Friction
The transcript of Episode 5 of 'Y Pumed Llawr - The Fifth Floor
When you step out of the elevator onto the Fifth Floor as a Minister the system does its best to make you feel powerful: Funding to allocate; recommendations to agree, speeches to make, new initiatives to trigger.
Very busy. Much in demand. Very important.
But you soon learn the limitations of your powers
[Kirsty Williams]
There is not a lot that happens in Welsh Government that does not impinge on the sphere of influence of local authorities. And quite understandably, they constantly remind you of that. Constantly remind you of that.
Kirsty Williams was Minister for Education for 5 years, and had a clear idea of the changes she wanted to make. But when she tried to pull the levers of reform she quickly realised that she wasn’t entirely in charge of the wiring.
[KW}
You know, so much of what Welsh Government is about actually is then handed over to local government to do. So they can make or break stuff - even if you get that far, you know, oftentimes that influence is really powerful before you've even got something that they've been asked to implement. So, yeah, really challenging.
Once a Minister has navigated the civil service machine within the Welsh Government, your policies then often have to pass through the filter of local government.
It is Councils that implement programmes across education, social services, local transport, leisure and local environment to name just some.
Much of the relationship between the different tiers occurs out of public view, but as Kirsty Williams put it, they can make or break stuff.
Ministers learn they are not there to be pushed around. And they can - and do - push back.
Some civil servants and politicians have been known to refer to Councils as ‘the delivery arm’ of the Welsh Government. And Councils, understandably, push back against such hubris
This is Dan Butler. He was one of Mark Drakeford’s Special Advisers
DB
Well, I mean, they have their own independent mandate, don't they? That's one of the key things that distinguishes them, for example, from some other public bodies you deal with. You know, we deal with NRW but NRW aren't elected. They work to the Minister, whereas, when you're dealing with local authorities they have a mandate of their own. And I think that does that change the dynamic, because they will say quite rightly, ‘we've been elected on this basis, and you're trying to tell us we have to do this; or you're going to try and make us do this, and it's going to disrupt this other thing which our electors have told us needs to be done’. You know, there's not much comeback for that, really.
Dan Butler worked for Cardiff Council before becoming a Special Adviser - as did many of the key Ministers in the Government. This frequent cross-fertilisation at a political level - if not so much at an officer level - strongly influences the way in local government is seen, and treated by central government in Wales.
In fact the centrality of the relationship with Councils is something of a shibboleth in the Welsh system. John Howells was a senior civil servant in Cathays Park for over four decades.
[John Howells]
It was always drummed into me when I was a very young civil servant that in Wales relationships with local government were really important. And that's always seemed to be quite sensible.
It doesn't mean to say that the relationships are necessarily always harmonious, but I think it is a key aspect of the challenge facing any political administration in Wales, which is not just what the resources I've got within Cathays Park responding directly to Ministers, but what's the totality of the public sector resource? Or even, not the public sector - the resource available to support the delivery of public services. And is the civil service able to tap into that wider set of organisations? Are there effective, constructive relationships with those organisations?
As John Howellls suggests the Welsh Government is too small to do everything itself, and needs to draw on the critical mass of the whole public services system to make changes.
This goes some way to explain the difference in the relationship between Whitehall and English Councils, and the dynamic in Wales.
England is so much bigger, and Whitehall so much further away, that the day-to-day workings of local Councils seems so distant from the big decisions being made by senior civil servants and Ministers. And so, small.
But in Wales, the dots are closer together, and easier to join.
Tom Woodward was the education lead on the Special Adviser team
[Tom Woodward]
I mean, Wales is just like that anyway, isn't it? Everyone knows everyone and has a relationship, generally. So it is easier to pick up the phone, and it is a little bit easier, well it should be, to be able to invest in those relationships, and it actually be meaningful in a way that if I was running the government in England, that's probably quite difficult.
As well having practical value, the political relationship with local government in Wales has traction too.
Council Leaders are more likely to have some political weight in a Minister’s party.
The impact of the policies of local authorities will be more visible to you too.
The dialogue between civil servants and politicians with the Welsh Local Government Association is part of the drumbeat of the Fifth Floor.
Council Leaders are always in and out of Ministerial offices, or Senedd committee rooms. They are part of the conversation.
And if there are problems their shop stewart, the political leader of the WLGA will soon be knocking on your door.
Cllr Andrew Morgan of Rhondda Cynon Taff is a great ally to have, and can be a terrible enemy.
[TW]
Leadership, again, is so important here. So Andrew Morgan [Leader,WLGA] was particularly effective at speaking to ministers, speaking to spads, and then being able to take a decision to go, right, ‘I'll try and bring everyone with me on that’, because you can't do 22 deals on everything. People seem to expect local government to speak as one voice, which is obviously - particularly ministers actually, who can often be quite cross that there's different views.
But Andrew Morgan was particularly good at showing those leadership qualities to be able to help get things done, you know. And also, I should say, to be absolutely clear, to say to Welsh Government, ‘we can't do this. We won't do this’ type thing. Speaking for or against whatever it might be, having someone that can speak for a large group of people is just so effective for decision making and for governance, isn't it
Andrew Morgan is high up on the list of ‘the most influential people you’ve probably never heard of’. As well as leading one of Wales biggest Councils, he is the point-man for the group of 22 Leaders. It is a powerful position, but not everyone who holds it has the same sway.
Andrew Morgan is very skilled, and very effective. But it is a role that is played out behind the scenes. Here’s Kirsty Williams again.
KW
So they are very, very, very important players who are feeding into the process which the light is never shone on: that's never in a public forum, that's not witnessed by other people. But there is immense influence in local government on Ministers decisions, on how Ministers can implement things or not implement things.
The example of the implementation of the 20mph speed limit is fresh in my mind.
It was the Senedd that passed the law, the Welsh Government who drew up the guidance on how to implement it, and provided the funding for making it happen - but how it applied in your community, that was a decision for County Hall.
The implementation of the policy was in the hands of Councils in their legal role as Local Highway Authorities.
I suggested how they should consult, I urged them to be flexible in how the guidance was interpreted, I reminded them repeatedly of the need to consult with local people.
But how it was implemented locally was for them.
Swansea and Bridgend Council used their discretion to exempt 10% of their local roads from the default 20mph speed limit.
But four of the Councils in north Wales chose not to use their powers. They exempted under 1 per cent of their roads.
And it was in these areas that the number of people signing a petition in protest was the highest. And where the number of speeding tickets issued subsequently was the greatest.
The Welsh Government got the blame.
Councils have different ways of exerting their power.
I asked former Special Adviser Dan Butler how powerful he think Welsh local authorities are in trying to stop things from happening
[DB]
I don't know. It's an interesting question. Though I never really thought of it like that, as in, for me, if you're doing something and it's being completely undermined by the local authorities, then there's probably some improved design available. I mean, so…you know the improvement in the recycling rates, you know, you can see that. You can see it in the stats over time happening. You could see the change in policy. You could see the divergence with England. But in many ways, it's always been quite an uncomfortable arrangement, because ministers don't want to levy fines on local authorities, and to some extent, local authorities know that ministers are reluctant to end up playing this sort of slightly strange dance around all of that.
If Councils don’t hit the Welsh Government’s moving target for recycling waste - currently set at 70% - then they are liable for millions of pounds worth of fines. The approach has helped Wales achieve the second best recycling rates in the world - and way ahead of England. But wielding the stick does not sit easily in a partnership
DB
So working through it didn’t feel a very comfortable institutional relationship, but it did produce results.
LW
That’s a rare example of where Minister did have a solid lever to pull,
DB
…yeah, and didn't want to use it..
LW
..but the fact they had it was material,
DB
I think so. Yeah. I mean, obviously the policy had been around for a long time, so different ministers would have taken a different approach. And certainly, you know, there were more fines levied in a time when austerity was slightly less of a thing I think.
LW
I think that does seem outrider as an example of the Welsh Government's relationship with local authorities, doesn't it? And yet it is the one area where we have seen significant change,
DB
Yeah. And equally I never saw any minister arguing for that system to be replicated for other areas.
LW
Well, I guess in a sense it was the EU rules that gave them those powers in the first place, it wasn’t that the Welsh Government chose to have them, was it?
DB
But the fines and the recycling targets, there's no system like that in England. So it was all in line and all part of the EU framework. But certainly the fines, the recycling targets, the 70% and all of that, that was all Wales-specific legislation.
It's one of the examples of one of the very early and ambitious things. It's actually got a lot closer to what it said it would do than many of the others. I mean, fuel poverty, a completely different example, where rather than levying fines, it's pouring in money. And actually, you know, how much did that move things along? It really struggled.
LW
Yeah, so arguably, as an example where fines were a useful tool to have in the back pocket. So why is it you think that they have that approach that hasn't been replicated in other policy areas?
DB
Because I think the implication it has for the relationship, because I think it changed the relationship. I never felt that any ministers I worked with were totally comfortable with that relationship, because it felt like a sort of student / teacher type relationship - and particularly with people who've got local authority backgrounds. It's not how they see it.
You know, local authorities are not a problem for the Welsh Government to solve. They are delivery organisations. They are out there helping thousands and thousands of people every single day and allow, you know, our towns and cities to exist. They're not perfect. There are many things to improve. But you know, my own experience of working for a local authority, which is some time out of date, is that it was a more modern organisation than the Welsh Government was, and so we had as much to learn from them as we did to teach them, that's for sure.
There are plenty of examples of where the relationship works well, and delivers.
Owain Lloyd was responsible to delivering the policy of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds
[OL]
The childcare offer, for example, was all driven through the relationship with local government. And it's not this dissimilar to the universal free school meals example. So those are two examples of clear government policy, but the only way to deliver effectively - and this is the approach we took on both the childcare offer and universal free school meals - was one that says, ‘Okay, this is the policy. How are we going to deliver and operationalise it?’
And my own view has always been that you have to sit down with local government. You have to co-construct. You have to work through how it's going to work on the ground, get the right funding mechanism in place, and then work with them in terms of the implementation of the policy. And in both those examples, I think we've been really successful in doing that, but you have to put the time and effort into the relationship, and it can pay dividends.
But I know it's not the case in all policy areas.
The centrality of the relationship became very clear during the Covid crisis.
Life shrank overnight as we were all locked down in our homes, and the importance of the hyper-local came into focus.
When you could only go for a 15 minute walk the value of your immediate environment was heightened.
The vital role of key workers, and key services, came to the fore.
And the integral role that your local Council has in those everyday, wellbeing critical services, was clear to see. That was especially true within the Welsh Government. Here’s education Spad Tom Woodward again
[TW]
That relationship, and the work that had been put into it, which went on before covid, and is very time consuming - hugely, I think, paid off. I would say Mark Drakeford's view of the world, and Jane Runeckles [Mark Drakeford senior spad] was particularly good at executing it as well, and making sure local authorities were informed, that did seem to pay off to have those relationships formed once covid happened. It seemed to me to be a force for good.
When the Covid crisis hit the Minister for Local government was Julie James. She had been the deputy chief executive of a large local authority before coming into politics, and so when questions were posed about how problems could be addressed, her mind instinctively turned to the world she knew.
Every single day through the whole crisis Julie James met with all 22 Welsh Council Leaders to coordinate action. Party differences melted away and they formed a team.
Sara Faye was the special adviser who worked closest with her
[SF]
I think COVID moving to the online world, and the ability to hold meetings virtually was a really, really positive thing. I think at that time, Julie James was the Minister for local government, and I think her background in local government helped. She understood how local government worked, she understood the pressure that they were under and she's always talked in a way that's maybe different to others about, you know, the collective impact of what we ask local government to do. And she was very keen to kind of build that relationship and that collegiate way of working….
We met very regularly. We tried to do things together. We tried to think about the collective impact, again, how much you can actually do that because you're not, you're not, there are you. So lots of local authorities are facing different challenges. And so they would tell us, you know, ‘this is all this is all too hard, this is all too much’. But for one local authority, it was that way, and for another local authority it was different. So there was some of those kind of practical things to work through.
Once a Minister has navigated the civil service machine within the Welsh Government, your policies then often have to pass through the filter of local government.
It is Councils that implement programmes across education, social services, local transport, leisure and local environment to name just some.
Much of the relationship between the different tiers occurs out of public view, but as Kirsty Williams put it, they can make or break stuff.
Ministers learn they are not there to be pushed around. And they can - and do - push back.
Some civil servants and politicians have been known to refer to Councils as ‘the delivery arm’ of the Welsh Government. And Councils, understandably, push back against such hubris
This is Dan Butler. He was one of Mark Drakeford’s Special Advisers
DB
Well, I mean, they have their own independent mandate, don't they? That's one of the key things that distinguishes them, for example, from some other public bodies you deal with. You know, we deal with NRW but NRW aren't elected. They work to the Minister, whereas, when you're dealing with local authorities they have a mandate of their own. And I think that does that change the dynamic, because they will say quite rightly, ‘we've been elected on this basis, and you're trying to tell us we have to do this; or you're going to try and make us do this, and it's going to disrupt this other thing which our electors have told us needs to be done’. You know, there's not much comeback for that, really.
Dan Butler worked for Cardiff Council before becoming a Special Adviser - as did many of the key Ministers in the Government. This frequent cross-fertilisation at a political level - if not so much at an officer level - strongly influences the way in local government is seen, and treated by central government in Wales.
In fact the centrality of the relationship with Councils is something of a shibboleth in the Welsh system. John Howells was a senior civil servant in Cathays Park for over four decades.
[John Howells]
It was always drummed into me when I was a very young civil servant that in Wales relationships with local government were really important. And that's always seemed to be quite sensible.
It doesn't mean to say that the relationships are necessarily always harmonious, but I think it is a key aspect of the challenge facing any political administration in Wales, which is not just what the resources I've got within Cathays Park responding directly to Ministers, but what's the totality of the public sector resource? Or even, not the public sector - the resource available to support the delivery of public services. And is the civil service able to tap into that wider set of organisations? Are there effective, constructive relationships with those organisations?
As John Howellls suggests the Welsh Government is too small to do everything itself, and needs to draw on the critical mass of the whole public services system to make changes.
This goes some way to explain the difference in the relationship between Whitehall and English Councils, and the dynamic in Wales.
England is so much bigger, and Whitehall so much further away, that the day-to-day workings of local Councils seems so distant from the big decisions being made by senior civil servants and Ministers. And so, small.
But in Wales, the dots are closer together, and easier to join.
Tom Woodward was the education lead on the Special Adviser team
[Tom Woodward]
I mean, Wales is just like that anyway, isn't it? Everyone knows everyone and has a relationship, generally. So it is easier to pick up the phone, and it is a little bit easier, well it should be, to be able to invest in those relationships, and it actually be meaningful in a way that if I was running the government in England, that's probably quite difficult.
As well having practical value, the political relationship with local government in Wales has traction too.
Council Leaders are more likely to have some political weight in a Minister’s party.
The impact of the policies of local authorities will be more visible to you too.
The dialogue between civil servants and politicians with the Welsh Local Government Association is part of the drumbeat of the Fifth Floor.
Council Leaders are always in and out of Ministerial offices, or Senedd committee rooms. They are part of the conversation.
And if there are problems their shop stewart, the political leader of the WLGA will soon be knocking on your door.
Cllr Andrew Morgan of Rhondda Cynon Taff is a great ally to have, and can be a terrible enemy.
[TW]
Leadership, again, is so important here. So Andrew Morgan [Leader,WLGA] was particularly effective at speaking to ministers, speaking to spads, and then being able to take a decision to go, right, ‘I'll try and bring everyone with me on that’, because you can't do 22 deals on everything. People seem to expect local government to speak as one voice, which is obviously - particularly ministers actually, who can often be quite cross that there's different views.
But Andrew Morgan was particularly good at showing those leadership qualities to be able to help get things done, you know. And also, I should say, to be absolutely clear, to say to Welsh Government, ‘we can't do this. We won't do this’ type thing. Speaking for or against whatever it might be, having someone that can speak for a large group of people is just so effective for decision making and for governance, isn't it
Andrew Morgan is high up on the list of ‘the most influential people you’ve probably never heard of’. As well as leading one of Wales biggest Councils, he is the point-man for the group of 22 Leaders. It is a powerful position, but not everyone who holds it has the same sway.
Andrew Morgan is very skilled, and very effective. But it is a role that is played out behind the scenes. Here’s Kirsty Williams again.
KW
So they are very, very, very important players who are feeding into the process which the light is never shone on: that's never in a public forum, that's not witnessed by other people. But there is immense influence in local government on Ministers decisions, on how Ministers can implement things or not implement things.
The example of the implementation of the 20mph speed limit is fresh in my mind.
It was the Senedd that passed the law, the Welsh Government who drew up the guidance on how to implement it, and provided the funding for making it happen - but how it applied in your community, that was a decision for County Hall.
The implementation of the policy was in the hands of Councils in their legal role as Local Highway Authorities.
I suggested how they should consult, I urged them to be flexible in how the guidance was interpreted, I reminded them repeatedly of the need to consult with local people.
But how it was implemented locally was for them.
Swansea and Bridgend Council used their discretion to exempt 10% of their local roads from the default 20mph speed limit.
But four of the Councils in north Wales chose not to use their powers. They exempted under 1 per cent of their roads.
And it was in these areas that the number of people signing a petition in protest was the highest. And where the number of speeding tickets issued subsequently was the greatest.
The Welsh Government got the blame.
Councils have different ways of exerting their power.
I asked former Special Adviser Dan Butler how powerful he think Welsh local authorities are in trying to stop things from happening
[DB]
I don't know. It's an interesting question. Though I never really thought of it like that, as in, for me, if you're doing something and it's being completely undermined by the local authorities, then there's probably some improved design available. I mean, so…you know the improvement in the recycling rates, you know, you can see that. You can see it in the stats over time happening. You could see the change in policy. You could see the divergence with England. But in many ways, it's always been quite an uncomfortable arrangement, because ministers don't want to levy fines on local authorities, and to some extent, local authorities know that ministers are reluctant to end up playing this sort of slightly strange dance around all of that.
If Councils don’t hit the Welsh Government’s moving target for recycling waste - currently set at 70% - then they are liable for millions of pounds worth of fines. The approach has helped Wales achieve the second best recycling rates in the world - and way ahead of England. But wielding the stick does not sit easily in a partnership
DB
So working through it didn’t feel a very comfortable institutional relationship, but it did produce results.
LW
That’s a rare example of where Minister did have a solid lever to pull,
DB
…yeah, and didn't want to use it..
LW
..but the fact they had it was material,
DB
I think so. Yeah. I mean, obviously the policy had been around for a long time, so different ministers would have taken a different approach. And certainly, you know, there were more fines levied in a time when austerity was slightly less of a thing I think.
LW
I think that does seem outrider as an example of the Welsh Government's relationship with local authorities, doesn't it? And yet it is the one area where we have seen significant change,
DB
Yeah. And equally I never saw any minister arguing for that system to be replicated for other areas.
LW
Well, I guess in a sense it was the EU rules that gave them those powers in the first place, it wasn’t that the Welsh Government chose to have them, was it?
DB
But the fines and the recycling targets, there's no system like that in England. So it was all in line and all part of the EU framework. But certainly the fines, the recycling targets, the 70% and all of that, that was all Wales-specific legislation.
It's one of the examples of one of the very early and ambitious things. It's actually got a lot closer to what it said it would do than many of the others. I mean, fuel poverty, a completely different example, where rather than levying fines, it's pouring in money. And actually, you know, how much did that move things along? It really struggled.
LW
Yeah, so arguably, as an example where fines were a useful tool to have in the back pocket. So why is it you think that they have that approach that hasn't been replicated in other policy areas?
DB
Because I think the implication it has for the relationship, because I think it changed the relationship. I never felt that any ministers I worked with were totally comfortable with that relationship, because it felt like a sort of student / teacher type relationship - and particularly with people who've got local authority backgrounds. It's not how they see it.
You know, local authorities are not a problem for the Welsh Government to solve. They are delivery organisations. They are out there helping thousands and thousands of people every single day and allow, you know, our towns and cities to exist. They're not perfect. There are many things to improve. But you know, my own experience of working for a local authority, which is some time out of date, is that it was a more modern organisation than the Welsh Government was, and so we had as much to learn from them as we did to teach them, that's for sure.
There are plenty of examples of where the relationship works well, and delivers.
Owain Lloyd was responsible to delivering the policy of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds
[OL]
The childcare offer, for example, was all driven through the relationship with local government. And it's not this dissimilar to the universal free school meals example. So those are two examples of clear government policy, but the only way to deliver effectively - and this is the approach we took on both the childcare offer and universal free school meals - was one that says, ‘Okay, this is the policy. How are we going to deliver and operationalise it?’
And my own view has always been that you have to sit down with local government. You have to co-construct. You have to work through how it's going to work on the ground, get the right funding mechanism in place, and then work with them in terms of the implementation of the policy. And in both those examples, I think we've been really successful in doing that, but you have to put the time and effort into the relationship, and it can pay dividends.
But I know it's not the case in all policy areas.
The centrality of the relationship became very clear during the Covid crisis.
Life shrank overnight as we were all locked down in our homes, and the importance of the hyper-local came into focus.
When you could only go for a 15 minute walk the value of your immediate environment was heightened.
The vital role of key workers, and key services, came to the fore.
And the integral role that your local Council has in those everyday, wellbeing critical services, was clear to see. That was especially true within the Welsh Government. Here’s education Spad Tom Woodward again
[TW]
That relationship, and the work that had been put into it, which went on before covid, and is very time consuming - hugely, I think, paid off. I would say Mark Drakeford's view of the world, and Jane Runeckles [Mark Drakeford senior spad] was particularly good at executing it as well, and making sure local authorities were informed, that did seem to pay off to have those relationships formed once covid happened. It seemed to me to be a force for good.
When the Covid crisis hit the Minister for Local government was Julie James. She had been the deputy chief executive of a large local authority before coming into politics, and so when questions were posed about how problems could be addressed, her mind instinctively turned to the world she knew.
Every single day through the whole crisis Julie James met with all 22 Welsh Council Leaders to coordinate action. Party differences melted away and they formed a team.
Sara Faye was the special adviser who worked closest with her
[SF]
I think COVID moving to the online world, and the ability to hold meetings virtually was a really, really positive thing. I think at that time, Julie James was the Minister for local government, and I think her background in local government helped. She understood how local government worked, she understood the pressure that they were under and she's always talked in a way that's maybe different to others about, you know, the collective impact of what we ask local government to do. And she was very keen to kind of build that relationship and that collegiate way of working….
We met very regularly. We tried to do things together. We tried to think about the collective impact, again, how much you can actually do that because you're not, you're not, there are you. So lots of local authorities are facing different challenges. And so they would tell us, you know, ‘this is all this is all too hard, this is all too much’. But for one local authority, it was that way, and for another local authority it was different. So there was some of those kind of practical things to work through.
When it came to getting food parcels to vulnerable people on the shielding list, the logistics of getting PPE equipment to care homes, or standing up a vast contact tracing system in very short order, the Government in England turned to the private sector.
But in Wales it wasn’t to outsourcing companies like Serco that the Government looked to for help, but to local authorities to deliver these services directly.
This was a practical response in a public health emergency because a ready workforce with local knowledge was able to be mobilised quickly, and without the hugely expensive and wasteful procurement exercise that took place in England.
It worked. It was cheaper to deliver. And it reflected the value placed on collaborative relationships, and the values where community leadership was trusted and appreciated.
Kirsty Williams was the Education Minister.
[KW]
We try really hard as a Welsh Government, and I certainly subscribe to this. It's not a party difference that, you know, we should try and do things in partnership. We should try and do things with people, rather than to people. So I was reluctant to invoke quite draconian powers to force people to do things, and I don't think it would have worked anyway.
You can't force somebody to go back into work if they feel, for whatever reason, they don't feel it's appropriate for them to be there. So, yeah, it was really, really tricky.
There was a huge amount of time spent working with local authorities and with trade unions to try and understand their concerns and try and broker the conditions that would, you know, where they would agree to cooperate and work with you.
But in Wales it wasn’t to outsourcing companies like Serco that the Government looked to for help, but to local authorities to deliver these services directly.
This was a practical response in a public health emergency because a ready workforce with local knowledge was able to be mobilised quickly, and without the hugely expensive and wasteful procurement exercise that took place in England.
It worked. It was cheaper to deliver. And it reflected the value placed on collaborative relationships, and the values where community leadership was trusted and appreciated.
Kirsty Williams was the Education Minister.
[KW]
We try really hard as a Welsh Government, and I certainly subscribe to this. It's not a party difference that, you know, we should try and do things in partnership. We should try and do things with people, rather than to people. So I was reluctant to invoke quite draconian powers to force people to do things, and I don't think it would have worked anyway.
You can't force somebody to go back into work if they feel, for whatever reason, they don't feel it's appropriate for them to be there. So, yeah, it was really, really tricky.
There was a huge amount of time spent working with local authorities and with trade unions to try and understand their concerns and try and broker the conditions that would, you know, where they would agree to cooperate and work with you.
The decision to close schools was a conversation the Welsh Government needed to have with Councils, in a way that wasn’t true in England where the school system is far more fragmented.
80% of secondary schools in England are now academies, autonomous from local authorities.
In law they are independent schools, registered with Companies House, funded and controlled directly by Whitehall by means of a contract.
The local government landscape across the UK is changing significantly.
And the Welsh system is wired towards collaboration.
[TW]
Well obviously they have a bigger role, just by the fact they run school still in Wales, and they don't, generally, in England. I mean, that's, that's, that's a huge difference, which means we would struggle to implement and get our priorities done if we haven't got local authorities on board, understanding them, and, for the most part, supporting them.
So from that perspective, it's kind of imperative that there is that relationship, which seems to not really exist as much in England, because they've mostly been sidelined. You know, the local government funds schools, the Welsh Government doesn't on the whole. That's a real big tension that doesn't exist in England as much.
In times of crisis the relationship worked remarkably well, and showed what potential can be harnessed when all parts of the system are pushing in the same direction.
But in peace time, reality reasserts itself. 22 different local authorities do not act with one mind.
Owain Lloyd led the education department in the Welsh Government and has now moved to become a Director of Education in a local authority.
[OL]
I had very, very positive, constructive relationships with the 22 local authorities, because if I didn't then there were consequences to that. But that doesn't mean that there weren't frustrations at times. And I think both parts of the system at times are frustrated with one another.
So you know I'm sat in a very different chair now a month in, and I can see from a local authority point of view, at times how maybe the communications could be better. Or the insecurity when it comes to kind of long-term funding, particularly grant funding, is a barrier to be able to proactively plan longer term. So I can see it in a sense, with both hats on.
But it's a really important relationship. Because unless you went to a fundamentally different system - and in England there is more of a direct funding relationship between DFE [Department for Education] and schools, and there are different models; there are different models in in Europe where government takes far more of a central role in ownership - it might employ the whole workforce directly.
But this Government between believes in the importance of local government, believes in local democracy, doesn't seem to have any appetite for reducing from 22 to eight or nine. Then we have to make the best of what we've got.
There have been two serious attempts by the Welsh Government to rationalise the number of Councils.
In 2014 First Minister Carwyn Jones responded to the recommendations of the Williams Commission he established into public service delivery, by suggesting the 22 Councils should be reorganized into 12.
A year later his Local Government Minister Leighton Andrews went a step further, publishing a map proposing either eight or nine authorities. He even dangled the possibility of consolidating them into just 6 large Councils - largely mirroring the health boards.
But there was no consensus.
While everybody can agree local government needs reorganisation, Leighton Andrews said, nobody is prepared to agree on what it should look like.
“That is not a sustainable position. People need to grow up, bluntly”.
In a meeting of wills, he lost.
Even though the strong-arm tactics did result in a number agreeing to merge, in the end nothing changed.
The Councils saw it off.
In 2018 his successor Alun Davies tried again. Another arm-wrestle. He wanted to halve the number of Councils, and warned them "Change or we will change you!"
But they didn’t.
And he couldn’t.
As a compromise it was agreed Councils would come together on a regional basis to work together in key areas.
Again they’ve played along.
For ten years before he retired in 2024 John Howells oversaw the housing and planning system
[JH]
My department was responsible for the delivery of strategic development plans. Please don't ask me how far we got with that delivery objective, because over the last four years that despite it being a legislative requirement. The political reality was that that wasn't top of the local authorities list of things to do.
Education was an area that a number of Councils were struggling to deliver effective support to schools. And so five regional educational consortiums were set up.
Local Authorities weren’t keen but went along with them as well.
Then quietly killed them off.
Here’s Kirsty Williams
KW
Yeah, I think that's a perfect example. In that you can create a structure, and you can say to people - a previous minister can say to people - ‘we expect you to work and collaborate within this structure’, but if they don't want to do it, then they will not do it.
And that's where you’ve got some really difficult relationships. You know some were more harmonious than others, but some of them you felt like you wanted to knock heads together, you know - and what was so hard about cooperating.
But you know, understandably, if you put yourself into the shoes of a council leader, or an education portfolio holder, you're not going to win any votes because your local authority has supported another local authority's educational improvement journey. Your sole focus, quite rightly, and what you'll be held to account for by your voters, it’s on what you've done in your own county.
80% of secondary schools in England are now academies, autonomous from local authorities.
In law they are independent schools, registered with Companies House, funded and controlled directly by Whitehall by means of a contract.
The local government landscape across the UK is changing significantly.
And the Welsh system is wired towards collaboration.
[TW]
Well obviously they have a bigger role, just by the fact they run school still in Wales, and they don't, generally, in England. I mean, that's, that's, that's a huge difference, which means we would struggle to implement and get our priorities done if we haven't got local authorities on board, understanding them, and, for the most part, supporting them.
So from that perspective, it's kind of imperative that there is that relationship, which seems to not really exist as much in England, because they've mostly been sidelined. You know, the local government funds schools, the Welsh Government doesn't on the whole. That's a real big tension that doesn't exist in England as much.
In times of crisis the relationship worked remarkably well, and showed what potential can be harnessed when all parts of the system are pushing in the same direction.
But in peace time, reality reasserts itself. 22 different local authorities do not act with one mind.
Owain Lloyd led the education department in the Welsh Government and has now moved to become a Director of Education in a local authority.
[OL]
I had very, very positive, constructive relationships with the 22 local authorities, because if I didn't then there were consequences to that. But that doesn't mean that there weren't frustrations at times. And I think both parts of the system at times are frustrated with one another.
So you know I'm sat in a very different chair now a month in, and I can see from a local authority point of view, at times how maybe the communications could be better. Or the insecurity when it comes to kind of long-term funding, particularly grant funding, is a barrier to be able to proactively plan longer term. So I can see it in a sense, with both hats on.
But it's a really important relationship. Because unless you went to a fundamentally different system - and in England there is more of a direct funding relationship between DFE [Department for Education] and schools, and there are different models; there are different models in in Europe where government takes far more of a central role in ownership - it might employ the whole workforce directly.
But this Government between believes in the importance of local government, believes in local democracy, doesn't seem to have any appetite for reducing from 22 to eight or nine. Then we have to make the best of what we've got.
There have been two serious attempts by the Welsh Government to rationalise the number of Councils.
In 2014 First Minister Carwyn Jones responded to the recommendations of the Williams Commission he established into public service delivery, by suggesting the 22 Councils should be reorganized into 12.
A year later his Local Government Minister Leighton Andrews went a step further, publishing a map proposing either eight or nine authorities. He even dangled the possibility of consolidating them into just 6 large Councils - largely mirroring the health boards.
But there was no consensus.
While everybody can agree local government needs reorganisation, Leighton Andrews said, nobody is prepared to agree on what it should look like.
“That is not a sustainable position. People need to grow up, bluntly”.
In a meeting of wills, he lost.
Even though the strong-arm tactics did result in a number agreeing to merge, in the end nothing changed.
The Councils saw it off.
In 2018 his successor Alun Davies tried again. Another arm-wrestle. He wanted to halve the number of Councils, and warned them "Change or we will change you!"
But they didn’t.
And he couldn’t.
As a compromise it was agreed Councils would come together on a regional basis to work together in key areas.
Again they’ve played along.
For ten years before he retired in 2024 John Howells oversaw the housing and planning system
[JH]
My department was responsible for the delivery of strategic development plans. Please don't ask me how far we got with that delivery objective, because over the last four years that despite it being a legislative requirement. The political reality was that that wasn't top of the local authorities list of things to do.
Education was an area that a number of Councils were struggling to deliver effective support to schools. And so five regional educational consortiums were set up.
Local Authorities weren’t keen but went along with them as well.
Then quietly killed them off.
Here’s Kirsty Williams
KW
Yeah, I think that's a perfect example. In that you can create a structure, and you can say to people - a previous minister can say to people - ‘we expect you to work and collaborate within this structure’, but if they don't want to do it, then they will not do it.
And that's where you’ve got some really difficult relationships. You know some were more harmonious than others, but some of them you felt like you wanted to knock heads together, you know - and what was so hard about cooperating.
But you know, understandably, if you put yourself into the shoes of a council leader, or an education portfolio holder, you're not going to win any votes because your local authority has supported another local authority's educational improvement journey. Your sole focus, quite rightly, and what you'll be held to account for by your voters, it’s on what you've done in your own county.
That idea that people would share those resources and work together to lift everybody up, it was a lovely idea, but the reality is very, very different. And I think, if we're honest, the regional consortia was just a mitigation to a bigger policy that wasn't deemed able to be delivered, which is local government reorganisation. So ‘I can't do local government reorganisation. Local education authorities are too small. What do I do about that? ‘Well, I'll try and create this entity’. But ultimately, in significant parts of Wales that was really strained.
LW
In terms of your dynamic of working with local government, there’s an officer side who would primarily deal with your civil servants, and then there's the leader side, the political side, that you would interact with. Were those two bits of local government in tandem or were those slightly disparate forces?
KW
I think, disparate. So your officials would have relationships with Directors of Education, so you would think that there was like an agreement, or there was an understanding of how things would go. But then the portfolio holder or the leader would get hold of something, and you'd find yourself in a very different sphere.
For me that was one of the learning curves. I was very naive in that I thought, ‘well, you know, we're all interested in one thing here, aren't we, and that's improving the education of children in Wales? So surely we'll all just work together really harmoniously to work towards those ends’. It wasn’t like that at all.
LW
Most of the 22 Leaders were men, only a handful were women. Was there a sort of gender element to those discussions?
KW
No, I don't think it's a gender element. I mean, obviously there are personalities, aren't there, are people's views of the world. I don't think there was a gender element to it.
LW
So it was just power-politics?
KW
Yeah, it's just power politics. It's just that, you know, they have a lot of power and Welsh Government have things that they want to do, and sometimes those things aren't necessarily what some of those individuals want to happen. So yeah, it's just, just politics.
Successive Local Government Ministers kept trying. Mark Drakeford, and then Julie James put the requirement to work together regionally into law.
In 2021 the Welsh Government created four new legal entities - with similar powers and duties to councils - to carry out strategic functions on a regional footprint.
They were given the non-threatening name of ‘Corporate Joint Committees or CJCs.
But nobody was fooled. This was local government reorganisation by stealth.
Initially Councils were mandated to come together on regional land-use and transport planning, as well as economic development.
It is slowly, and tentatively, working its way through the system - but without much enthusiasm.
The powers exist for Ministers to add to list of areas where there must be co-operation - and in effect new super-Councils by the back door.
But a change of Minister saw a loss of appetite. Rebecca Evans did not push the point.
The project is now limping along at the pace of the slowest.
The antibodies generated by the immune system of Welsh Councils are strong. And new organs are rejected.
Here’s Owain Lloyd again
OL
My own view on that, historically - I wasn't around at the time - but I do get a sense of, you know, ‘the Williams commission wasn't going to happen. We weren't going to reduce to eight or nine. So how do we ensure that we make this work in a better way that kind of we as a government have to deal with fewer people when it comes to school improvement’.
And so we set up five regional consortia, and lo and behold, that then adds an additional level of complexity into things. So some might argue the same is true at the moment of CJCs.
Is CJC, in a way, just another response to the fact that there is no appetite to reduce local authorities to eight or nine, so we have to find a different way of doing it via the back door when it comes to planning and so on and so forth?
I think it's a really interesting debate. But I think what's interesting, from my point of view is, since the Williams Commission, and that not going anywhere, it doesn't seem to be on anybody's agenda or manifesto that we're going to do anything about the kind of 22 that we have.
Inertia is the most powerful force in this sorry saga.
This again demonstrates that as powerful Ministers think they are, Councils are not to be taken for granted - or underestimated
_____________
So we have stale-mate.
But for all their resistance to change, 14 years of austerity has left Welsh local government as something of a husk
Since the beginning of austerity in 2010 Councils in Wales have lost 40% of their workforce, according to research by the Local Govern ment Association.
Their political will to resist consolidation is undimmed, but their capacity to continue with business as usual is dissipating.
John Howells saw the impact of the gradual hollowing out of local authorities
[JH]
We still devise policies and legislation with a kind of assumption that local authorities will be our delivery arm closer to the people. The harsh reality of the situation in which local authorities today find themselves after 15 years, at least 15 years, of having budgets very seriously squeezed and the manpower reductions that have accompanied, means that the local authorities that are operating in Wales today are very different in nature to the ones that I grew up working alongside.
There are an awful lot of statutory duties placed on local authorities by decades worth of legislation, which, in reality, local authorities are unable to discharge as originally envisaged. My favourite example is the legal requirement to make a regular assessment of local housing pressures. Measuring housing need is a pretty sophisticated thing to do, and it’s an important part of making the case to support building more homes so it remains a statutory requirement. But in reality, that's no longer the sort of technical issue which every one of the 22 local authorities in Wales has the capacity to deliver. It's still part of the great machine of government that continues to operate as if austerity never happened but it reflects the way things used to be but not the world that we live in today.
And that’s where the relationship finds itself today. A disconnect between a political culture that respects the tradition and potential of local government, one that is jealousy guarded by its leadership.
And a public services delivery environment that is running on empty. And facing even further tight public spending settlements.
Owain Lloyd sat on the Fifth Floor. And now sits in County Hall in Carmarthen, so can see things from both perspectives.
[OL]
There are always challenges, not just from a Welsh government point of view, but from a capacity and capability point of view at local government level too. You know some of the local authorities in Wales you could fit their population into the Millennium Stadium, and then it would still be 15,000 space seats! So from a Director of Education, or Director of Social Services, point of view, that is extremely challenging; from a capacity / staffing point of view, to deliver a myriad of Welsh Government priorities over a period of time.
Here’s John Howells again
JH
I don't think you can run it all from Cardiff. When I look back to the 1980s you know, why were people drawing my attention to the important role of local authorities? Why were senior civil servants taking time to engage with senior local authority administrators? It was because that was an important way of making things happen, and it was an important way of having an understanding of what Wales's needs were to be fed into the enormous government machine. I still think that's the case.
I still think that there is a vital role for organisations outside Cathays Park, because you can't run things, you can't secure local delivery, if you're too far away from the locality. But that does not mean that we have perfect local delivery organisations with an excellent understanding of what the relationship is with central government. I don't think we do.
And at a time when there seems to be growing impatience with the ability of politicians to deliver change, to make a difference to people's lives, to be worth having. How can we defend suboptimal delivery arrangements? How can we defend there not being a clear understanding between central government and local government as to who's going to do what, and what a sensible division of the spoils looks like, no matter how difficult that might be.
_____________
This series is an attempt to explain how things look and feel from behind the desk of a Minister on the fifth floor of Ty Hywel.
I’ve spoken to former Ministers, advisers and civil servants to try and explain some of the pressures that they have to deal with when trying to bring about change.
It isn’t as simple as having an idea and issuing instructions.
The first episode looked at the bandwidth constraints Ministers face, and the challenge of prioritising.
The second and third episodes looked at the capacity and capability limitations faced by the civil service in translating ministers' wishes into actions.
The last episode considered how challenge from the Senedd and civil society interacts with decision making.
And this episode has tried to give some insight into what academics call multi-level governance. The relationship between the Welsh Government and local authorities.
The interplay between all these dynamic forces makes up the highly complex landscape that Ministers have to navigate.
And that’s why on most days you are relieved to get back into the lift and leave the fifth floor.
Not that you can leave the pressure behind.
And this episode has tried to give some insight into what academics call multi-level governance. The relationship between the Welsh Government and local authorities.
The interplay between all these dynamic forces makes up the highly complex landscape that Ministers have to navigate.
And that’s why on most days you are relieved to get back into the lift and leave the fifth floor.
Not that you can leave the pressure behind.
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