The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Julie James, and amendments 2, 3 and 4 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected.

The next item, therefore, is the Welsh Conservatives' debate on local government reform. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move the motion. Janet Finch-Saunders.

Motion NDM6707 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes that the Welsh Government Green Paper—Strengthening Local Government: Delivering for People—is the third proposal in three years put forward by the Welsh Government on local government reform.

2. Further notes that local authorities were working towards regional arrangements put forward under the Cabinet Secretary Local Government and Public Service’s predecessor.

3. Regrets that the latest proposal has caused sustained periods of uncertainty for councils and their frontline staff.

4. Is concerned by the continual top-down nature of Welsh local government reform, as shown by the lack of meaningful engagement with council leaders and Chief Executives in the preparation of this paper, as well as the absence of strategic cost and benefit analysis taken on all previous local government reform proposals.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I move the motion in the name of Paul Davies AM. The recent announcement of the Green Paper by the Cabinet Secretary on 20 March, without any prior discussions with us as AMs, is the third attempt by this Welsh Labour Government to reform the structure of local government in Wales. One would have thought, as a result of two previous failed attempts to bring forward legislation to futureproof our local authorities, that this attempt would have been done in a more strategic, considerate and engaging manner. Despite previous rhetoric about wanting to work in a respectful manner with local authority members and AMs, the proposals going forward actually show a distinct lack of acknowledgment of the effect that this top-down diktat has on those working within the sector. 

How disappointing also that the promises by the previous Cabinet Secretary, Mark Drakeford AM, who did engage with us, actually, in offering up a regional form of working and assuring councils of a 10-year stable platform from which to take forward reform, have simply been rubbished by such a heavy-handed and dictatorial approach. The WLGA have raised concerns, accusing you, Cabinet Secretary, in their words, of 'recycling failed plans', through the continuance of top-down politics towards local authorities that we saw fail in the fourth Assembly under the previous proposals for forced mergers. Your intent to use statutory frameworks to force mergers through is an insult to those in this sector who have more than jumped through enough hoops to satisfy the Welsh Labour Government over the past 20 years on your watch. The WLGA and others have stated that most academic analysis concludes that such reform programmes rarely deliver the savings or changes in performance that were hoped for. 

When scrutinised on these proposals, you clearly stated that you have engaged and consulted with the sector. However, I know, from my own visits to local authorities across the political divide, and through talking to many elected members, that they were as surprised as we were by such a bullish approach in announcing these disruptive and counter-productive plans. Councillor Thomas, leader of Vale of Glamorgan, categorically stated that

'Typically there has been no meaningful discussion or engagement with councils, or more importantly the local residents that will be affected, ahead of these plans being published.'

A Wrexham councillor has also termed the proposed merger with Flintshire an expensive disaster waiting to happen, whilst the council's independent leader described the ongoing debate as 

'a cross between Fawlty Towers, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Yes Minister'.

The Welsh Local Government Association stated to the ELGC committee during the previous proposals for forced mergers that it would be impossible for authorities to meet merger proposal costs without significant cuts to front-line services. Without a joined-up, strategic and professional approach, yet another set of proposals for forced mergers, lacking in any cost benefit or risk analysis, is destined to fail. This ham-fisted top-down approach from here is not the way forward. In a business setting, reform would start and it would finish by being led from within the very sector that one is looking to reform—incidentally, in this instance, a sector for which I have a tremendous amount of confidence and respect. As the leader of the WLGA, Councillor Debbie Wilcox, said,

'We didn't need Welsh Government to mandate us to work regionally. We just got on with it, because we recognised it was in the interests of the people and the communities we serve.'

Indeed, Councillor Peter Fox has said:

'Councils in south-east Wales have been working hard towards the last recommendations from the Welsh Government, which asked us to work collaboratively on regional footprints.'

And what a splendid example: the Cardiff capital region's city deal, with 10 local authorities all working together across the political divide to improve the economic prosperity of the region, brilliantly epitomised by the leader—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, go on.

All I was going to say is that exactly the same has been done in the Swansea city region.

It was brilliantly epitomised by the leader of Cardiff council, Huw Thomas, when he said:

'We would have concerns about any process of reorganisation or of renationalisation which distracted us from our delivery agenda.'

Time and time again, we have seen bullish and defiant responses from you, Cabinet Secretary, in scrutiny here and during a meeting with the WLGA, in stating that opposition to your proposals made good television but not good politics. Do you not realise that you are playing with the hearts and minds of the very people who deliver such vital services to our most vulnerable, to our children and all of our residents on a daily basis, 24 hours, 365?

There is no doubt that all of us within this Chamber are seeking to improve our public service delivery across Wales, with many believing, though, that this is a bigger mandate than local government alone. If we go back to the Williams commission's original report, solid recommendations for public service reform were there in their entirety. The Green Paper mentions the delivery of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 through local government reform, but this cannot be done alone. Speak to any experienced and honest broker working within the public sector across the length and breadth of Wales, and they will tell you: Wales does not need another set of local government proposals. What Wales fundamentally needs, however, is a thorough review of our whole public services sector. We know that to fulfil our obligations under the Well-being of Future Generations Act, we must ensure better working between local authorities, health, social services, education and housing. Cabinet Secretary, why are you not being more radical here? Why are you not seeking a wholescale reform of public services in Wales? Why are you not opening this up to a much wider debate? How will you bring this to your Cabinet Secretary colleagues around the table to ensure that this is actually taken forward in a uniform and joined-up manner?

Time is running out, Cabinet Secretary, for this Government—your Welsh Labour Government—to futureproof our public services across Wales. You are in a privileged position, with the population of Wales depending on this Welsh Government to get it right this time. You have the levers, you have the power and you have the resources to achieve a fundamental ambition—a fundamental reform of our public services across Wales, working with them, not against them, and working throughout all of these sectors, as I have mentioned. You cannot do this alone—you cannot take local government reform forward alone. It has to be far more strategically planned than this.

I've got to be honest with you. It's not a phrase I like, but these are fag-packet proposals—written-on-the-back-of-a-fag-packet proposals—that you are intending to put forward. It's a fundamental betrayal of all of those who work in our public services across Wales. They're all hungry, they're all anxious and they're all keen to work with you to actually see a radical reform of our public services going forward, and that will sustain us for years to come. I would say these proposals are a lazy ambition once again, and I sincerely urge you now to go back to the drawing board, speak to your colleagues in Welsh Government, and please bring back some strategically well-planned, costed proposals for a total and radical public service reform. With a model worthy of any Government in Wales, maybe then, and only then, we will get behind you on such a mission.  

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

I have selected the four amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. And I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Julie James. 

Amendment 1. Julie James

Delete all and replace with:

1. Notes the Welsh Government’s Green Paper—Strengthening Local Government: Delivering for People—which is currently out for consultation.

2. Notes the current configuration of 22 local authorities in Wales is not sustainable.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally. 

Diolch. I call on Siân Gwenllian to move amendments 2, 3 and 4, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. 

Amendment 2. Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point after point 2 and renumber accordingly: 

Regrets the austerity that has led to major cuts to local government budgets for many years, and the continuous uncertainty that councils face in terms of their financial situation and possible re-organisation.

Amendment 3. Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point after point 3 and renumber accordingly:

Regrets the Cabinet Secretary's lack of acknowledgement of the importance of working constructively and maintaining the relationship between the Welsh Government and local authorities. 

Amendment. 4 Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion: 

Believes that any proposals for local government reorganisation should aim to strengthen local democracy, integrate health and care, strengthen the Welsh language and offer more effective services to its users.

Amendments 2, 3 and 4 moved.

Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Green Paper on local government reform, which is the result, of course, of an unexpected u-turn by this Government. ‘Strengthening Local Government: Delivering for People’ is the title of the latest document, and I agree entirely with the need to strengthen our councils. Local government that is resilient and sustainable, that provides support for the most vulnerable in our communities, is important in a nation where fairness is one of our core values. But I am not entirely convinced that introducing expensive reorganisation at a time of austerity is the most effective way of strengthening local government. 

The services that are provided by local government are creaking following years of cuts that stem directly from the objectionable ideology of the Tories in Westminster. Our councils have already had to trim their budgets to the bone, and the councils are in the process of finding millions upon millions in savings again in order to be able to set budgets for the next financial year. I heard yesterday that Ceredigion council had lost 700 jobs already, so it’s a huge challenge, and the focus of leaders, heads and councillors is understandably on how to maintain services with a shrinking budget. Plaid Cymru councils are trying to do this in a way that protects those who most need support, while also supporting staff who provide the support often.

Even at a time of austerity, I am pleased to see that Gwynedd Council has introduced the living wage, or higher, for all staff and eliminated zero-hours contracts entirely. But by now, it’s not always possible to protect groups with needs from cuts as the austerity policies really start to bite. No wonder, therefore, that there is no appetite for reorganisation among Welsh council leaders, as the Cabinet Secretary found when he recently attended the lion’s den at the Welsh Local Government Association.

A great deal of efficiency savings have already been made, and it is now a question of how much additional savings can be made by merging councils, given the significant costs involved in the process itself. The councils have already established regional arrangements in many areas, and the evolutionary approach of the former Cabinet Secretary was proceeding smoothly in many parts of Wales.

Although the current Cabinet Secretary has claimed that local government leaders have told him that they did not want to move forward with the suggestions and proposals relating to regional working, I think the mandatory element was the bone of contention, not the regionalisation itself. What the councils did not like was that Mark Drakeford's White Paper was taking the councils into regional arrangements through legislation in three areas, and this is an example of one of the ongoing tensions that exist between local government and central Government, of course. But not liking being forced to work regionally has turned into real anger regarding this u-turn, regarding the attempt to return to the unsuccessful proposals of the previous former Cabinet Secretary, who raised the hackles of everyone, of every political stripe. Maintaining constructive relationships and collaboration between the Welsh Government and local authorities is at the heart of improving services.

Any reform or reorganisation needs to happen for a purpose, and Plaid Cymru has set out a number of core principles that should be at the heart of any reform, namely making the services provided by local government more effective for users, strengthening local democracy, moving towards the integration of health and care, and strengthening the Welsh language.

Just to mention, in closing, one of those principles, there’s a lot of good practice happening in terms of integrating health and care for the elderly, and it is best done if it happens from the bottom up and happens entirely naturally if the needs of the person for whom the service is provided is given priority. In Gwynedd, there are five integrated teams for older people working across the county, where social workers and community nurses and so on—people from both sectors—work together putting the person at the heart of everything they do. At a regional level, the councils are commissioning social services jointly.

Therefore, there is change happening. The councils are working together and working to be more sustainable, and I’m afraid that this new Green Paper is not very welcome.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and I'll be focusing my contribution on the effects that any local government reform could have on my area.

Members will not be surprised that I remain completely opposed to the proposals for local government reform in Pembrokeshire, which would see the whole of west Wales returning to a Dyfed model of governance. It's my view that any proposals for the merger of Pembrokeshire with Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion will not result in a more effective delivery of public services in west Wales. Of course, the people of west Wales have previously lived under a Dyfed model of governance and that model was abolished in 1996. And why was that? Well, it was quite clear that the geographic size and diversity of the whole Dyfed area presented significant challenges to the authority and, as a result, Dyfed County Council was seen as remote and unpopular by many local communities. Therefore, it's my view that the current Welsh Government's proposals will only return west Wales to an outdated, unpopular authority unable to cope with the challenges that it had already failed to address in the past.

Now, in analysing local government reform, the Williams commission recognised that a return to the Dyfed model would, and I quote,

'cover the largest area of any UK unitary authority outside the most rural and remote parts of Scotland while having a significantly higher population than any of those areas.'

The report also recognised that only the Scottish council areas of Highland, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway and Aberdeenshire are geographically larger than the proposed Dyfed style authority, however each of these Scottish council areas have a population that is much less than the proposed Dyfed model. So, if the Welsh Government commits to returning to a Dyfed model, it will have to manage a similar geography to those Scottish council authorities as well as a substantially higher population. Therefore, perhaps in responding to today's debate, the Cabinet Secretary could confirm why a Dyfed model is even being considered at this stage, particularly given that the proposals confirm that Powys would continue to be a stand-alone authority, presumably because of its geography and population.

The Cabinet Secretary knows that I believe that creating bigger authorities does not mean better services and ultimately takes the 'local' out of local government. Surely, it would be far more appropriate to be discussing what specific services we want to see delivered by local authorities in the future before deciding on an actual structure. 

Now, the people of Pembrokeshire have already seen the impact that centralising services has had on their communities, following the continual downgrading and removal of services from Withybush hospital. The centralisation agenda has had a detrimental impact on local communities and I fear that we in Pembrokeshire would see the same with council services if we allow these proposals to go ahead.

In my own constituency, there are also very serious concerns regarding the impact of these proposals on the Pembrokeshire brand. Only last month, Countryfile magazine named Pembrokeshire 'destination of the year', recognising the quality of its natural beauty and wildlife. Given its coastline and ports, Pembrokeshire is fast becoming a global leader in the marine energy market, both as a generator of energy and as an exporter of marine energy knowledge. And last but not least, Pembrokeshire is famous for its first-class food and drink, such as Capestone bronze turkeys, Pembrokeshire cheese and Pembrokeshire potatoes. All of these variables contribute to creating a strong and unique global reputation for Pembrokeshire, and I believe that reputation is at risk if the county is submerged into a wider authority under the Dyfed model.

However, perhaps the most important consideration of all should be for the people who will have to live under this proposed authority. Three years ago, Pembrokeshire County Council—Labour councillors, along with others—voted in favour of a motion that recognised that these proposals will not help economically, socially or provide better local services. Therefore, perhaps the Cabinet Secretary will tell us in responding to this debate whether he agrees with his Labour colleagues on this matter.

In closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, it's my view that a merger between Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion will simply see a return to a time when local government was distant and unrepresentative. There is no public appetite to create this new mass authority. Indeed, it seems that this is the only ambition for local government reform in west Wales, rather than a discussion on the general power of competence to local authorities and what services we want to see delivered at a local level.

The WLGA, in their evidence to the Williams commission said that, and I quote:

'Wales is a nation of communities and community identity and loyalty are powerful mobilising and unifying characteristics that Wales must seek to capitalise on in the coming period.'

Therefore, I encourage Members to support our motion and help protect those local communities and identities.

The bleak truth is that, without an end to austerity, public services as we know them are under threat. This is understandably a difficult thing for a Labour Government that cares about these services to face up to, but pretending that changing the number of councils will avoid that difficult truth is sticking our heads in the sand.

So far, the debate seems not to have progressed beyond the superficial '22 is too many' gut reaction that the Welsh Government seems to struggle to get away from. That is clearly not a sufficient evidential basis for a very costly course of action. Surely, the burden of proof is on the Welsh Government to find out what the cost of reorganisation would be and what benefits would arise from it. I certainly think the financial benefits are in danger of being overstated. Whether you have eight, 10, 12 or 22 councils, they still have to educate the same number of children in the same number of schools, collect the same number of bins and care for the same number of vulnerable people. These are the key drivers of cost.

This is especially true as, since the last investigation into wholesale reorganisation, massive savings in administration costs have been made by Welsh councils. In Torfaen council last year alone, they saved £1 million from their administrative and business services review, and there have been countless other efforts to reduce central costs. I know that Torfaen will continue to pursue collaborations and different ways of working, but recent experience suggests that, increasingly, these have service, quality and resilience benefits rather than cash savings. The danger is that, without looking objectively and in great detail at the evidence, the cost of reorganisation is understated and the benefits overstated. So, Welsh Government would spend a lot of money—over £200 million—and save very little, whilst disrupting service delivery for several years.

And what evidence is there to show that bigger is better? While some of the smaller authorities have in the past faced challenges, it has been some of those small authorities that have shown some of the best performance or had some of the best inspection reports. In the latest performance bulletin from Data Cymru, Torfaen was the ninth-best performing authority and ninth-most improved. What the data shows is that size is no determinant of performance, with smaller authorities generally better performing. While capacity is critical, this suggests that factors such as leadership and culture are critical to success rather than scale.

Lastly, what consideration has been given by Welsh Government to the sort of organisations they would be creating? What are the faults of local government as currently constituted? And I'm not pretending there aren't any, but, crucially, how would reorganisation make them better? Contrasting the current situation with some imagined perfection is not a sensible starting point. The danger with large units would be that they would be distant from people, parochially divided, and would resist the collaboration and creative thinking that would still be needed however large they were. It is leadership and culture that drives improvement, not scale.

When I spoke on this issue in the debate on the Williams commission report back in 2014, I made clear my view that reorganisation is not a panacea. In the four years that have passed, we have gone from proposed reorganisation to more regional collaboration and now back to consulting on reorganisation again. Four years on, I am more convinced than ever that reorganising local government in a time of austerity and with Brexit on the horizon would be a disaster.

Thanks to the Conservatives for bringing today's debate. The proposed local government reorganisation—or rather the latest version of it—is a big issue, and it's bound to be controversial. Whatever change a Minister decides to make to the composition of a local council, somebody will complain about it. So, to be fair to the Minister, as I said at the last Minister's questions, whatever he does, it's bound to be controversial, as you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Or to use another metaphor, you can't smoke the fags without breaking open the fag packet. That said, the Welsh Government have really made a meal of this reorganisation over the past three years. We are on to the third different Minister and the third different plan, although, as Siân Gwenllian pointed out the last time we discussed this, the latest version is not so very different to the original plan, which was Leighton Andrews's model.

So, we do have to acknowledge, as the Conservatives are doing with today's motion, that this whole saga has created a lot of uncertainty among the staff who work in local government. In some cases, it can lead to a kind of paralysis, whereby councils can't really plan on a major scale as they have no idea whether they will still exist in a few years' time, and it can also make officer recruitment difficult.

Another issue raised by the WLGA is that the latest plan interferes with the regional working that many councils were already pursuing with other bodies and authorities, and I think that this is also a valid point. We also have a lack of clarity over whether the proposed new, larger councils will actually deliver cost benefits, which is the main reason for creating them in the first place. So, in UKIP, we think these are valid points, and we will be supporting the Conservative motion today.

Lynne Neagle just spoke about the need for a base of evidence before we undergo any reorganisation, and I think a lot of the points that she made were also very valid. They were also touching on things that Mike Hedges mentioned last time. He reminded us that every time we have a local government reorganisation in Wales, which is roughly every 20 years, we are told that this one is the definitive one, and the reorganisation to end all reorganisations, but this never actually turns out to be the case. We've had the reorganisations in 1974, and again in 1995, and now another one is looming, and after each reorganisation, within a few years, we hear from Government that the councils in Wales are too small and they aren't sustainable. At this rate, we will end up with another reorganisation in 20 years' time, which will leave us with four or five councils. I'm afraid that once you get to that level, you are really moving away from any meaningful sense of people being represented by local ward councillors, and you are merging together areas with no real historic connection and that may be completely different in terms of their economies and their demographics, which is what we are in danger of doing with this current reorganisation.

The other point that has been raised, again by Lynne Neagle, is to do with the actual cost benefits, and Mike Hedges also made this point last time. We haven't had any real cost-benefit analysis, so we don't know whether larger councils will actually deliver the savings that the Government is promising. We've already seen mergers of health boards in Wales, and we've ended up with larger bodies, which don't seem to be universally performing particularly well. So, the worst aspect of this local government reorganisation is that it may cause more job losses, deliver fewer services to the public, and still not save any meaningful money in terms of councils' operating costs.

We do agree with the Welsh Government that we are consulting on a Green Paper on this, and we agree with them broadly that 22 local councils is not sustainable. So, we actually agree in very broad terms with their amendment.

What we do want is more shared working, but we know that there is shared working between different councils going on already. To some extent, this has been driven by financial imperatives because the councils are dealing with reduced budgets, so they have to pursue shared working in order to reduce costs.

A potential problem is that shared working is taking different forms. In some areas, two neighbouring councils are working together, in other cases, three or four different councils are pooling resources. And to add to the mix, we now have two city regions in Wales and two other regional areas connected to growth deals. On top of that, we also have strategic development plans coming in that will require another combination of different councils. So, there is a danger that, unless the Welsh Government Minister keeps a firm grip on this, the pattern of local and regional government in Wales could suddenly become very piecemeal, very complex, and for the voter, very confusing. So, the Minister does have a major role to play in guiding local government. However, we would prefer this to include a larger measure of consultation with the affected councils.

So, we do agree with the Conservatives; we think they're right to be raising these issues today and we do support their motion. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I'm grateful for this opportunity to speak on this latest set of proposals from the Welsh Government to reform local government. This document represents the third set of proposals in the last three years, and who knows, after the Cabinet reshuffle coming at the end of this year, it may not be the last.

Local government in Wales is in need of reform. The Williams commission set up to investigate local government reorganisation recommended merging councils into 10, 11 or 12 new authorities. However, after inviting local authorities to submit proposals for voluntary mergers, the Ministers at the time rejected plans to merge six local authorities into three. The Minister then published his own unilateral proposal to cut the number of local authorities to eight or nine. This plan proved controversial across Wales. The Welsh Government policy of deliberately bypassing the concern of local authorities, the WLGA and communities has created an atmosphere of considerable uncertainty that continues today.

Councillor Peter Fox, the great councillor of Monmouth, this week called the Welsh Government's plan—your plan—'unsettling'. That is his wording on the first page of the local newspaper. He went on to say that council leaders have already made great strides on working together. All the mergers would see would be modest financial advantages, but that would be minimal when compared to the cost of merging.

Cost is just one of the questions left unanswered by this Green Paper. Genuine concern has been raised about council tax harmonisation. Band 4 council tax payers in Monmouthshire and Torfaen could face paying up to £300 extra under the Cabinet Secretary's new plans. What level of financial support can local authorities expect from the Welsh Government to assist with mergers and to take into account the potential impact on the delivery of public services in the short term? Newport is one of the areas, Deputy Presiding Officer, for relocating asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants. There is an increasing demand on Newport to provide specific services to support these vulnerable groups. The effectiveness and ability of local authorities to deliver quality services in this field must be maintained.

How will the Welsh Government engage with the local communities themselves to ensure they are fully involved in the merger process? What reassurances will be given to the local authorities' workforce to provide them with the stability to deliver high-quality services when faced with an indeterminate scale of redundancies?

These questions need to be addressed, but any proposal to reform local government in Wales must also address the democratic deficit. Poor voter turnout is indicative of the lack of engagement between councils and the communities they serve. Black, minorities and ethnic people are significantly under-represented in the world of politics in Wales. A local government candidate survey in 2012 showed that only 1 per cent of councillors in Wales are from non-white backgrounds, and that's the figure.

As a result of last year's local elections, just over 28 per cent of councillors are women. The absence of any real diversity of gender, age and ethnicity in Welsh local government persists. Local politicians need to be able to relate to their constituents, understand their needs and to speak up about the issues that directly affect them. Deputy Presiding Officer, local government reform offers opportunities to rethink how council services are delivered and to renew our democracy. I urge the Welsh Government to consult and engage to maximise the benefit in terms of cost and service delivery, and not try to impose a top-down programme—and it's not fit for all, which is really what we need to look at. Thank you very much.

The Welsh local government reorganisation of 1974 created eight county councils and 37 district councils, ending county boroughs, which were unitary authorities. The reason? We needed larger authorities and uniformity, and many of the urban district councils and rural district councils were too small. Then, in 1992, 22 principal councils were formed, and it's these unitary authorities that have governed Wales since 1996.

Both the Williams commission established by Carwyn Jones, and subsequent proposals put forward by Leighton Andrews as public services Minister, have recommended reducing the number of Welsh local authorities further still. Local government mergers are again being considered, and there's a political consensus that we need larger authorities, although calling a reconstituted Dyfed a local council does—at least to me—seem a little strange. Perhaps it's based upon the great success of Hywel Dda as a health board. This is built upon the belief that larger councils perform better and are more efficient. Well, England and Scotland have several unitary authorities larger than Cardiff, but Scotland has five smaller than Merthyr—Inverclyde, Clackmannanshire, Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland—and England has one, Rutland.

If larger authorities were more efficient and effective, two things would happen: council tax would be lower and performance would be better. The larger authorities and Powys, for which merging has not been deemed necessary, should charge the lowest amounts. I'm always amazed by why Powys is treated differently to anywhere else in Wales, but—. Whilst the two smallest authorities have the highest council tax, medium-sized authorities appear to perform better than either large or small authorities when it comes to the cost of council tax to residents.

Does council performance show that the larger authorities by population perform better? According to the Western Mail, 

'the quality of services delivered by local authorities in Wales is not determined by the size of the council'.

The Western Mail figures are based on 28 indicators across a range of local government areas, including education, social care, housing, environment and transport, planning and regulatory services, leisure, culture and corporate health, with four points on offer for councils that performed in the top quartile of each indicator, and one point for those at the bottom. From this data, it is not possible to conclude that larger councils and Powys perform better, because medium-sized authorities take three of the top four places. 

In Scotland, the variation in council tax is much less than in Wales, but the lowest council tax is in the Western Islands and Shetland, two of the smallest authorities, and the largest council tax is in Glasgow, which is the largest.

Over the last 25 years, there have been service reorganisations that have created larger organisations throughout the whole of the Welsh Government-controlled public sector—health being a classic example. There is generally a political consensus at the National Assembly that these larger organisations are better than small ones and mergers are generally a good thing.

Mergers are expensive, not just with redundancy costs and the cost of rebadging the organisation, ICT—and, for those people who have been following it, after the creation of Natural Resources Wales, the number of times they came back to ask for more money to borrow in order to meet their ICT problems was continual. And it's inevitable; ICT is the bit that hangs over any reorganisation of any organisation. Yes.

Thanks for giving way, Mike Hedges. I don't disagree with a word you've said so far. Will you undertake to abandon these plans when you become Cabinet Secretary for local government? [Laughter.]

I thank Nick Ramsay for—

I'm interested in this answer. [Laughter.]

Can I thank Nick Ramsay for his comments? I don't think these proposals are the right way forward. That's all I will say. [Interruption.] 

Because, ICT, people are under contract, they need to be updated or closed down on merger and sometimes you pay—[Interruption.] Sometimes you pay—

Calm down.

—so much per 1,000 or 10,000 items in your database or in your structure, and that means that merging doesn't necessarily save you any money, because, if you go from 10,000 to 15,000, you don't say, 'Oh, we've merged two', you actually—. And you have to produce the same number of payslips. You're not going to pay fewer people because you've merged.

All these are up-front costs and whilst the cost of local government reorganisation was approximately 5 per cent of annual expenditure last time, we also know there are other things now that have happened in terms of the change in terms and conditions.

If you follow the simplistic conclusions of some, then, following a merger, all senior post duplication is removed and thus substantial ongoing savings are made. Economic theory predicts that an organisation may become less efficient if it becomes too large. Larger organisations often suffer from poor communication, because they find it difficult to maintain an effective flow of information between departments, divisions or between head office and outlying parts. Co-ordination problems also affect large organisations. 'X-inefficiency' is the loss of management efficiency that occurs when organisations become large and operate in uncompetitive markets. Such losses of efficiency include overpaying for resources, including senior staff—that might be something that some people might be thinking about—and excessive waste of resources.

Can I just add, if the Cabinet Secretary's got evidence—empirical evidence—that larger organisations in the public sector, and especially local government, anywhere in the world are working more efficiently and cost effectively, will he publish it? Because I'm unable to find any.

I'm sorry to come back to this, Cabinet Secretary, but I do think that it's very telling that both the motion and one of the Plaid amendments reflect that the Cabinet Secretary hasn't really embarked on this process in the most politic of ways. Both refer to an inadequate approach to engaging with and influencing current council leaders. I think we all understand the need to take some action on this agenda, but in serving up old hash rather than engaging councils in preparing the menu, you really are starting to lose hope of nourishing those you need to take with you. I'm sure you remember the mess within Labour ranks in Bridgend the last time somebody kindly suggested who they should be teaming up with. There were splits and expulsions, which, of course, while they might have been a little bit of fun for other political parties, were a huge distraction, which damaged the council's authority and soaked up a lot of time when the council could have been doing something useful for its residents. And I don't actually think it was all about self-interest on the part of those who were caught up in the fight. What still lingers there is the feeling that they were pushed into having a fight by proposals that they didn't design, and where opportunities for damage limitation weren't offered in the early stages of policy development. I think a post facto consultation like the one we have now is not really going to allay that resentment.

I suspect you're also going to run into difficulties with the existing collaboration models, which have already been mentioned, and the desire for coterminosity. Your Government introduced the regional partnership boards and, at the moment, Western Bay in my region mirrors not just constituency boundaries, more or less, but also Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board's. Moving Bridgend-based hospital care into Cwm Taf, which is as definitely on the cards as it can be, I think, completely throws that coterminosity, but, of course, would restore it if your idea of a merger between Bridgend County Borough Council and Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council goes ahead. A change of local health board responsibility, which was viewed with some understandable anxiety to begin with, has now become a change sparking anger and, again, resentment, because it looks like Welsh Government has jumped the gun by presuming that its version of local government reform will go through. 

And what's going to happen to those regional partnership boards? I guess there will be some amendments to the Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013, but I'm quite keen to find out what you're going to do to the Local Government (Wales) Act 2015 itself. If you remember, it was based on a November 2015 deadline. So, will you be taking this off the statute books as it's otiose now? If there was ever a nonsensical piece of legislation, it was that—imposing deadlines on local authorities only for them not to be met, or, where they were, preferred plans ignored. And Janet Finch-Saunders laid bare that, the glaring faults of that legislation, as it was going through, but it was dismissed out of hand, as were, indeed, the views of council leaders.

So, if you're planning, Cabinet Minister, to be a little bit more conciliatory than the Minister at the time, perhaps you could give us an indication of which bits of that Act you will be looking at retaining, because I see some familiar phrases in the Green Paper, but I do urge you to drop the idea of powers to block local authorities designing themselves along the principles of mayoral cabinets. Why should it be Welsh Government who decides that? This place has recently been successful in acquiring the powers to determine its own structures and electoral system, opening up discussion. So, why would Government now consider closing down discussion on what councils, including merged councils, could look like?

Two final points, as others have talked more generally about cost—can you tell me whether you will be thrashing out the effects of merger on council tax and council debt before even considering any exercise of Executive power? As the terms of the withdrawal from the EU must be agreed before exit, then so should the terms of merger be agreed before merger of councils—up front, not at secondary legislation stage. And will you tell me also what you've done to ensure that this new wave of uncertainty does not impact one jot on the progress being made by the two city deals that affect my region? Plans for the new Dyfed—and Paul Davies has raised plenty of problems with them already—they're not just completely at odds with coterminosity ambitions, but it places any new merged council in a very difficult position as regards the residents of Ceredigion and their exclusion, at the moment, from the economic uplift for which only Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire councils are contracted.

Now, of course, it's always going to be pretty lairy with the council leaders. I think we probably could all have anticipated that, but I am left wondering what has happened to the Alun Davies who, when he was Minister for Welsh language, made great play in this Chamber of how he was all about his low-pressure reasonableness, strewing flowers along the path to enlightenment and bringing local councils to a place of understanding, rather than bringing them to heel, which is what we have now.

Thank you. Can I now call the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services, Alun Davies?

For the second time in a few months I'm left speechless, Deputy Presiding Officer. I seem to have left my floral tributes in another place, and I'm left only with my wit and wisdom. So, this could be a very short contribution. [Laughter.] But I will answer the point because I thought it was a very interesting and thoughtful speech that we've just heard from Suzy Davies, who did challenge me, I felt, in a very fair and reasonable way. We do not wish, of course, to impose. We wish to reach agreement. And there is agreement, actually, and there is agreement across local government and, I believe—. We heard from the UKIP spokesperson this afternoon, and we've heard in other places politicians on all sides of the Chamber, recognising that the current structures we have are not sustainable. And, in the first meeting I had with the WLGA in Cardiff city hall back in November, the WLGA themselves were very, very clear then that the current structures are not sustainable: 22 local authorities in a country of 3 million people is simply not a sustainable structure, and that is—

Will you take an intervention?

I will allow you to intervene.

And that was coming from the WLGA, and not from Welsh Government.

How does that compare against the rest of western Europe?

Well, the WLGA didn't go as far as that, I'm afraid to say, but I will say to my very good friend from Swansea East, who has made a speech that isn't entirely unfamiliar to me, that, as a country, we are not the greatest population on the planet. The population of Wales is slightly more than Paris or Rome, but below that of Berlin and Madrid. We need the structures that reflect properly the communities that we serve, and I thought the points made by Paul Davies in that respect were fairly made and were good and reasonable points. We, of course, both lived in Dyfed in those days, and I would very gently remind the Member for Preseli that some of the problems of Dyfed were caused, of course, by a Conservative Secretary of State who, at that time, cut local government significantly, and we saw significant issues not only in Dyfed but across Wales.

When I talk to local government leaders—. I'm delighted that the Conservative spokesperson Janet Finch-Saunders is on a tour of Wales. We might even bump into each other at some point, and we'll look forward to those conversations. But, when I travel Wales, and I travel to visit and to speak to councillors, councils and council leaders, they do make, sometimes, some very robust points, let's face it. We have very robust and challenging conversations. But, do you know, not one of them—not one of them—nobody anywhere has said to me, 'I wish we had a Conservative Minister delivering Conservative policies, as they are doing across the border in England'. Not one of them. Even your Conservative councillor. I agree with Oscar's description of Peter Fox—he's a great local authority leader—but I have to say I'm still awaiting the correspondence where he seeks to influence me as to following Conservative policies in England, which have reduced, in the last six or seven or eight years, the spending power of local authorities by 49 per cent. [Interruption.] I always know when I'm making progress because the Member for Clwyd West begins to pipe up.

The spending power of local authorities in England has been reduced by 49 per cent. Now, the Conservative spokesperson, the Member for Aberconwy, said that we needed to respect local government, and I agree with her—we do. But cutting by half the support for local services is not showing respect, it is showing disregard. It is showing that they don't give a damn for those services or the people delivering those services, and that's the reality of Conservative policy. The Conservatives have stood this afternoon amid, at times, I will agree, some reasonable and fair points about a programme of mergers. But what they haven't reminded the Chamber is that the Conservative Government in England hasn't just compelled and enabled mergers to take place, but has done so without any support and any funding at all, anywhere, at any point. So, it's not right or proper for them to come here and oppose policies that have been pursued by a Government here that seeks to support and empower local government whilst at the same time not taking responsibility for some of the policies they themselves support across the border. [Interruption.] I want to make some progress, if I could. I can see that time is against me.

Because I want to go beyond the conversation that perhaps we've had this afternoon. All too often when we debate and discuss local government we discuss lines on maps and we discuss a programme of mergers. I believe that a programme of creating larger local authorities is a prerequisite to something else, and it is the something else that is important to me. I will let Members here into a secret. When I go to bed at night, I do not—[Interruption.] I'm going to finish the sentence. I do not—[Interruption.]

Can we all calm down?

I do not place either a copy of the Green Paper or a map of the new authorities under my pillow. I do not do that. I do not dream, I do not wake with a start at three o'clock in the morning dreaming of new authorities in the Vale of Glamorgan or in the Vale of Clwyd or elsewhere, or the return of the flag of Dyfed and the kings of Deheubarth. I don't dream or think of things like that, and I am not committed to a particular model or a particular geography, but I am committed to something else. I am committed to empowered local government. I am committed to stronger local government and better local democracy and democratic accountability. And do you know what motivates me, what does keep me up at night? It's knowing that 700 people in Ceredigion have been made redundant because of what is happening to local government today. What keeps me awake at night is knowing there are people who are afraid of seeing the council tax bill because councils are struggling facing austerity and facing difficulties in balancing their budgets, and that is in the context where this Government has protected those budgets and protected those services. We haven't seen anything like the cuts in Wales that we've seen in England, but we've seen the disruption to services and the failure to deliver services at different times because we have a structure that is simply not fit for purpose and is not sustainable, and the WLGA agree with that analysis, and I know people on all sides of the Chamber agree with that.

But let's go beyond a dry and tired debate on lines on maps and mergers. Let's look at the vision. It isn't good enough—it isn't good enough for any Member on any side of the Chamber here today simply to stand up and make a speech telling us what they oppose and what they don't like. We are not paid to tell people what we don't like. We are not paid to tell people about the problems they already know about. We are paid here to find solutions to those problems, to find solutions to the difficulties that people face. And let me say this—I know that time is against me, Deputy Presiding Officer—Welsh Labour believes in this policy of creating larger, stronger councils because we want to protect our services, we want to protect the people who deliver those services, and we want to deliver greater democratic accountability. We want a new culture, we want a new relationship between this place and local government. I said in my speech on the weekend in Llandudno that it is time for a new settlement in Wales.  

We have seen and we have campaigned, and we have discussed this afternoon, about devolution to Wales. But I believe we also need devolution within Wales—greater powers to robust local authorities with the capacity to use them and with a strategic vision to deliver services across Wales, and greater powers to every local authority, every reformed local authority in Wales. I've given a commitment that we will start to look towards delivering the EU charter of local self-government into Welsh law, and I want to go further than that. I want to look towards shared services and an improvement body for Wales to give local government the powers and the responsibility for improvement in local government.

For too long, this place and local government have been like unhappy siblings, arguing with each other. We need a mature relationship with local government. We need a new relationship with local government. We need a new settlement for local government. We need empowered local government, stronger councils, working alongside Welsh Government to deliver services for the whole of Wales, and I believe, Deputy Presiding Officer, that that is what the people of Wales want as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'll decide who goes on too long in this Chamber, thank you very much, and some of you may want to speak in other debates later today. Can I now call on Nick Ramsay to reply to the debate, please?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I just put on the record at the start of my contribution that I don't lie awake at three in the morning either thinking, or sleeping and dreaming, about the Cabinet Secretary's plans for local government in Wales, despite rumours that might have gone around after the last statement you gave on this subject, Alun Davies, when I said I'd be more than happy to live adjacent and next to the Cabinet Secretary but would be less than happy to live with him in the same authority, and I'm sure that you would agree with that as well, Cabinet Secretary. 

Perhaps I should be asking Mike Hedges to round up this debate, as he's probably a little bit more against these plans than I am, despite the fact that it bears the name of a Conservative debate on it. But, I won't do that, Dirprwy Lywydd, because I know that would incur your annoyance at this point. 

Look, I've got to say, I started feeling a bit sorry for you, actually, Alun Davies, as it was probably a little bit like you addressing the WLGA or a Labour Party meeting, this debate today. You really did—well, I can't think of a single person actually who supported your plans. You did make—I mean, he's not a bad chap. I'll give you that, Cabinet Secretary—you're not a bad chap. And you're not unintelligent, so I know that you have given thought—perhaps not as much as you should have—to some of these proposals, and that is to be welcomed. 

What I would say is that you made a very important point about a third before the end of your rhetoric earlier, where you said that you are fed up with this dry debate. I think we all cheered at that one, didn't we? I think we're all fed up with it as well. But, of course, the reason why we're having this dry debate is because you have brought this discussion to this Assembly by putting forward these proposals that have died in the water several times over the years since we've had this Assembly. I can't count the number—Mike Hedges will remember the exact number of times we've debated this—and we've put these proposals to bed before.

So, you brought the debate to us. And if what you say is true, which is that this is a prerequisite to what you really want to discuss—which is, I assume, the modernisation of public services in Wales, and which is, I assume, putting the citizen at the heart of the system, and how often do we discuss that—then why on earth, I cannot fathom why you are not having that debate and why you are not bringing those proposals to this place and other places first, and then let's have the discussion about the structure that follows. And, who knows, you might actually carry people—you might carry one person with you. I'm sure you've done that—I won't go there. I'm sure you have carried people before with you. But what was blatantly obvious from this debate today was that, regardless of your original desire to engage with people and carry the public and AMs and politicians and local government with you, that simply does not seem to be happening.

You have to—well, the Cabinet Secretary has pointed out this is a Conservative debate, but it doesn't escape our notice that it was not just Conservatives, or indeed the other opposition Members, who were supporting the tenets of this debate today. You are clearly not going about this in the right way. You go about many things in the right way, I do not doubt that. But this, Cabinet Secretary, is not one of them. 

It's been quite clear by the response today from Members, some of whom I'll refer to now, that there are concerns. Siân Gwenllian, who spoke, is right. Yes, we do need to strengthen our councils. Leaving aside the banter that often happens in this place about cuts, and whether they're UK cuts or cuts here, yes, of course, modernisation of local authorities and of public services is something that we need to do not just in times of cuts but in times of prosperity too. Remember that phrase, 'We've got to fix the roof when the sun is shining'? Well, it wasn't just relevant at the UK level, it was relevant in devolved politics as well. So, regardless of the economic situation, local government needs to modernise. The Cabinet Secretary is right about that, Labour Party members are right about that and opposition party members are right about that, so let's get on with having that discussion.

Lynne Neagle—well, what do you really think, Lynne? A stoic defence for the status quo—the status quo but, clearly, modernised. Your comments were very similar to those of the WLGA, which I know that the Welsh Government often dismisses and says, 'Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?' Well, yes, they would say that, because they represent countless people in local government, and not just elected officials but public servants in local government who are doing their best at these difficult times to make sure that public services are delivered as well and as efficiently as possible. I am sure we are all with them in spirit in wanting to achieve that.

Oscar, you spoke about engagement and what assurances workers in those local authorities are getting. Obviously, I'm closer to a Conservative local authority that I represent than I am to other local authorities, but I'm not entirely sure what assurances you have put forward to our workers in local authorities at this time, because they are under the cosh. They really are trying hard to do things in an increasingly difficult situation. They are certainly not reassured by the arguments that you've made.

Paul Davies—well, actually, before I came here today I should probably have popped to the bookies to put a bet on that you would oppose a return to Dyfed. In the same way that you're used to some of the responses you've had today, Alun, Paul has been stoically against the return to Dyfed over a long, long time.

The argument about brand is key. I haven't reiterated that yet, because I did so at length in the last statement that you gave. I can have discussions with you about issues I have with the reformation of Monmouthshire. You will respond to me that if you put Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent back together, you are somehow romantically recreating an old Monmouthshire county that you grew up in and that I grew up in, and that, actually, people are nostalgic for. You can make that argument in the case of Monmouthshire, and you may well rename the authority that in the longer term, but how on earth are you going to persuade people in Aberystwyth that the Pembrokeshire brand is really going to work there? How are you going to persuade people in Carmarthenshire that the Pembrokeshire brand is going to work there? It just doesn't work, and that is the problem with these proposals, Cabinet Secretary.

Sorry—

I think I'm out of time—sorry, Mike.

It doesn't work. Now, do what you said you wanted to do originally—go back to the drawing board. If you have written these proposals on the back of a fag packet, I might try to FOI that fag packet, actually, because it does sound quite interesting to see it written somewhere. But, for goodness' sake, let's get on with the job of modernising public services first then decide on the structures. Everyone here thinks that that is the way to do it. Listen, engage and let's get on with the job of delivering better public services in Wales.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting on this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.