3. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:12 pm on 15 January 2019.

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Photo of David Lloyd David Lloyd Plaid Cymru 3:12, 15 January 2019

Trefnydd, can I support, first of all, the concerns raised earlier about Ford in Bridgend, and I also look forward to further ministerial statements on work done and progress made, because it's a huge issue locally?

My second point is, you will be, Trefnydd, no doubt aware that the Auditor General for Wales has today published a report calling for urgent action following financial and governance concerns within the town and community councils sector in Wales. The report shows that the number of qualified audit opinions has doubled in the past financial year to 340 councils, nearly half of all councils. We also know that the auditor general had to issue reports in the public interest or make formal recommendations to eight councils in 2018. Now, in a sense, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. We have heard of concerns over a number of years around lack of governance, bullying and of community councils being disbanded due to local in-fighting. The Welsh Government have known of these issues for quite some time. Now, the report by the independent review panel on community and town councils, which reported in October 2018, shows that there are options available to Welsh Government in terms of trying to reform the sector. It is vitally important that the Welsh Government now gets on with that task and gets a grip on this important sector. With that as a backdrop, will the Minister for local government agree to bring forward a statement on the Wales Audit Office findings and use that statement to set out how the Welsh Government intends to ensure that this important tier of democracy is put on a sustainable footing, going forward?