Welsh Government ‘not ready for expanded Senedd’, say two ex-ministers

Martin Shipton

Two former ministers have claimed that not enough preparation is being done by the Welsh Government in advance of the big increase in the number of Senedd Members coming in 2026.

The number of MSs will go up from 60 to 96, leading to significant changes in the way the Welsh Government operates, but ex-ministers Lee Waters and Lesley Griffiths have expressed serious concerns in a podcast presented by Mr Waters.

The Llanelli MS tells listeners: “After the next Senedd elections in 2026 the Welsh Parliament is going to get bigger … a 60% increase in the size of the Senedd, and a greater number of ministers in the Welsh Government.is bound to have a knock-on effect on the demands of the civil service.”

‘Massive impact’

Wrexham MS Lesley Griffiths served as a minister for 15 years until she resigned earlier this year after telling Vaughan Gething to quit as First Minister. She tells Mr Waters: “Senedd reform will have a massive impact on the Welsh Government. Are they prepared for it? Probably not. So you’re going to have an increase in the number of Members in the Senedd, and you’re therefore going to have an increase in the number of ministers – not significant, I think it’s up to 19 from 14 or 15. But that’s another four or five departments.

“If we get the devolution of youth justice, you need expertise in that area. Have we got the expertise within the current civil service? I’m guessing probably not. Have the civil service thought about the impact of additional ministers and what the Welsh Government .. Because I know now, and you know as a minister, that if you want something you want it straightaway.

“So once the new Senedd is returned in May 2026, those ministers that come in, and if they’ve got a new portfolio or if the portfolios have been split in a way I think will be more compatible, have we got the expertise in the civil service, have we got the capacity to have five more private offices? [As a minister], you rely hugely on your senior private secretary and your private secretary, and your private office.

“So I don’t think that preparation has been done in a way that really is needed – and I think we need to be a bit more transparent on that.”

‘Efficacy’

Mr Waters says: “Increasing the size of the Senedd was built on the case that the Parliament needed greater capacity to increase its efficacy and an awful lot of political capital has been expended to secure the change that will come in at the next Senedd election in 2026. But it doesn’t feel like there’s any appetite, or political capital left, to mirror the capacity increases in the Welsh Government.”

Owain Lloyd, who was Director of Education and the Welsh Language in the Welsh Government until October 2024, tells the podcast: “I think most of my colleagues would say that Senedd expansion is going to have an absolute impact in terms of workload, and the work it generates for government with no recognition of that. I think inevitably more Members, more scrutiny, more committee reports, more oral questions, written questions and so on will have an impact in terms of how the government responds.

“I think alongside that, we’ve also created commissioners and other people who often report with recommendations which again feed into workload and how we respond to things. So I don’t think that can be forgotten about either.”

During the podcast Mr Waters also suggests that while ministers are responsible for making decisions, civil servants, if they are so minded, can delay the implementation of policy commitments.

He tells how he brought transport expert Ian Taylor into the Welsh Government to shape the detail of bus service reform.

‘Shake-up’

Mr Waters says: “We agreed on a plan for a radical shake-up. Transport officials were on board. The key ministers were behind it. But other parts of the civil service took against it. Obstacle after obstacle was thrown in the way, which slowed everything down.”

Mr Taylor tells the podcast: “The lawyers insisted they had to have x weeks to work on it. The consultation with various external bodies had to last so long, and after that you had to do some sort of re-write and all the rest of it. You [Lee Waters] had been very clear that this was something you wanted. Bus reform was something that was embedded in the political mandate of the Welsh Government, in fact. So to my mind a lot of time was essentially wasted on exercises that didn’t need to take place or that should have been able to happen a lot faster.

“A lot of the officials would claim they’d got limited resources – a phrase that came up again and again and again. I’ve cited instances where the people who were claiming the most paucity of resources, like the lawyers, seemed to be wasting their time rather than actually producing the goods. I think you could have one or two meetings, sort out all of the issues, and get something drafted within a week or two.”

Mr Waters says: “The barriers thrown in your way that Ian Taylor describes are very real and resulted in a lot of wasted time and energy. It didn’t just snag junior ministers like me. This culture did not respect rank, as the First Minister at the time found out.”

National Park

Mark Drakeford tells the podcast: “In the run up to the 2021 election I toured the whole of north Wales, telling people that if they voted for a Labour government they were going to get a new national park. It was prominent in our literature at the time. I passionately believe in it and I said it everywhere.

“The election came in May and early in June I was due to make a visit to north Wales. I wanted to go to meet the people running the area of outstanding natural beauty, which was to become the national park. I had a note from our legal services department instructing me – and it read like an instruction rather than advice – that I was not to mention the fact that we were going to create a new national park, because this would prejudice the process you had to go through afterwards.

“I~ remember saying there is no way at all that I’m not going to be talking about something which I’d spent weeks on end talking about through the whole of north Wales.

“It’s that precautionary sense that creeps into any hierarchical bureaucracy. There will be that sort of seeping sense of Better Not To, Think Carefully, Don’t Do. It’s politicians’ job, very often, to make sure that there are pressures in the opposite direction. We come with the democratic mandate. We come with the impetus that comes from having won an election. And it’s often our job to make sure that that inherent caution – which sometimes you’re grateful for – doesn’t overwhelm your ability to get things done.”

* Lee Waters’ podcast The Fifth Floor 3 (The Civil Service Dysfunction Part 2) can be accessed via Apple and Spotify.