Innovation in Local Government

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 5 December 2018.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 2:43, 5 December 2018

Presiding Officer, I will say to the Member for Newport East, in his capacity as Chair of the relevant committee in this place, that I'm looking forward to his committee's report on these matters, and I will give it some considerable attention when I'm able to do so.

But he's right to identify public services boards as an opportunity to bring together authorities to innovate and to provide new and different solutions to many of the difficulties we face. I have just agreed a package of support for public services boards, and I will, Presiding Officer, be making a statement on that matter in due course. As a part of that, I think we should be setting some very clear ambitions for public services boards as to what we want them to achieve, and the preventative agenda that the Member has described is, I believe, absolutely central and critical to that role of public services boards. I hope that we will be able to see local government working together with its colleagues in order to deliver a more profound approach to preventive services than we've seen in the past. And I think that public services boards are key to that, to their ability to deliver it across a particular geography, and I hope that they will be able to as well maximise the opportunity that new means and methods of working present to us.

I will say, Presiding Officer, the Member for Llanelli on this occasion, Lee Waters, has produced an excellent report on this matter in terms of digital services, and I'm looking hard at that at the moment, and I hope that we, alongside the leader of the house and the Cabinet Secretary for health, will be able to respond fully to the remarks and comments that he makes.