Thursday, June 06, 2013
Holding the Welsh Government to account
There is a lot of activity in the media at the moment, with opposition parties seeking to claim the credit for the Welsh Government's u-turn yesterday on Chief Executive's pay, but if truth be told it was a joint effort in which all three played a part. And about time too.
Faced with the possibility of losing their Local Democracy Bill altogether the Welsh Government had little choice but to agree to put provisions in that will improve transparency and accountability in the way that the salaries of council chief executives are set.
For once Labour had to face up to the fact that they don't have a majority, even if they consistently act as if they do.
The electoral arithmetic of the Senedd is such that when the opposition parties act collectively then neither they nor Labour can force through any measure, but both sides can block things. Thus, the only leverage that could be applied to the Local Government Minister was that we would vote down the whole Bill.
Whether that sort of joint working will happen again has yet to be seen, but it needs to. The Welsh Government has been given too easy a ride over the last two years by the failure of all three opposition parties to make them work for their measures.
Not only have we not cooperated with each other enough to force changes to legislation and other proposals, but the Government have been let off the hook due to Plaid Cymru and the Tories in particular not whipping all of their members in for the vast majority of votes.
That has to change and I am hopeful it will. Yesterday may well prove to be pivotal in the way that the Welsh Assembly holds the Welsh Government to account.
Faced with the possibility of losing their Local Democracy Bill altogether the Welsh Government had little choice but to agree to put provisions in that will improve transparency and accountability in the way that the salaries of council chief executives are set.
For once Labour had to face up to the fact that they don't have a majority, even if they consistently act as if they do.
The electoral arithmetic of the Senedd is such that when the opposition parties act collectively then neither they nor Labour can force through any measure, but both sides can block things. Thus, the only leverage that could be applied to the Local Government Minister was that we would vote down the whole Bill.
Whether that sort of joint working will happen again has yet to be seen, but it needs to. The Welsh Government has been given too easy a ride over the last two years by the failure of all three opposition parties to make them work for their measures.
Not only have we not cooperated with each other enough to force changes to legislation and other proposals, but the Government have been let off the hook due to Plaid Cymru and the Tories in particular not whipping all of their members in for the vast majority of votes.
That has to change and I am hopeful it will. Yesterday may well prove to be pivotal in the way that the Welsh Assembly holds the Welsh Government to account.
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Good points from Peter. I can easily imagine Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems agreeing on the vast majority of policies. The difficulty I see as a close watcher is with the Tories. Can they actually be trusted? I hope they can because that would then be a challenge for Labour.
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