Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 13 June 2018.
Cabinet Secretary, you talk about building capacity, and I seem to remember a lot of the conversations around when the health boards were reorganised back in 2009 being about, 'By creating bigger organisations you create capacity.' That hasn't exactly been a rip-roaring success. But one of the things you could say would benefit local authorities across Wales, in particular the further away you go from Cardiff, would be the devolution of powers and responsibilities in particular around economic development. With the development of metro mayors and city mayors in England, these relationships, cross border, are vitally important so that when you look at economic development in particular, where local authorities have a key role to play, they are empowered to make decisions that affect their local communities and benefit their local communities. What assessment, in the time that you've been the Minister, have you made about what powers would be beneficial at a local level rather than them being held at a Welsh Government level when it comes to economic development?