Following the publication of a report by the Building Communities Trust, which highlights the barriers to community action in Wales, Shadow Local Government and Communities Minister Mark Isherwood MS has called on the Local Government Minister to work with them to deliver and monitor a better way of local government working across Wales.
Mr Isherwood raised the matter when questioning the Minister, Julie James MS, in the Senedd this week.
He said:
“The recent Building Communities Trust report, 'Building Stronger Welsh Communities: opportunities and barriers to community action in Wales' is about harnessing the strength and skills of local people so that they can build the social infrastructure and shape the services they want and need in their area.
“After facilitating ‘a national conversation with over 250 people who attended 20 events held across the length and breadth of Wales’, they found that: ‘people in Wales feel increasingly less able to influence decisions affecting their local area’, that ‘worthy words are not being backed up by action’, that public bodies are ‘doing to, not with’ people and communities, and that entrenched public sector ways of working characterised by poor communication, lack of trust, risk aversion, silo working, professional bias and staff demotivation are significant barriers to greater community action. And certainly my casework supports that in droves.”
“How will you therefore be engaging with them to design, deliver and monitor a better way of local government working across Wales?”
In her response, the Minister insisted that “the whole thrust of 'Planning Policy Wales', the national development framework and the recovery papers that my colleagues the Counsel General and Ken Skates, the Economy Minister, have been working on across all the regions of Wales are all designed to make sure that local people have that loud voice”, and told Mr Isherwood to raise any cases ‘where that's not working as optimally as it could’ with her.