Engagement in Local Democracy

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 14 May 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:10, 14 May 2019

Well, Llywydd, I am completely committed to the notion that public services in Wales should be co-designed and co-delivered with those people who use them alongside people who provide them. The Member makes a fair point, that, at the heart of these things, often, are power relationships and that sometimes we have to work hard to persuade professional workers that they can share some of the power and the authority that they have at their disposal with people who use those services and that that doesn't represent a threat to them and is very, very likely to lead to better outcomes for the people who they are there to serve. I don't think that that requires specific pieces of legislation to bring it about, because I think it is a cultural shift in the way that people who provide services think of the relationship between what they do and the people who come through their door, regarding those people as assets, as people who have strengths, as people who have something to contribute to the way that services are provided, and this Government is committed to that as a principle throughout everything that we do in the services for which we are responsible in Wales.