3. Will the First Minister make a statement on the number of quangos in Wales? OAQ54654

Llywydd, the Welsh Government has 52 arm’s-length bodies of various kinds, 15 of which are wholly owned companies. Arm’s-length bodies undertake various functions on behalf of Welsh Ministers, but operate independently of them.

I thank the Minister for his answer. I'm not dismissive of the good work carried out by the third sector, but it is obvious, even to a casual observer, that there is a great deal of duplication in the organisations involved in alleviating some of the most pressing problems faced by the Welsh public. For instance, I believe there are some 50-plus organisations looking after homelessness. Whilst I understand many are purely voluntary and receive no funding from the Welsh Government, what measures are in place to ensure there is no duplication where they are in receipt of Government funding? And there are over 30,000 third sector organisations in Wales—one for every 96 people. Surely, this begs the question, 'Is public money being spent wisely in this sector?'

Llywydd, I had understood the question to be about the number of quangos in Wales, and the 30,000 third sector organisations are not quangos in any sense of that word. There are so many organisations in Wales because Wales has such a rich culture of community action and so many people in Wales determined to make their contribution in that way. They often range from tiny charities, set up to resolve very local issues, often to reflect individual experiences that people have had in their own lives. I think there's plenty of room in our life in Wales for those people and those organisations, and I think it's more a matter to be celebrated, that we have so many people and so many bodies who, in Wales, want to make that contribution, and I'd rather have that problem than I would of having too few people and too few organisations willing to step up to help us with the things we face today.

First Minister, the Government, quite properly, has a range of sponsored public bodies that carry out vary specific tasks, and they're hugely important ones like the delivery of massive public services. What especially the latter needs, I think, is excellent governance at the board level, so that, in particular, the non-executive directors can ensure that the executive of those bodies are: one, fulfilling the mandates laid out in terms of policy from the Welsh Government, but also doing it effectively, and efficiently so we best value for money.

Llywydd, I entirely agree with the point David Melding has made. Jobs that people appointed to our major public bodies do are often very significant, and the ability of non-executive directors to play their part in the way that we would want them to do, so that they are critical friends of that organisation, never afraid to ask difficult or challenging questions, is exactly the role that we would wish to see them discharge.

We've recently set up a new public bodies unit inside the Welsh Government to be able to give additional training and additional support to those people in those very important jobs, and I'm very pleased that we are to have a larger number of pre-appointment hearings by committees in this institution, so that when people are appointed to head those bodies, Assembly Members will have an opportunity to question them and to be satisfied that they are capable of discharging those responsibilities to lead a team of non-executive directors, and to do it with the rigour that we would expect of them.