Thank you, and thank you very much to Mike Hedges for bringing forward this interesting debate today and, of course, to Alun Davies for his thought-provoking comments as well. 

How we work together across our public services is what makes us different here in Wales and it's the passion, determination and the care that we see from our public servants in Wales across local government, health, fire and rescue services, police forces and the other organisations involved in public service delivery that enable us to deliver those effective services for our people, and it's our approach of collaboration that makes it work. So, to me, in many ways, our relationships and ways of working are at least as important as the structures that we have in place to support them.

I know that Mike Hedges has previously said, and he, I think, repeated it again today, that change should only be considered where there's a very strong chance of improving service. And I think that was very much at the heart of his debate today. And I completely would agree with that. So, my focus is on taking advantage of the ability to be agile and to work as one Welsh public service. 'One Welsh public service' is a term that's been used in Wales now for several years, and there are many examples of the Welsh public sector coming together, irrespective of those organisational boundaries and responsibilities, to deliver better results for citizens, and I think we saw that most clearly during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The ethos of the one Welsh public service is something on which, of course, we continue to build, and the Welsh Government has an important leadership role to play, but we are one of many partners. So, we work with our colleagues across the Welsh public sector to further embed a culture that puts people at the heart of our collective efforts. Our priorities at this time, therefore, relate to further developing relationships and distributed leadership across public services. We have a really strong group of leaders at all levels of organisations, and effectiveness and efficiencies don't come from reorganisation, but from that clever joined-up working.

The review of strategic partnerships that was undertaken jointly by the WLGA, Welsh Government and the Welsh NHS Confederation, published in June 2020, concluded that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to partnership arrangements. The report also confirmed that a top-down restructure was not sought by partnership members, largely as it might damage successful solutions that were already happening in some areas. The recommendations from the review were clear that it's for local partnerships to lead on aligning partnerships in their area, with public services boards and regional partnership boards taking a strategic leadership role and the Welsh Government offering facilitation support.

There is a programme for government commitment to keep regional partnership arrangements under review, together with partners, to ensure that they're efficient. As part of this, I and the designated Member for Plaid Cymru, Cefin Campbell, are meeting with a range of strategic partnerships and will reflect on what we've heard, before sharing our conclusions with the Partnership Council for Wales. The underlying principle is that any changes are locally led, driven by what works best and based on local priorities and existing relationships.

The COVID pandemic will have led to some changes in how partnerships work, and, in some cases, the urgent need to work across organisational structures became a catalyst for more efficient, longer term joint working. COVID-19 and its effects on communities in Wales has revealed some stark contrasts, and public services will need to consider the social, economic, environmental and cultural impact of the pandemic, which, in many places, will be felt for years to come. PSBs will have an important role to play in considering and co-ordinating this longer term response, and we are supporting them to reflect on this. And more broadly, PSBs play a vital and valued role in bringing public services together in an area to identify and deliver against their shared priorities. So, mutual goals local leadership and existing relationships are so important in determining and delivering against local priorities. The quality and value of the conversations and the decisions that happen in PSBs and through other partnerships is a result of the investment and the commitment of the representatives and the organisations that they represent. Whatever structure public services are based on, partnership working in an integrated and collaborative way is always going to be essential. Ensuring that partnership structures are best aligned and effective is an ongoing task for all public services.

I know that Mike Hedges was not supportive of past proposals for major reorganisations of our local authorities to achieve larger councils, and he's outlined the reasons for that this afternoon, and I agree with him: our local authorities need us to support them in delivering their services and not distract them with plans for structural reorganisation. Instead, the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 has given us opportunities for a package of reform, including enabling voluntary mergers, if they wish to do so. But instead of looking to reorganise local authorities, we have worked with them to develop improved mechanisms for working together to deliver local government functions at a regional scale where it makes sense to do so.

Working closely with leaders, we've established four corporate joint committees—or CJCs—across Wales. These provide a consistent and democratically controlled framework, based on the four geographical areas of the city and growth deals. I know that Mike Hedges set out in his 2018 paper on public service structures that examples of services that would benefit from joint working are based on the regional footprint, our transport, economic development, and regional planning—and again, that's something that he's talked about this afternoon. So, through legislation, we've aligned these very functions identified by Mike Hedges within CJCs to provide an opportunity for regions to consider and capitalise on the interdependencies between them. This will allow local authority partners to deliver regional ambitions, develop successful regional economies, and encourage local growth.

So, to conclude, it's the relationships between people and across organisations that, together, deliver our public services in Wales. We are proudly one Welsh public service, and it's this ethos that underpins the behaviours and the culture that we want to see. Relationships transcend structures, and it's our combined passion to deliver high-quality, focused, and compassionate public services that is most important and most powerful.