Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:42 pm on 10 January 2023.
I'm really grateful for those questions. In terms of cabinets, I think that one of the really important things that we delivered through the local government and elections Act was the removal of the barriers for job sharing arrangements within the executives of principal councils. So, that has enabled people who wouldn't otherwise have been able to undertake those executive roles to be able to step up and do it on a job share basis; I think that's really exciting. Four councils are currently utilising that, so we're learning very much from their experiences and the experiences of the relevant councillors to help us consider are there other roles within local government that could benefit from the opportunity to job share as well, so I think that that will help and is helping in terms of increasing the diversity in that space. And also the work that we've done through the Act again, which puts a duty on political group leaders to promote high standards within their groups. I think that that, again, is an important innovation that we've undertaken to try and ensure that we do continue to improve diversity.
On the votes for 16, I think that we were disappointed that the levels of participation weren't higher at the first opportunity that they had, so we're doing work with a number of organisations that deal directly with young people. Many of us will have been involved with the democracy project and spent time talking to young people about our role. So, there's absolutely much more to do in this space, but I think that we have a good coalition of organisations that are expert in working with young people that are helping us in that space.