Ex-minister Lee Waters releases podcast transcripts that expose the frustrations of being in government

Martin Shipton

A former minister who produced a podcast series exposing the huge frustrations involved in running the Welsh Government has released transcripts of the broadcasts in the hope of getting more insights from readers.

Llanelli Labour MS Lee Waters served as deputy economy and transport minister and then deputy minister for climate change during the period when Mark Drakeford was First Minister.

Decisions

He said: “When I was asked to set a reading list for students studying for a Master’s Degree in Welsh Politics at Cardiff University it became obvious that very little has been written about how decisions get made and how the institutions of government work.

“Six months after handing in my ministerial pass for the Welsh Government’s HQ in Cathays Park and the Fifth Floor of Ty Hywel in Cardiff Bay, I sat down with a dozen people I’d worked with in Welsh Government but who were no longer bound by the codes of secrecy, and had long-form conversations to try and explore some of the inner workings to provide some material for students to understand.

“With the help of an iPhone and a simple audio editing software package I set about turning this raw material into a radio documentary series which, thanks to the wonders of podcasting, I would easily share with students and those with a general interest in how politics and government in Wales works. All episodes are available on the main podcast platform if you search for ‘Y Pumed Llawr – The Fifth Floor’

“I asked the people I used to work with what they think are the main pressures we’ve all faced in trying to get things done in government. We settled on six themes and I focussed an episode on each one: the sheer breadth of ministerial responsibilities; the bandwidth of the civil service to get things done quickly; the relationship with local government – the real delivery arm of Welsh Government; the quality of scrutiny ministers face, or indeed the absence of it; relationships within our own parties, and with other parties, which shape the choices ministers make; and the dysfunctional sausage machine that is the government’s legislative programme.

“This is the list that vexed us all – and posed major challenges to our ambitions for office.”

Burnout

In the first episode of the podcast, Mr Waters revealed that he had two periods of burnout as a minister, with lengthy stretches off sick for a combination of reasons.

He then stated: “The stress of being Health Minister left its mark on Lesley Griffiths. She can tell you exactly how long she was in the job: 22 months, three weeks and four days.”

Ms Griffiths, the MS for Wrexham, told the podcast: “It was horrible. It really was a miserable time. As I say, somebody’s got to do it. But it was miserable, you know, you got death threats. I remember having a mug sent to me with a death threat on.

“And I always felt [that a Westminster health minister] just wouldn’t get the level of scrutiny that we got here, because you look out the window, our stakeholders are there.

“We’re a very small country, and you were held responsible for things. I remember, unfortunately, a baby dying in a certain hospital in Wales, and somebody wrote to me and said, ‘that’s your fault’. As a mother you take that really, really personally.

“I lost a stone and a half in 18 months. Yeah, it’s a great diet. I say that to everybody.

“]There was] stress, and the fact that you have no life. So, you ask my family, they say I was miserable, and I never did anything apart from [having] two weeks holiday the two years I was doing it.

“Sundays were literally signing letters that I had from other elected representatives. Now, some health ministers let other people do that. I feel very passionately that if my name is at the bottom of that letter, I need to sign off. So you would have to read the letter that was sent to you. You’d have to read the advice, and then you’d have to read the letter that you were sending back. So I could have 80 letters on a Sunday, and I knew if I didn’t do them on a Sunday, I wouldn’t get time to do them the rest of the week.

“And the thing about health as well was you’d go on a visit, say to a hospital for an hour, you’d come out, and your private secretary would say ‘you need to clear six press releases…Oh, and this has happened’.

“I remember I went into local government straight after health, and going on a visit and coming out, and there was just nothing. And I remember thinking, ‘wow, this is completely different’.

“I personally couldn’t have done it for much longer, and that was the kind of agreement I had with the First Minister, that I didn’t really want to do it for a huge amount of time. I mean, you know, some health ministers have done it for a lot longer than I did, but I personally found it really, really, really tough.”

‘Grateful’

Mr Waters said: “I am extremely grateful to everyone who sat down with me and spoke with such candour about their experiences.

“But of course the perspectives are those of a dozen people. These are by definition partial and limited to their own experiences and views. What I hope is that this will encourage others to offer more perspectives, and to challenge or add to these accounts to add to the body of work for future students to draw on.

“If you have views, I’d be really delighted if you’d share them as comments on each of the episode transcripts. I am considering developing the series further – possibly as a book – and would really value your feedback. If you’d rather give it privately please email me and I will treat the information in confidence: [email protected].”

The transcripts can be accessed via Mr Waters’ blog here.