| Revealing Views from within Government (Part 2) |
A Political Diary |
| Lee Waters In Interview with Ministers, Civil Servants, Advisers , Political Life of Wales , June 1, 2025 |
Lee Waters interviewed a range of those involved in different roles in the governing of Wales. He published them under the heading “Conversations In Cathays.” The result ran to 151 pages. Themes reported in part 1, 31st May 2025, that ran throughout were that the Government lacked the capability to do what it wished and operated within a society of limited comment and scrutiny. On scope: John Howells: My personal view is that the system has bitten off rather more that it can chew! For a whole set of understandable reasons, we've got to a position where the amount of legislation that's being announced, thought about and promoted, is becoming greater than the capacity of the machine to deliver. And I think that's an understandable thing to have happened, given perfectly reasonable political desires and ambitions. But what it means is that when you put that on top of policy functions that were just about managing to deliver something has to give. Legislation is just very hungry on people and time. And whilst, I think it's understandable that politicians come into government in Wales thinking, ‘Well, this is one of the ways that we can achieve change.’ It turns out to be quite a complicated way to achieve change, and if you're not well supplied with experienced policy makers in the area where you're trying to legislate, then the system starts to creak. * * * * On purpose: Lee Waters: I had this conversation with John Howells who was of the view that the Welsh Government has bitten off more than it can chew and should do fewer things better. However, as a democratically responsive body, people expect the Welsh Government to be active in all areas, so there is an almost impossible dilemma there. Owain Lloyd: I do have to ask the question, in 2024 do we right now as a government know what our overarching objective is - what we're there for. I think there are parts of the business where we're just in the operational weeds. The historic view of - you're there to legislate, you're there to set the policy direction, you're there to fund. I'm not sure 25 years in whether we've asked that fundamental question. And it's a Civil Service question as well as a ministerial question, because I think as the financial context gets more challenging, I just don't think we've got the capacity or the capability to be maybe doing everything to the extent that we have done to date, moving forward. Lee Waters: But then how do you drop things? Owain Lloyd: Well in my experience people will say, ‘There's lots of things that we could stop doing or do differently.’ But it's never in one's own area. It's pointing the finger elsewhere. * * * * On legislative process failings: Leslie Griffiths: In Westminster, you have a Bill Team - that’s everybody, your lawyers, your counsel, your policy officials, absolutely everybody working together. Here we don't do that, the lawyers come in far too late. So, by the time you think you've cracked it all, and, ‘This is how it's going to be,’ the lawyers say, ‘No, you can't do that.’ It's too late. I've spoken to at least three Permanent Secretaries about this. I don't think our legal capacity is big enough. * * * * On the civil service: Lee Waters; From the conversations I’ve had with people who have come into the Welsh Government from other government departments or Whitehall and many of them say the Welsh Government is the most frustrating place they’ve ever worked - it is risk averse, it is slow, there is a corporate ‘centre’ that makes things very hard to do. Owain Lloyd: Yes, it is a picture I recognise. It's a picture I recognise, which senior colleagues of mine would often discuss, and it's one that I personally recognise. I increasingly had the feeling over a number of years that this corporate centre you've alluded to was there to find 99 reasons why you couldn't do something, instead of finding the one reason, or the one way of taking something forward. So whether that was procurement or whether that was legal - and in legal in particular - there is a huge risk aversion to being creative and to sometimes taking a risk. * * * * On the whole and its management: Ian Taylor: The system serves no one well. It doesn't serve the public well. It doesn't serve the officials themselves well, and it doesn't serve the politicians well. So, then you have to say, ‘Well, how do we end up in that situation where you've got something which actually serves nobody?’ Well, that sounds very negative, but it's important to think, ‘How could it be better?’ One very good official said he'd never worked in any organisation that was so badly managed, and then he left. Lee Waters: You don't think that applies Whitehall-wide? You think it is a specifically Welsh Government thing? Ian Taylor: The official I just quoted had worked in other parts of government. Now, I think some of the same phenomena clearly appear elsewhere. It is a time-honoured principle that officials who might supposedly be neutral, if they actually don't like the agenda, have a lot of ways that they can make progress grindingly slow. Lee Waters' blog at: https://amanwy.blogspot.com/2025/ |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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