Local Democracy in Mid and West Wales

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 3:47 pm on 7 November 2018.

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Photo of Helen Mary Jones Helen Mary Jones Plaid Cymru 3:47, 7 November 2018

I believe that community councils can have a very important role in strengthening people's democratic participation and feeling that services are delivered in a way that's relevant to them. One of the recommendations of the independent review panel on community and town councils was that the whole of Wales should be covered by community and town councils—of course, that's not the case now—in order to provide place-based services as envisaged in that report. I wonder what your view of that is, Minister. In order to strengthen community councils, are there steps that the Welsh Government can take to increase the pool of qualified and appropriate town and community council clerks across Wales? I know that, particularly, some of the smaller community councils in mid and west Wales sometimes struggle to find the right person to support them.