6. When will the Minister issue the 2019 pay remit guidance for Welsh Government sponsored bodies? OAQ53309

The 2019 pay remit guidance for our sponsored bodies is currently being finalised and will be issued by the end of February.

Minister, obviously, this, then, has to be applied from 1 April, and I think it's really important that we see its publication as soon as possible. The end of February is cutting it very fine for them to put various measures in place so that they can implement these pay awards effectively. Is there any prospect of you accelerating the announcement, which is already fairly late, I think, in the cycle, so that they can carry this out effectively—this financial planning?

Thank you for raising this issue. The development of that guidance is very much an iterative process, so those bodies should be having discussions with officials in the process of developing the guidance. What I will say is that we can expect the guidance to look similar, in some ways, to the guidance last year, so building on the themes that we were keen to develop there. So, transparency, for example, was an important theme, as was encouraging sponsored bodies to pay the real living wage, as defined by the Living Wage Foundation, and ensuring that pay policy statements are published in line with our commitments towards the transparency, particularly, of senior pay.

We will ensure that the guidance supports fair pay and look favourably on sponsored bodies who pay the same rates as the Welsh Government. I can also confirm that there will be no intention to have a cap on public sector pay awards, and this will maintain the approach that we had last year.