over two years ago. So, when will these rural communities, such as Ysbyty Ifan, at last be receiving the services that they deserve rather than the empty promises that they’ve had over the last few years?

I'm sorry that the Member feels they were empty promises. We do go out of our way to say that the dates mentioned in the letters are shiftable and are not promised connection dates. But I've said many times in this Chamber that I share his frustration and the frustration of those who were scheduled in the programme and then who, for whatever complicated reason, fell out at the end. The Superfast 2 programme will very much be trying to address people who were inside the superfast 1 programme and, for whatever reason, fell out of it. I cannot promise that they will all be addressed. There are some complicated issues there. 

Many people in Wales are stuck behind wayleave issues, for example. I think we have 10,000 premises stuck behind wayleaves at the moment, and, unfortunately, because it's not considered to be a utility, the Welsh Government and the contractors that the Welsh Government procures have no right to cross land. If a landowner refuses access to land we have no way of making them give us that access and that's just one example of many that there are across Wales. 

But I do share the Member's frustration. I am going out to very many communities in Wales talking about whether a community solution is possible for villages, such as the one you've just mentioned, and whether we can do one of our bespoke solutions for a group of people who are geographically proximate or whether some other solution might be best, and I'm going down to Ceredigion next week I think. 

Yes, Thursday. Four o'clock. [Laughter.] Llanina Arms. 

I'm looking forward to it already. [Laughter.]