The Future Delivery of Public Services in Pembrokeshire

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 3:07 pm on 16 September 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:07, 16 September 2020

I'm not aware of the particular incidence you mention there, Paul, and if you want to tell me about that more specifically, I'm happy to look at it for you. But, in general, we've been working hard with local authorities throughout the pandemic to make sure that their services can continue in a digitalised and remote form. Most local authorities have stepped up to that plate very well. So, the very large numbers of local authority personnel who've been, for example, delivering the community hub service have been doing it largely from their homes with good equipment. We've made sure that local authorities are able to support their IT infrastructures in that way, and we've worked very hard with them to do that. As you know, we also passed regulations, through the Senedd, enabling fully digital meetings to take place, and authorities have stepped up to that as well, and they have been doing their meetings in that remote access, digital way, in a way that the Senedd led the way on.

As far as I'm aware, Pembrokeshire has done all of those things as well; I've not heard any reports otherwise. And, indeed, actually, local authority leaders were telling me only very recently that they think that's been working very well and they're asking us to make those regulations permanent so that they can continue to work in that or, more likely, a hybrid way in the way that we're currently working, going forward. But on the specific point that you mention, if you want to raise that with me, I'm very happy to look at it; I'm not aware of it myself.