8. What assessment has the First Minister made of the number of Welsh Government staff that are located in Mid and West Wales? OQ57626

Thank you very much to Cefin Campbell for the question, Llywydd. At the end of January there were 1,067 Welsh Government staff whose permanent office base was recorded as being in mid or west Wales.

Thank you very much. We know that over half of Welsh Government's staff work here in Cardiff, with some 58 per cent across the whole of the south-east. Now, some 19 per cent of the population of Wales live in Mid and West Wales. However, only around 13 per cent of Welsh Government posts are located in that region, and, as it happens, many of the Welsh Government's offices in the region are on the outskirts of towns. So, can I ask, as we slowly move back to some kind of normality post COVID, what assessment has the Government made of moving more jobs to Mid and West Wales and using town-centre buildings as offices in order to rejuvenate these towns economically and socially? 

Well, Llywydd, thank you very much to the Member for those questions. It is worth us remembering at the beginning of devolution almost all of those working for the Welsh Office were working here in Cardiff, and over the period of devolution we have created new offices in Merthyr Tydfil, in Llandudno, and, of course, in Aberystwyth as well. Now, we are going to move into the new phase post COVID, I believe, when there will be fewer staff working every day in offices, and more people working locally. That doesn't mean that people will be working in their own homes every time, but there are also more possibilities for people to come together to work from these working centres. And we've been working very hard to establish more of those centres or hubs where people can access the facilities that they need closer to home. Now, in west Wales, we already have the centres in Haverfordwest and in Llanelli, and we are looking forward to seeing where there will be further opportunities in future.

As Cefin Campbell said, Llywydd, we have centres not just on the outskirts of towns, but they can also be more flexible than that. They can be part of the towns. And there are more possibilities for people to remain local, and when they do stay in their local area they spend more money in those towns as well. It's a help for the people themselves, it's a help for the environment, and it's an economic help too. And I am familiar with the work that Carmarthenshire County Council has done, and I know that the Member was part of that important work, and we, as a Government, want to do more to work with local people to see what we can do to help people in the post-coronavirus context, where they won't have to travel every day into the major offices; they can remain local, and they can work in the local area and they can be part of the local economy at the same time. 

Thank you, First Minister.