Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 22 March 2023.
A range of work is ongoing at the moment in order to try and ensure that we have a more diverse group of people putting themselves forward for election, for both town and community councils, and county and country borough councils, in future. And those include the reviewing of the access to elected office fund, which was very successful in supporting a number of candidates to become town and community councillors at the last elections, but also looking to see how job sharing, for example, can be extended to more roles within councils, to recognise how important that is for becoming a more attractive option for a wider range of people. We know that women, in particular, and those with caring responsibilities, find that particularly attractive. And we've also been exploring what more we can do in terms of widening the access to hybrid meetings as a way of working, which, again, supports a more diverse group of people. But in terms of making those things statutory—I suppose we're talking about gender quotas here—I think there is a conversation to be had about that, but it's not one of our key proposals at the moment in terms of reforms, but, certainly, something that we should be having a discussion about. I'm very keen to have more of a discussion with Siân Gwenllian about her ideas in that space.