Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 20 March 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 1:52, 20 March 2019

Well, a number of points there. We have briefed Members: we issued a very full written statement on Friday, we published both reports and, as I said, the briefing has been put in place and I'm answering questions this afternoon on it. If any Member would like further information, I am more than happy to meet with them to brief them on what we're doing. I think openness is really important on this, which is why we've published the full reports, even though they are critical of all sides.

In terms of the lessons learnt for other projects, this city deal was set up in a way that has not been identical to other city deals, and I think it's been one of the problems that the reports have identified: dealing with it on a project by project basis, rather than giving the city region the autonomy to take a portfolio management approach. And by insisting on the five-case Treasury model for all projects to pass through, they've set a bar that is far higher for local authorities to pass than in conventionally funded projects, either through their own revenue or through the Welsh Government. Some of the local authorities, and the region as a whole, have struggled to have the skills and capacity to be able to go through that rigorous business case model, and that's been one of the problems highlighted in the report. So, in a sense, it's been set up in a way that has made it cumbersome and difficult for them.

How we apply this to the other regions—. We're determined now that the responsibility for the city deals has moved from the Cabinet Office in that policeman role into our department we can take more of a partnership role. The Minister and I are both determined—and we've already met with the chairs of all the city deals to make this point—that we now, under the economic action plan, want to develop regional economic strategies. We want to do that in the spirit of partnership and co-production, and we should take the city deals as the starting point for how, together, we develop a grounded regional strategy for each part of Wales. In doing that, we'll be fully absorbing the lessons from both these reports and from other conversations.