Swansea Bay City Deal

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:28 pm on 20 March 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 3:28, 20 March 2019

Thank you very much for that answer. I'm sure you'll remember, it's almost two years now since the original announcement was made, and you'll recall that other Members, including Mike Hedges and me, have stood up a number of times in this Chamber to say how difficult it has been and we've found it as Assembly Members—the relevant Assembly Members, with an interest in this—to get any meaningful dialogue with members of what was then the shadow board. That's not exactly in keeping with the core principles of the delivery of good governance in local government framework. So, I very much welcome this review, which has flushed out some of the worries that we, the interested Assembly Members, were hearing about for some time but had no realistic path of clarifying or, indeed, challenging. We all want this deal to work, so this has been a very helpful document today. 

I welcome your earlier confirmation that you believe that part 2 of Yr Egin and the Swansea digital waterfront project are almost over the line, and hoping that Governments will now work together to make sure that that happens. I wonder if you can give us any sense of a timeline that will be a step in reversing any loss of confidence that has happened in portfolio projects recently—not necessarily related to those two projects. 

My main questions, however, are on governance, and, again, the delay in getting a coherent governance model together has been the subject of some questions in this Chamber. It looks like there is still some fault with that model, with the four council leaders sitting on both the strategy board as well as the joint committee without the necessary Chinese walls and checks and balances to protect them, actually, against accusations of conflict of interest. It looks as if the lead council, Carmarthenshire, doesn't have the capacity to handle the work, so I wonder if you could tell us what you'll be expecting from the new director, who'll be appointed to assume this leadership role. Will this be an independent director? What sort of background and experience will you be expecting him or her to have? And can you confirm that neither Government will take part in the appointment process for that—it will be for the board to do that? And also, bearing in mind what you mentioned in reply to questions from Russell George earlier, about not all models are the same, can you confirm why it is that you've chosen a sort of Cardiff model, with a director, in order to try and solve the problem that's been identified in the review? I'm not saying it's a bad decision, but I'm quite interested to have your answer to that.

Recommendation 3 says that a best practice integrated assurance and approval plan should be put in place pretty quickly. So, I'd like to know what the risk and assurance processes are that are currently in place. Because, coincidentally, an internal review seems to have been done—presumably at the instruction of the board. Because we are talking about four council leaders here; the concept of risk and assurance shouldn't be new to them. So, what reasons were given to those who conducted the independent review for the failure to have—well, what looks like a failure to have—a sensible risk and assurance process in place at the moment? And, in particular, what process was used to appoint the strategy board members and how was the risk of that assessed? Why is there a lack of clarity about how much the councils will need to borrow? What were the problems identified in preparing a financial plan? One of the reasons the Governments haven't signed off the implementation plan is because there is no financial plan. And the role of the private sector—they're the main funders in this, after all—I think that remains underplayed and of minimal influence, except, ostensibly, in the one place where we've had a question about conflict of interest. If you can use those example questions to explain your views on the current system for risk and assurance, I'd be most grateful. Thank you.