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Opinion

Devolution: what do we have to show for it?

27 May 2025 5 minute read
Welsh Labour in the Senedd Chamber- Image Senedd Cymru

Cllr Rhys Mills

We were promised something better. That was the deal with devolution. Bring power home. Make it local. Make it honest.

A government that looked like us, sounded like us, and fought for towns the rest of the world had written off. But a quarter of a century in, what do we have to show for it?

Managed decline. Packaged as maturity.

The services are still disappearing. The budgets are still shrinking. The difference is now we get strategy documents to soften the blow. A new font on the press release. A carefully focus grouped explanation of why your library has been turned into a Weatherspoons. Progress, apparently.

And that is the problem. The parties in charge of building the new Wales are more focused on managing the failure than preventing it.

Extravagances

In my community, youth clubs have been closed, play schemes scrapped, and vital public spaces left to teeter until locals stepped in. Libraries, once warm spaces of dignity and access, are shut down as if they were extravagances. The justification is always the same. No one uses them. They cost too much. They are outdated.

But what they really are is inconvenient. Not to the public. To the people making decisions about them. A library lets people exist without spending money. And that kind of freedom is apparently unaffordable.

Meanwhile, politicians talk endlessly about engagement. About fairness. About new beginnings. The voting system has changed. More proportional. More democratic. More voices. On paper. But people do not live on paper. They live in places where their services are gone and their voices are only welcome if they are saying thank you.

And if you want to understand why trust is broken, look not at the policies, but at the mindset behind them.

Managed performance

Because while communities are stretched to breaking point, party machines are focused on control. Internal democracy has become a managed performance. Who gets picked. Who gets heard. Who gets boxed out. It is not always illegal. But it is often illegitimate.

Parties that cannot run a fair meeting have no business asking for public trust. If you cannot respect your own members, you are never going to respect the public. And that disrespect trickles down. Into how funding decisions are made. Into how communities are consulted. Into how services are cut.

And it is in that vacuum between vanished public services and hollowed out party structures that a particular class has taken centre stage. Not the workers. Not the elite. Something in between. Propped up by credit. Dragged down by cost.

Freelancers. Landlords. Sole traders. Self employed grafters who see themselves as self made but live one invoice away from collapse. They are culturally loud. Economically fragile. Politically volatile.

They do not hold power directly, but they shape the mood. They influence the tone. They dominate the narrative even as they teeter on the edge of it. They are not the footnotes. They are the engine room of the politics we have now.

They are not a problem. They are a signal. A sign that the old binaries are collapsing. That if Welsh politics keeps offering managed decline with a progressive accent, this group will drift. Left. Right. Or out of politics altogether.

Trust

The question now is not what policies get announced. It is who gets to shape them.

Real trust comes from power shared, not just power branded. And that starts inside the room. Who speaks. Who listens. Who decides. The basics.

Because this is not about structure. It is about imagination. About who we think Wales belongs to.

In my community, we still have an institute because local people refused to let it close quietly. We still have a youth club. Not because it was protected. Because volunteers stepped in and reopened the doors. We still have a playgroup.

Not thanks to funding, but because parents refused to accept that children in their area should have nowhere to go. And we still have libraries. Just about. Because people showed up when the spreadsheets said they should not bother.

That is the real Welsh Government. Not the one with the crest and the webcast. The one held together with community WhatsApp groups, last minute fundraisers and people too stubborn to give up.

So let us stop asking.

If the politics is not working, we build something that does. Start from where we are. Use what we have. Bring who we know.

The next Wales will not be handed down. It will be built, piece by piece, by people who have already started.

And the moment it shows promise, the same people who tried to stop it will turn up smiling for the photo…

Rhys Mills is a Plaid Cymru town councillor for Blackwood South.


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Alwyn
Alwyn
24 days ago

Sorry Rhys, you’re part of the problem! How much do YOU receive from your council in your salary? And why are there 21 other ‘county’ councils in Wales? In 1994 the Westminster Tories decreed that the 8 relatively effective county councils in Wales were to be replaced in 1996 by 22 tinpot councils, with PAID councillors. When Blair’s Labour took over, and devolution arrived in 1999 – that was the time to reverse this. Labour were equally blameworthy in that they left things as they were. Result? Fewer, higher-paid generalist officers without sufficient topic expertise advising small cabals of leading… Read more »

Undecided
Undecided
24 days ago
Reply to  Alwyn

I agree with your criticism of the failure to reform local government; but not your criticism of Rhys who strikes me as someone doing his best for his community within a system he didn’t design (and your argument against Councillor salaries is a very tired one. They should be paid and the remuneration is not excessive). He also makes a number of valid points about the struggles in public services, life generally and disconnected political parties. My answer to his headline question is “not much”. Nor will the current devolution model deliver, whoever prevails in next year’s elections.

Rhys Mills
Rhys Mills
24 days ago
Reply to  Alwyn

That’s an easy answer. I have never received a penny from being a councillor. As Mayor, I received the allowance and passed it on to my designated charity.

Stephen Thomas
Stephen Thomas
24 days ago
Reply to  Rhys Mills

To be honest, I guessed that would be the case but wasn’t certain. Although in a different county to you, I have always seen you as a person of the highest integrity. Thank you Rhys

Stephen Thomas
Stephen Thomas
24 days ago
Reply to  Alwyn

I think you will find it was the Labour Party who opposed the cull of the councils and until we have a change of government it will continue. I agree with all your sentiments and I confer I don’t know what Plaid policy is on this, but I would hope they would agree to a cull . Over to you Rhun

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
24 days ago

The food chain in a parasite society…

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
24 days ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

To close a Library requires a certain type of mind, Philistine springs to mine,

Should we really choose this kind of person to run our community, one narrow, anti-social anti-society I’m/we are alright Jack safe in the Golf Club etc…

That one million in ten million quid that is always spent regardless of project cancellation, it cannot help but finish up in the same class of pocket…

I’d start there and with those that are paid fortunes for polluting and desecrating our country…

Last edited 23 days ago by Mab Meirion
Ian Michael Williams
Ian Michael Williams
23 days ago

A Future Senedd: After 25 years into Wales’ ongoing devolution journey, now is the time to rethink how devolved government can achieve ambitious transformations in our collective wellbeing. In the past the cry from Senedd politicians is that they were not enough to provide good scrutiny. My interpretations whilst working there, were that it was poorly organised. That was a professional opinion based on my experience in high office in the Auto and Electronics Industry. From May 2026 there is a new piano to play, and a desperate need for it to play a better melody than the previous dirge!… Read more »

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
23 days ago

Playground mud slinging won’t be missed…

And no more first world war anti-u-boat dazzle camouflage outfits…please…

Garycymru
Garycymru
23 days ago

While a puppet Westminster government runs Wales, we’ll always get what Westminster wants.
One country running anothers affairs is not democracy in any way.

Rob
Rob
23 days ago

Welsh Labour have never been interested from unlocking Wales potential. They benefit from the status quo, so why would they change that?

Gerallt Llewelyn Rhys.
Gerallt Llewelyn Rhys.
23 days ago

The best thing about devolution is. I’m trying – honest. The runaway success is the grater number of Welsh speakers.

Johnny
Johnny
22 days ago

Free prescriptions and Bus Passes

Undecided
Undecided
22 days ago
Reply to  Johnny

I’d happily pay for both and see the cash go to those in need. Welfarism doesn’t work.

Blakey
Blakey
22 days ago
Reply to  Undecided

In England 90% of prescriptions are free. They’d actually save money by making them all free, in reduced admin and medical costs caused by people not taking their prescribed medication due to the cost. But that’s a voter loser so taxpayers actually pay more just to appear less socialist. That’s kinda twisted isn’t it.

Gerallt Llewelyn Rhys.
Gerallt Llewelyn Rhys.
22 days ago
Reply to  Johnny

I would rather pay my way.

Garycymru
Garycymru
22 days ago

The other good thing is that the Welsh haters have an absolute meltdown because we have a government and the start of actual real democracy.

Pete
Pete
22 days ago
Reply to  Garycymru

That’s a long 25 year start…

Thomas
Thomas
22 days ago

There are less Welsh speakers now! 2001 census: 582,400 Welsh speakers, 2024 census: 538,300. The population has increased by 7%, but the number of Welsh speakers has decreased by 7%. And that is despite the Welsh Government throwing a huge amount of taxpayers’ money at it.

Pete
Pete
22 days ago

So, after two or three days since the article was published, we seem to have come up with ‘Free prescriptions’ and ‘Bus Passes’ as the sole achievements in 25 years. Oh, and we’ve moved up a whole rung on the poorness ladder. A whirlwind of success. Well done to all our politicians. No, really. As long as no-one mentions the economy, NHS, PISA education tables etc then give yourselves a hearty slap on the back.

Thomas
Thomas
22 days ago
Reply to  Pete

I completely agree. Public services might be in decline in England, but the education system and NHS in Wales (and Scotland) are declining faster than they are in England, despite the Welsh Government having more money per head to spend.
Perhaps if the Welsh Government concentrated on its day job instead of spending taxpayers’ money on vanity projects like planting 25 million trees in Uganda (I kid you not), we might be in a slightly better position.

Peter J
Peter J
22 days ago
Reply to  Thomas

I completely agree, and I think nobody, especially the opposition parties have solutions to improving either of these areas. And you can add economic development to that list. Hence they talk about things such as HS2 or Crown state devolution, which they know full well isn’t going to change, but conveniently acts as a wedge issue. I do also think that government can’t solve every problem, and some of the issues around education and health are out of the control of WG I would say one area of devolution which is proven to be a great success has been the… Read more »

Bilbo
Bilbo
22 days ago
Reply to  Pete

Moving up the GDP per capita table is the economy stupid (credit: Bill Clinton). You literally mentioned someone mentioning the economy then said no-one mentions the economy.

Last edited 22 days ago by Bilbo
Llew Gruffudd
Llew Gruffudd
21 days ago

After 25 years of devolution, It would seem that all the comment contributors struggle to provide any examples of meaningful improvements. The author talks of the promise of better. It is a promise that should not have been made. It’ couldn’t be realised then and it can’t be realised now. Devolution isn’t about making things better in Wales, it is about keeping the Union together. Tony Blair, the incoming Prime Minister at the time of devolution, admits ‘ The overriding reason devolution was put in the manifesto was to ward off the bigger threat of secession ‘…..’ It has worked… Read more »

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
20 days ago
Reply to  Llew Gruffudd

Thanks for pointing out the classic spin at the end…

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