Plas Menai National Outdoor Centre

Part of 5. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 21 September 2022.

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Photo of Mike Hedges Mike Hedges Labour 3:18, 21 September 2022

First of all, can I say I chair the PCS cross-party group in the Senedd? Can I also say that I'm politically opposed to the outsourcing of services by the Welsh Government—absolutely, unequivocally opposed to it? Not-for-profit's a really interesting thing, because lots of places are not-for-profit; it's easy to get around it, of course, because you pay consultancy fees, you pay support fees, you pay the price that that company wants to charge for services, so, actually, the profit isn't made on the contract, it's made outside the contract. I'm sure that we have a situation where people's conditions will be protected from day 1, and I'm sure that also we will have an organisation saying, 'We need to make some changes to make us more efficient.' My experience of privatisation in any of its forms is that the workers pay the price by changes to their terms and conditions. If the current management and board are unable to run Plas Menai outdoor centre effectively, surely the most effective action would be to replace the board and senior management with people who can. Why does the Minister believe that that outsourcing will provide a better service, and why do you believe that the private sector can do it better than the public sector?