Browse content similar to 11/06/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Minister, Huw Lewis. And why is there such confusion amongst Welsh | :00:20. | :00:24. | |
voters about the system of government we have? We will be | :00:25. | :00:27. | |
talking to Rhodri Morgan and Lord Ellis about the legacy of the past | :00:28. | :00:30. | |
15 years. Ellis about the legacy of the past | :00:31. | :00:42. | |
Good evening. On tonight?s programme, educational | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
standards in Wales have been the subject | :00:47. | :00:52. | |
of much concern in recent years. Rankings in the international | :00:53. | :00:54. | |
league tables, known as PISA, have slipped. Wales is the worst | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
performing nation in the UK. And the latest in a long series | :00:58. | :00:59. | |
of reports has concluded that not enough is being done to support | :01:00. | :01:02. | |
teachers and that the Welsh government | :01:03. | :01:04. | |
lacks a long-term vision for the future of education in | :01:05. | :01:06. | |
Wales. We?ll be talking to the education | :01:07. | :01:08. | |
minister, Huw Lewis, in a moment. But first, Professor | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
Richard Dougherty, a former senior Welsh government | :01:12. | :01:12. | |
adviser on education, He says that while certain policy | :01:13. | :01:14. | |
initiatives begin with the best of intentions, the Welsh Government?s | :01:15. | :01:18. | |
implementation of changes over the past 15 years has been | :01:19. | :01:20. | |
inadequate. A major review of the school system | :01:21. | :01:39. | |
says the Welsh government lacks a long-term vision. Wales is ranked | :01:40. | :01:47. | |
43rd... When you dare to be different and stick to a Welsh of | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
doing things bad reports can be hard to stomach. And now one of the Welsh | :01:51. | :01:56. | |
government's was trusted education advisers has admitted that policy | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
makers must try harder. We have to do things better and show that we | :02:02. | :02:04. | |
are doing things better. Only then can we have the kind of education | :02:05. | :02:10. | |
system we can be proud of. Since 1999 Welsh government made some | :02:11. | :02:19. | |
major changes. Lee tables and SATS have been abolished, but the results | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
have not matched the enthusiasm for change. In their rush to reinvent | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
Welsh education, have the people in here tried to do too much, too soon? | :02:29. | :02:34. | |
Much of the effort in the early years of devolution was about | :02:35. | :02:42. | |
establishing the main planks of a new education system. There was less | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
attention given band should have been to whether those planks were | :02:47. | :02:52. | |
sound and whether they were affecting what was happening in | :02:53. | :02:56. | |
schools. In 2004 the professor chaired a group that recommended the | :02:57. | :03:00. | |
abolition of SATS. He said they should be replaced with a system | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
where teachers assess their pupils. It was one of the Welsh | :03:05. | :03:10. | |
government's biggest changes, but it is said that schools were not given | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
enough support to make it work. They did not spend anything like enough | :03:15. | :03:20. | |
money on supporting the new system, so it didn't work as well as it | :03:21. | :03:26. | |
should have done. The inspector Prib -- provided a report on the new | :03:27. | :03:29. | |
system fibres after it was initiated and they said that that was patchy. | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
Of course it would be, if you just handed it over to schools. Taking on | :03:34. | :03:40. | |
an entire education system was a big ask for This Place in 1999. Since | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
then, many have wondered whether lack of expertise and focus within | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
these walls has been a barrier to success, and are they still causing | :03:51. | :03:55. | |
problems today? They did not have the long-term, strategic learning | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
that has to be in place. It is only slowly getting there. That is one of | :04:01. | :04:05. | |
the disappointments, that policies that should be fully in place by | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
now, like a foundation phase, are still, as a recent report showed, | :04:11. | :04:17. | |
working to some extent, but the policies are still evidently patchy. | :04:18. | :04:21. | |
Changes to policy have been constant over the past 15 years. It is argued | :04:22. | :04:26. | |
that support for teachers has been inconsistent. And that helping those | :04:27. | :04:34. | |
in the classroom could be the key to better results. The countries with | :04:35. | :04:40. | |
the highest performance have a high-quality and well supported | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
teaching profession, who recruit some very able people and when they | :04:46. | :04:48. | |
are in post they get was a training and support and they appreciate | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
that. We have not had that in Wales. We need to put the quality of | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
teaching and teacher is right at the top of the agenda. Since devolution, | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
Wales has had quite a Labour education ministers. Each has had | :05:03. | :05:05. | |
different ideas and some have been critical of their predecessors. It | :05:06. | :05:11. | |
is argued that what has been lacking in general is an overall vision for | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
Welsh education, one that everyone understands and is committed to. | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
When schools have a sense of what they are trying to achieve, pupils, | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
teachers, parents and everyone signs up, this is what we are for, this is | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
what we're trying to do, let's go for it. That is a microcosm of what | :05:30. | :05:33. | |
you'd be happening across system. But you do not just say that this is | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
what you want to do. You go through with it and you keep people going, | :05:38. | :05:43. | |
moving forward. We are doing well now but we need to do better, we | :05:44. | :05:46. | |
need this sense of wanting to improve all the time. | :05:47. | :05:52. | |
Earlier I spoke to the education minister Huw Lewis | :05:53. | :05:55. | |
at a PISA conference at Cardiff?s City Hall. | :05:56. | :05:58. | |
I started by asking him if there was a danger of us becoming too obsessed | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
with measures such as PISA. I don't think so. PISA tells us some | :06:06. | :06:11. | |
important things we need to absorb, lessons we need to learn. It gives | :06:12. | :06:19. | |
us a global vision of where Wales stands and that is very important. | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
We work in a global economy. It is important for the future of our | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
young people. It gives us an insight into how Welsh education is | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
delivering the skills that young people need as opposed to the | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
knowledge that they need to accumulate, the skills they need to | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
employ an order to succeed. Are you confident you are taking the | :06:43. | :06:45. | |
measures that will improve our performance in these PISA league | :06:46. | :06:51. | |
tables? How confident are you? We have made great steps over the last | :06:52. | :07:01. | |
few years. We are also seeing great change within the system, the | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
biggest reforms in Welsh educational history. And addressing, critically, | :07:07. | :07:12. | |
the quality of teaching in the classroom. Everything comes back to | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
that, quality of teaching. So many experts have said to us, whilst you | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
concentrate on league tables, you are missing the main point, which is | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
that if you have not got the right quality in the classroom, it is not | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
going to happen. In practical terms, what are you doing to improve the | :07:32. | :07:35. | |
quality of teaching, and are you being strong enough to counter some | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
of the resistance that we have seen from some teaching unions to think | :07:40. | :07:43. | |
you're having too much a go? There was a big contrast between the way | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
that we do things in Wales and what is happening in England. We have | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
gone to great efforts to ensure that we have a collaborative relationship | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
with the work force. Just yesterday, I announced a new deal for teachers | :07:59. | :08:04. | |
that marks a step change in a way that we do business, as regards the | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
offer to teachers and professional support they would -- they receive. | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
For too long, Welsh teachers have been the line on ending up in a | :08:13. | :08:17. | |
school that was switched on to teacher training and professional | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
development. If you landed in a good environment, that was lucky for you. | :08:22. | :08:27. | |
If not, then you were not so lucky. We will be passing legislation in | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
the autumn to make sure that we have a level playing field, that every | :08:33. | :08:35. | |
school in Wales has access to world class training throughout their | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
career. It has taken Labour in Wales 15 years to get to that point. Why? | :08:41. | :08:46. | |
There probably is a fair criticism to say that in the early years of | :08:47. | :08:50. | |
the Assembly there was a great deal of concentration upon, for instance, | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
the bricks and mortar of the educational system, bringing it up | :08:55. | :08:57. | |
to a decent standard, in that regard, and there should have been | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
more attention in terms of building capacity within the system. Critical | :09:03. | :09:09. | |
capacity. Teachers, at the coal face. And that is what this series | :09:10. | :09:15. | |
of reforms and the conference today hinges upon. So you're trying to put | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
right what your colleagues have done wrong in the past? This is a process | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
of development. My eyes are fixed firmly on the future. A great deal | :09:27. | :09:29. | |
of good has been done in the last 15 years. We are building an education | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
system that has all the essential elements to be world eating. -- | :09:35. | :09:42. | |
world beating. In a global context. For that, we rely upon the quality | :09:43. | :09:51. | |
of the workforce. When you talk about the investment and support, | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
was a have said that the foundation phase has done of good wings. It is | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
innovative, if his pioneering in many ways. And it has taken best | :10:01. | :10:06. | |
practice. When it comes to an end, you fall off a cliff, then the | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
classroom environment is in crisis. You have not provided resources to | :10:13. | :10:15. | |
allow transition from the foundation phase into what we might call more | :10:16. | :10:20. | |
formal learning. What are you doing about that? I dispute the use of the | :10:21. | :10:29. | |
word "crisis", by the way. That kind of language does not help the | :10:30. | :10:33. | |
debate. The transition from the foundation phase itself, right | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
throughout the school career, if you like, other young person, the | :10:39. | :10:41. | |
consistent messages coming through from outside observers. In my term | :10:42. | :10:51. | |
of office I see my role as grappling with that central, distinctively | :10:52. | :10:57. | |
Welsh problem. We have nuggets of excellence in the Welsh system. My | :10:58. | :11:04. | |
job, as I see it, is to make sure that we dig them out and spread that | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
best practice across the system as a whole. I was told, don't expect any | :11:09. | :11:15. | |
major reforms from the Minister before the Assembly elections. Is | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
that right? The reform process happens every day. The changes | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
around professional development that I talked about, you will see the new | :11:26. | :11:31. | |
regime clicking into place, the regulation and the laws behind | :11:32. | :11:34. | |
that, coming into force this September. We are engaged every day | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
in this agenda, and moving it forward. What else are you going to | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
put in place before the 2016 elections? We are revising GCSEs by | :11:46. | :11:53. | |
2015. We will take on board the lessons that we have learned from | :11:54. | :11:59. | |
PISA. That will transmit skills to young people so that they get the | :12:00. | :12:02. | |
best chances in life. Education systems are big, complicated beasts, | :12:03. | :12:07. | |
and dealing with complexity takes time. There is not a day that goes | :12:08. | :12:16. | |
by that we do not move forward. You mentioned the possibility of a gap | :12:17. | :12:19. | |
year sabbatical for some pupils. Was that a moment of madness are good | :12:20. | :12:26. | |
idea? We are not talking about a gap year in the sense that an older | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
teenager might experience that sort of thing. Professor Graham Donaldson | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
has looked at the curriculum, as a whole. He's looking at a bespoke, | :12:33. | :12:45. | |
for Wales curriculum. The national curriculum is now very creaky. | :12:46. | :12:48. | |
Within that, the professor is taking a look at ways in which there might | :12:49. | :12:55. | |
be a point in the curriculum where young people can experience | :12:56. | :13:02. | |
inspiration, if you like, about pursuing some personal enthusiasm | :13:03. | :13:04. | |
which could be artistic or scientific, or committed to sport. I | :13:05. | :13:14. | |
think we need to create a little bit more elbow room in terms of what | :13:15. | :13:17. | |
schools are able to expose young people do, but also, critically, to | :13:18. | :13:25. | |
draw in other partners. We have seen the arts Council for Wales stepping | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
in with a new offer for schools in terms of creative people, artists, | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
musicians and others going into schools to take those young people | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
out of their day-to-day experience, to experience something new. So my | :13:40. | :13:46. | |
talented 11-year-old, she wants to be an artist, she can out of school | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
for one term and pursue some artistic interest. Is that what you | :13:52. | :13:59. | |
are saying? It is conceivable. That is one way of putting it. The | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
logistics are giving me a headache. Multiplying this across all the | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
schools in Wales. We cannot do this without partners who are committed. | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
The Welsh school system has its level of resources. Resources are | :14:15. | :14:22. | |
not going to appear out of a clear blue sky to pay for new things in | :14:23. | :14:31. | |
any great quantity. But for the parent watching, we are not doing | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
well in this area, what we want is more concentration in the classroom, | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
more focus in the classroom, and this minister is talking about | :14:43. | :14:44. | |
taking people out of the classroom to pursue what we loosely call | :14:45. | :14:51. | |
nonacademic interests. They can be very academic. Where is the logic | :14:52. | :14:59. | |
there? This is about giving ourselves some elbow room to draw in | :15:00. | :15:04. | |
partners that could lead our young people through experiences that can | :15:05. | :15:08. | |
inspire them for life. We could be talking about very academic avenues | :15:09. | :15:15. | |
for more able and talented children were universities are stepping up in | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
a much more proactive role. We could be talking about the private sector | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
and away they inspired the business people of the future. We will be | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
talking to the sports Council, the arts Council, the museums and | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
Galleries of Wales. Not just the wider public sector, but also the | :15:33. | :15:37. | |
wider world of the private sector and communities. Back to a PISA | :15:38. | :15:46. | |
thought, will the next set of results show an improvement in | :15:47. | :15:53. | |
Wales? I am confident they will. The extent to which we will see an | :15:54. | :16:02. | |
improvement depends on the choices, particularly lead professionals like | :16:03. | :16:06. | |
the one present at the conference today, headteachers critically, the | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
extent to which they choose to embrace this agenda around school to | :16:12. | :16:14. | |
school working, peer-to-peer working, making should go the doors | :16:15. | :16:20. | |
of their schools are flung open so that they can measure themselves | :16:21. | :16:24. | |
against the very best ideas that are operating in many instances just | :16:25. | :16:31. | |
down the road. There is excellence everywhere you turn in Wales, we | :16:32. | :16:32. | |
just need to set it free. Has 15 years of devolution | :16:33. | :16:37. | |
resulted in greater public No, according to the prominent | :16:38. | :16:43. | |
economist and former Welsh He believes that a lack | :16:44. | :16:49. | |
of understanding over devolved powers is leading to confusion among | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
voters and that the Labour Party, which has been in power since 1999, | :16:55. | :16:56. | |
needs to do more to re-invigorate We?ll be discussing this | :16:57. | :17:00. | |
and discussing the past 15 years with the former | :17:01. | :17:05. | |
First Minister Rhodri Morgan and the Assembly?s first Presiding Officer | :17:06. | :17:08. | |
Lord Elis-Thomas in just a moment. But first, | :17:09. | :17:10. | |
here?s Gerald Holtham?s assessment. There are lots of good things | :17:11. | :17:35. | |
devolution has brought to Wales but it has not improved the involvement | :17:36. | :17:39. | |
in the democratic process. Perhaps because it has missed out on | :17:40. | :17:44. | |
political excitement. The tension and the close race, the drama and | :17:45. | :17:50. | |
heated debate. Of all the parties in Wales, the Labour Party is the one | :17:51. | :17:53. | |
that can best afford to start a debate and the one that is taken | :17:54. | :17:56. | |
most seriously when it is in many parts of Wales, elections are almost | :17:57. | :18:04. | |
a formality for the Labour Party, and as a result the public is left | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
dosing. In its industrial heyday, the same used to be, what Aberdare | :18:09. | :18:16. | |
things today, Wales thinks tomorrow. The valleys is Labour. I vote for | :18:17. | :18:22. | |
them only because my parents did and this is a labour community. Because | :18:23. | :18:28. | |
I have always done it, it would take a lot to discourage me to vote for | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
somebody else. I vote Labour. Don't ask me who the name is. My parents | :18:35. | :18:42. | |
were labour, I have always been Labour and my husband has always | :18:43. | :18:50. | |
been Labour. It goes against the grain to vote Conservative. I've | :18:51. | :18:56. | |
been usually vote Labour. Why? I have voted for Labour for years and | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
I don't think there is anybody else. I do read the leaflet but I think it | :19:01. | :19:07. | |
is just habit more than anything. Unlike their counterparts in | :19:08. | :19:10. | |
London, some of our ministers are not so keen to appear on television | :19:11. | :19:15. | |
and be interviewed. They are quite reluctant and that means they are | :19:16. | :19:18. | |
less familiar to the voters, they are a little bit more remote. And | :19:19. | :19:24. | |
even when they do speak, it is in the conventional political way, | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
often defensive or not -- knocking other parties. There is never a hint | :19:30. | :19:33. | |
of the internal debates or discussions so the public is | :19:34. | :19:38. | |
inclined not to pay any attention. What Labour needs to generate public | :19:39. | :19:40. | |
interest is a good argument with itself. Ministers should open up and | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
speak candidly about the issues they face. After all, they don't have an | :19:47. | :19:52. | |
easy job. Money is short. It would help them as well as the public if | :19:53. | :19:57. | |
they were able to really talk about those issues and not pretend that | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
everything in the garden is lovely. It is not as if they are facing a | :20:01. | :20:03. | |
hostile press here who jump on everything. Good or bad, we don't | :20:04. | :20:10. | |
have a backbench in Wales which is snapping up ministers' actions. | :20:11. | :20:17. | |
There is no Cardiff equivalent to the dramatic revolt we sometimes see | :20:18. | :20:23. | |
in Westminster. Without much genuine competition, Labour needs to be its | :20:24. | :20:26. | |
own best rival. Instead of disguising or suppressing interparty | :20:27. | :20:35. | |
debates, it needs to a them. Interesting politics attracts | :20:36. | :20:36. | |
interesting personalities. Giving them room to an ash express | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
themselves would interest people and make the Welsh government more | :20:42. | :20:46. | |
exciting. Then you capture the public's attention and they can | :20:47. | :20:49. | |
engage in debates about what we want for Wales. | :20:50. | :20:57. | |
The economist and former government adviser Gerald Holtham. | :20:58. | :20:59. | |
An ICM poll conducted this week for BBC Wales found that many are | :21:00. | :21:02. | |
Roughly half of those surveyed knew the NHS was the responsibility | :21:03. | :21:07. | |
43% said that the UK government was in charge of health in Wales. | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
Understanding of education fared better - | :21:14. | :21:16. | |
over half correctly said that the Welsh government was in charge. | :21:17. | :21:19. | |
And overall the poll found that just 34% of people felt that devolution | :21:20. | :21:23. | |
had led to an improvement in the way Wales is governed, | :21:24. | :21:27. | |
with just under half saying it had not made much difference. | :21:28. | :21:33. | |
Here to discuss all of this is former First Minister, | :21:34. | :21:36. | |
Labour?s Rhodri Morgan, and the Assembly?s first Presiding Officer, | :21:37. | :21:38. | |
Rhodri Morgan, do you consider there to be a big problem with levels of | :21:39. | :21:51. | |
public in gauge when with politics in Wales? I think it is true | :21:52. | :21:57. | |
throughout the Western world. People have lost that sense of civic duty | :21:58. | :22:01. | |
that they had just after World War II when you had phenomenal levels of | :22:02. | :22:06. | |
participation in elections. Everybody considered it their duty | :22:07. | :22:10. | |
to go there and take their sons and daughters to make sure that they | :22:11. | :22:14. | |
voted as well. That has gradually eroded over the years. Is it | :22:15. | :22:19. | |
particularly a Welsh problem post-devolution? No. People might | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
have had the ambition that devolution would restore a localised | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
interest in Welsh politics in particular, but I don't think that | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
has happened and I think it was unrealistic to expect evolution to | :22:35. | :22:36. | |
create a surge of interest and participation because there is a | :22:37. | :22:45. | |
dance going on between the media in Wales, who pretty much ignore, or | :22:46. | :22:51. | |
the media that people read, the newspapers, by and large they are | :22:52. | :22:55. | |
produced in London, they don't cover issues in Wales at all, and you just | :22:56. | :22:59. | |
don't get that bouncing back between the public, the politicians and the | :23:00. | :23:03. | |
media to create this virtuous circle of interest in politics. If we go | :23:04. | :23:10. | |
back to 1999, there was a sense of expectation and hope and that we | :23:11. | :23:15. | |
would have a new model of politics, not a confrontational chamber, a | :23:16. | :23:18. | |
chamber where it was all to do with open debate and engaging people. | :23:19. | :23:25. | |
What has gone wrong? I don't think anything has gone wrong. I think the | :23:26. | :23:29. | |
people of Wales in every opportunity they have had have voted for the | :23:30. | :23:36. | |
system in all the opinion polls to be maintained and developed. What we | :23:37. | :23:42. | |
started with was a compromise. It was a constitutional mess. But then, | :23:43. | :23:48. | |
had it not been a mess, if they had been clarity about the difference | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
between the Welsh government and the National Assembly, between the | :23:53. | :23:56. | |
Parliamentary side of things and the executive 's side, we probably would | :23:57. | :24:00. | |
not have won the referendum. What we have seen is a progression in the | :24:01. | :24:06. | |
deepening of democracy. Having said that, I do think that now is the | :24:07. | :24:12. | |
time for a fresh communications drive by the National Assembly | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
Commission alongside the Welsh government, the kind of thing we did | :24:18. | :24:21. | |
before the last referendum when we did go out and try to get people to | :24:22. | :24:24. | |
register to vote and stimulator interest. As regards to the business | :24:25. | :24:31. | |
of being noncontroversial and a corporate democracy, that has gone | :24:32. | :24:36. | |
as well because there are people, especially in my party, relish | :24:37. | :24:39. | |
opposition. They don't seem to understand that politics is about | :24:40. | :24:45. | |
taking responsibility. Labour also relishes being in power and | :24:46. | :24:48. | |
preferably without sharing power because that is the kind of model we | :24:49. | :24:53. | |
have seen. It was suggested in the film that it is Labour's | :24:54. | :24:57. | |
responsibility to open up the debate, to engage with people, | :24:58. | :25:00. | |
because it is in the powerful position it is in. Except you have | :25:01. | :25:07. | |
got proportional representation. Had we not put that in the 1997 | :25:08. | :25:11. | |
referendum in the Labour White Paper model, we know that people outside | :25:12. | :25:18. | |
of the valleys and the Labour voting areas solidly voted against because | :25:19. | :25:23. | |
it would be Labour dominated for evermore. We finished up with a | :25:24. | :25:28. | |
labour saying, we are going to handicap ourselves from winning the | :25:29. | :25:34. | |
assembly. You have been in power for 15 years. But not always with a | :25:35. | :25:40. | |
majority. When I took over, we were three seats short of eight majority. | :25:41. | :25:46. | |
Then we had a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. We only had 28 | :25:47. | :25:52. | |
out of 60. I used to be terrified that I would have the same treatment | :25:53. | :25:55. | |
as Alun Michael because the other parties could have got rid of me. We | :25:56. | :26:01. | |
have only had tiny Labour majorities or coalition governments. Now you | :26:02. | :26:11. | |
have this tiny majority, then the emphasis is on party discipline, not | :26:12. | :26:17. | |
on let a thousand flowers bloom. 15 years after devolution got under | :26:18. | :26:21. | |
way, we are in a position where a big chunk of people in Wales don't | :26:22. | :26:25. | |
understand how powers are divided. What is that tell is about the way | :26:26. | :26:29. | |
you have communicated how you go about your business? It is not all a | :26:30. | :26:35. | |
media issue, surely. It is about politicians communicating the way | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
they handle their own powers. People have a very patchy understanding of | :26:40. | :26:45. | |
that. Because the constitution is still in adequately organised and | :26:46. | :26:52. | |
expressed. What you need is what you have just described, you need | :26:53. | :26:56. | |
transparency for the public to be able to make decisions about the | :26:57. | :27:00. | |
quality of management of public services at the all Wales level. | :27:01. | :27:04. | |
That is a responsibility for all of us. The time is ripe for a further | :27:05. | :27:11. | |
serious attempt at communicating the system but also changing it. We | :27:12. | :27:15. | |
still have to go to London for permission to legislate less than | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
ten years ago so we have come a long way but there is no clarity. You | :27:20. | :27:23. | |
cannot have a democratic system which is effective unless you have | :27:24. | :27:28. | |
transparency and unless it is understood. That is a great defect. | :27:29. | :27:34. | |
The last word. Clarity and how important it is to achieve a | :27:35. | :27:37. | |
position where people have a far better understanding of what they | :27:38. | :27:40. | |
are voting for and the is people actually handle. Gerald Holtham was | :27:41. | :27:47. | |
saying that we need more theatre, if you like, in the assembly. It is not | :27:48. | :27:58. | |
easy to do. We had too much theatre in your time, especially at the | :27:59. | :28:04. | |
beginning. In a way, you look at what has happened in Scotland with | :28:05. | :28:07. | |
the SNP has managed to also supplant Labour as the default option. If | :28:08. | :28:13. | |
they can't think who to vote for, they will vote for the SNP. In | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
Wales, they will vote Labour. But there is an obligation to have more | :28:19. | :28:23. | |
exciting debates and so on. But the other parties have got to play ball | :28:24. | :28:26. | |
as well and the media have got to play ball as well. | :28:27. | :28:29. | |
That?s it for this week?s programme. We?ll be back next Wednesday. | :28:30. | :28:31. | |
In the meantime, you can get in touch with us | :28:32. | :28:34. | |
about the issues discussed tonight or indeed anything else. | :28:35. | :28:38. |