Diolch, Llywydd. We will be supporting amendment 11 as we believe the Assembly should be involved in scrutinising any significant changes the ombudsman may make to the statement of principles as far as practicable.

Amendment 48 has been submitted where confirmation is needed to ensure that the ombudsman considers resources of town and community councils. Amendment 48 reiterates the concerns that we raised at Stage 2 on the ability of town and community councils as listed authorities under the Bill to carry out their duties. For example, the Bill contains many requirements and time limits for listed authorities, which includes a six-month time limit for listed authorities to submit their own complaints-handling procedure. 

At Stage 1 I outlined that, while supporting the Bill's application to town and community councils, we can see from both the perspective of the ombudsman and town and community councils how burdensome and onerous the duties could be to undertake when staffing and resources are minimal. Town and community councils currently number over 730 in Wales, with 8,000 councillors. As evidenced by the auditor general in his report on town and community councils, some councils are already struggling to apply existing statutory duties. As I noted at Stage 2, nearly 100 town and community councils had not been able to submit their audits by the cut-off date of 30 November 2018. Well over 340 town and community councils received a qualified audit opinion in the same year—double the amount in 2016-17. Moreover, 24 councils have yet to make proper arrangements for online publication of documents as required by the Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013. Auditors also identified issues in the accounting statements of 180 councils; 270 councils did not complete the annual return fully before submission for audit. 

Concerns, therefore, about the ability of town and community councils to undertake their duties have run throughout the Bill's progress. I refer back to the evidence of Cardiff city council, raised about the Bill's provisions, highlighting the risk of the ombudsman's guidance being 'too prescriptive' and not allowing

'for a degree of flexibility for local authorities to handle and investigate complaints in a manner that suits their size and structures.'

Additionally, the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales were concerned about the impact the provisions may have on smaller organisations—views also expressed by Blaenau Gwent council, which stated in evidence that some smaller councils do not have sufficient resources to have complaints officers whose sole task is to take and log complaints. Further, Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn Town Council said in their evidence to the committee that

'any such model or standard policies/procedures should be proportionate to the scale of community and town councils and also recognise that it may require transitional costs.'

Finally, and most significantly, One Voice Wales, representing town and community councils in Wales, have written to me stating that they do have concerns about the model complaints procedure. They further noted that most town and community councils in Wales are incredibly small and employ just one clerk, who would likely work on a part-time basis. As such, it is still difficult to see whether smaller town and community councils with relatively limited resources will be able to keep up with the provisions outlined under the Bill without due consideration by the ombudsman.

It is welcome, again, that the explanatory memorandum notes that it is up to the ombudsman's discretion in respect of which listed authorities publish model complaints-handling procedures, but it is worthwhile to place on record the expectation that the ombudsman will consider the resources of listed authorities, and at least work with their representative bodies to ensure the complaints procedure is adequately adjusted to take into account the limited resources of town and community councils in Wales. 

Regarding amendment 47, this deletes the procedure that applies to the publication by the ombudsman of the statement of principles, and replaces this with another procedure. The changes made to the ombudsman's statement of principles outlined by amendment 56 at Stage 2 mean there is little opportunity for the Assembly to properly scrutinise the principles before their introduction. This changes the process from affirmative to negative, and I believe represents a backward step, given the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee's praise for the affirmative nature of the Bill at Stage 1. Although we recognise that this is a statement of principles rather than regulations, we contend that they're integral to the working of the model complaints-handling procedure, and thus should be afforded Assembly scrutiny. At the very least, the first statement of principles should have an affirmative procedure so that the Assembly has a chance to approve them. We therefore ask the Member in charge to explain his rationale for this change in direction. Why negative rather than affirmative?