Community Empowerment

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:11 pm on 8 March 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:11, 8 March 2022

Well, Llywydd, it's a really interesting question and deserves a longer answer than what I can offer this afternoon, because if we were to explore it in the way that Delyth Jewell began there, we'd start by recognising that when we use the word 'community' we are talking about places like any other place, where there are differences of view, where there is no single idea about the best way to take things forward, and where there is very different access, not simply to financial resources, but human capital as well. There are communities who are fortunate to have a call on people with experience, qualifications, knowledge that they can bring to the table and make things happen.

I think, in my own constituency, Llywydd, just recently, of a formidable group of women—I should say, on International Women's Day—who came to see me from the Llandaff part of my constituency, who wanted to buy a disused toilet block that was in the ownership of the local authority and turn it into a centre for services for older people in the community. And they've done it. They've done it in just a short number of years. They persuaded the council to donate the building to them for 1p. The community facilities programme—[Interruption.] Thank you. That was the cost of the building. [Laughter.] The community facilities programme of the Welsh Government provided £225,000 to them. But what they were able to do, because of their own histories and their own connections, was that they were able to mobilise a group of people with accountancy experience, with architecture experience, with running of buildings experience, and it was put to work, and I don't think they felt for a moment that they weren't empowered or that they didn't have the capacity.

But you don't have to go far from Llandaff to find a community where people are equally motivated, equally ambitious, but just can't call on the same resources that were available there, and that's where I think our efforts have to be focused, in making sure that we grow that human capacity in those areas, so that people do feel that the opportunities are there. The community facilities programme, Llywydd—since 2015 over £40 million to 280 projects in every part of Wales. Every single local authority has examples. Every Member here will have examples that they have supported of community efforts to take on buildings, church halls, sports facilities, green spaces—all the things that that programme represents—but we know that we get more applications from places that are already well resourced than we do from places who need those facilities the most, and that, it seems to me, is the real challenge that we have to try to work on further.