Part of 3. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 12 November 2019.
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.