I must also thank and congratulate Derek Vaughan on his fair and inclusive chairing of the meetings. Derek’s commitment to this group and his belief in what could be achieved were fundamental to the group’s progress. I was very pleased to see that he received the CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours this month for his contribution to political and public service, which is well deserved.

Today I am publishing the recommendations of the working group, which cover a number of areas including shared services, voluntary mergers, powers and flexibilities, diversity in local government, and the mutual respect agenda. There was much constructive debate between all members and I was pleased the group was able to quickly agree a clear set of shared principles to underpin discussions and any future delivery of regional working.

The principles place regional working firmly within a framework of democratic control and accountability, with sustainability at its core and a focus on delivering better public service outcomes for citizens and communities. It was clear from the conversations within the working group, and mapping work undertaken by local government, that there is already a significant amount of collaborative partnership working on both a voluntary and statutory basis throughout Wales. I welcome and applaud this.

However, there was also a recognition within the working group that this landscape was complex, and that this complexity was potentially limiting the effectiveness and efficiency of these arrangements. I am intent on working with my Cabinet colleagues to find ways to reduce some of the complexity surrounding partnership working in Wales. 

Through the working group, and other meetings that I have had with leaders, local government has also underlined the need for greater consistency in our approach to partnership. I am committed to seek simplification wherever possible. Following discussions at the working group, the WLGA leader and I have commissioned a joint review of the strategic partnership landscape to identify the key areas where there is felt to be unnecessary complexity or duplication and to identify opportunities for simplification and rationalisation. This review will report to the partnership council in October of this year.

A key recommendation of the working group was the need for more consistent mechanisms and structures to support regional working and collaboration. Considerable time and effort is absorbed in creating and recreating the practical working arrangements for joint working; for example, which authority will lead on the finance, which authority will be the employer? Members of the working group agreed that a single structure for statutory and voluntary arrangements would retain local democratic accountability and deliver consistency and simplification to collaborative arrangements.

The local government and elections (Wales) Bill, due for introduction to this Assembly later this year, provides the opportunity to deliver a single consistent, simplified and straightforward vehicle for democratically accountable regional working. I intend to include in the Bill powers to enable the creation of a new form of joint working vehicle—currently referred to as a statutory joint committee—which will be the blueprint design for local authorities working together. This will remove set-up costs associated with the setting up of multiple duplicatory arrangements and enable authorities to maximise the opportunities that working together present. This new form of joint working vehicle will be a body corporate, capable of employing staff and holding assets and funding. 

Local authorities will be able to request the establishment of such a body where they wish to work together on the basis of shared interests and mutual benefit. This can be in relation to any service that local authorities believe can be delivered more efficiently and effectively in this way. I also propose that Welsh Ministers will be able to require local authority functions to be delivered regionally in this way for certain service areas. Our intention is to focus on those areas where the Welsh Government has already put in place regional arrangements—either statutory or voluntary—or where provision to make regional arrangements already exists.

The Welsh Ministers would be able to establish bodies in these service areas, where doing so would provide a more effective, efficient and beneficial way of carrying out these functions. This would mean the potential establishment in service areas such as planning, transport and economic development. The democratic accountability and transparency that these new statutory arrangements will bring are essential for any joint working, but particularly for services and activities that directly impact on citizens' lives.

In support of this, I am pleased that the WLGA will also co-ordinate the development of a code of collaborative practice for adoption by all local authorities. The code will provide clear principles for wider regional working with clarity of expectation on where regional working is important, and what local authorities can expect of each other when considering new, or managing existing, joint arrangements. I am also pleased to say that I am committed to supporting, through the WLGA, a new improvement and support function, recommended by the working group, which I believe will provide positive support to authorities to deliver the innovation and service transformation needed for the future of our citizens and communities.

I have agreed with local government that a new sub-group of the Partnership Council for Wales will be created, which will take forward some of the key recommendations of the working group.  This sub-group will adopt the principles which made the working group so successful—mutual respect and a shared agenda to deliver the best outcomes possible for the people of Wales. Diolch.