The New Welsh Cabinet

John Osmond charts what Rhodri Morgan's Cabinet changes hold for the second term policy agenda.

The most significant innovation in Rhodri Morgan’s new Cabinet, announced a week after the election on 1 May (see Table 1), is the new position of Minister for Social Justice and the appointment of former Finance Minister Edwina Hart to the post. There was immediate speculation that this represented a demotion since it removed the Minister from her strategic position at the centre of the Administration. On the other hand, the new portfolio was described as representing the central challenge facing the Administration in its second term. Responsibility for Finance and Local government was handed to Rhodri Morgan’s close ally, Cardiff North AM Sue Essex who took up the brief in place of her former role as Minister for Environment and Planning. In turn these positions were combined with Rural Affairs and given to Carwyn Jones who, during the previous Administration had been responsible for Agriculture during the foot and mouth crisis.

Andrew Davies continues as Economic Development Minister, though with added responsibility for Transport – a function which had formerly been held within the Environment portfolio. While there can be no doubt that transport is closely tied to the economy, its inclusion within an already overburdened portfolio suggests it may be downplayed in the second term. Perhaps it also acknowledges that, without control of the rail system, the Assembly has limited powers in this area.

It had been widely commented that combined with her no-nonsense style, Edwina Hart’s control of the budget and local government had made her the most influential figure in the previous Administration, vying at times with the First Minister himself. Against this Rhodri Morgan signalled that he regarded her new portfolio as the defining aspect of the second term agenda:

“This is going to be what will mark out the second administration as different from the first. We've got to deliver for the people in Wales who’ve got left behind and where the new prosperity has not reached them.” (1)

A further indication of the importance the new Administration attaches to the new portfolio is that Mrs Hart has been allocated a deputy Minister, Merthyr AM Huw Lewis who for some years has campaigned for the Social Justice department to be created. His appointment means that that Education portfolio, retained by Jane Davidson, loses a deputy Minister. Jane Hutt, who continues as Health Minister, despite a good deal of criticism during the election campaign because of rising waiting lists across Wales, also retains her deputy Minister Brian Gibbons.

Edwina Hart’s main weapon in tackling deprivation will be the Assembly Government's flagship £83 million Communities First programme, responsibility for which Edwina Hart carries over from her previous portfolio which included a ‘Communities’ brief that embraced social exclusion as well as local government.

Table 1: The New Cabinet

Communities First is aimed at tackling deprivation in communities largely concentrated within the Objective 1 region of west Wales and the south Wales Valleys. Involving expenditure of £83 million over the first three years (2002-05), the programme is targeting 142 of Wales’ most disadvantaged communities. It has a lifespan of at least ten years with the long-term intention of tackling the underlying factors that contribute to poverty. In particular, the high economic inactivity that characterises the communities identified is a major underlying reason for their problems. In this respect the Communities First programme connects directly with the Assembly Government’s core objective of raising overall Welsh GDP from 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the UK average by 2010. It is intended too that the communities themselves, in partnership with statutory bodies, voluntary groups and the private sector, will identify their requirements and how to address them. Capacity building – that is, building leadership from within the communities themselves – forms a central part of this strategy.

Few would quarrel with any of these objectives, but the challenge will be to put in place practical measures to ensure they are delivered. Mrs Hart’s appointment can be understood in terms of the Administration’s recognition of this challenge. There are at least three further, inter-related problems:

1. The programme was initially motivated from Edwina Hart’s Communities department within the Assembly Government. The Economic Development division was not centrally involved. This is despite the programme’s underlying purpose in tackling economic inactivity rates.

2. The main agents for the delivery of Communities First appear to be local authorities. These are the organisations to which money is flowing and which are doing the recruiting. Yet a central aim of the project is to build leadership capacity from within the affected communities. While local authorities are theoretically representative of the communities because of their democratically elected position, they are often distrusted because of their previously poor service provision to deprived communities. There is a danger that the programme’s capacity building objective might end up in communities becoming alienated from the process.

3. It is not clear what the programme’s precise targets are, or how they will be evaluated. How can ‘capacity building’ be assessed? It is true that in April 2003 the Assembly Government commissioned large-scale Evaluation Project, worth around £1million. However, this will not report for some years.

Two new appointments from north Wales will take the heat out of the north/south controversy that dogged Rhodri Morgan’s first term Cabinet. There were continual claim’s that the previous Cabinet was biased towards south Wales and Cardiff in particular - so much so that Rhodri Morgan appointed himself as Minister for North Wales, a position that has now disappeared. Instead, Karen Sinclair, AM for Clwyd South, has become Minister for Assembly Business, and Alun Pugh, AM for Clwyd West, is the new Minister for Culture, Sport and the Welsh Language. Sinclair, a former councillor and youth worker, continues her role as chief whip, in which position she impressed Rhodri Morgan during the first term. Alan Pugh, a former Assistant Principal at the West Cheshire College and deputy Education Minister in the previous Administration, was widely tipped to make the Cabinet.

Table 2: Deputy Ministers

The appointment of the three deputy Ministers was accompanied by an effort to award them a salary increase as an acknowledgement their extra responsibilities The increase, coupled with an equivalent enhancement for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders in the Assembly, bring them in line with the Chairs of the Subject Committees. As an Assembly Government spokesperson put it:

“The First Minister has made it clear that he has been in discussions with the opposition parties to remove the ambiguities which surrounded the role of deputy ministers in the last administration and to reflect their contribution to the work of the Assembly Government.” (2)

The ambiguity referred to was due to the positions having no status within the legislation that established the Assembly, nor within the Assembly’s standing orders. The change proposed would bring deputy Ministers firmly within the remit of the Cabinet and collective responsibility. However, the change requires an amendment to standing orders and thus two-thirds of members to vote in favour. With a number of Opposition MPs voicing disquiet at the increase the so-called Labour ‘pay-roll’ vote, the required majority appeared doubtful. As Tory AM Glyn Davies declared:

“The decision to increase the government payroll in direct contradiction of the Government of Wales Act immediately after an election will do great damage to the Assembly’s credibility with the public.”

Table 3: National Assembly Pay Scales, May 2003

The overall impression provided by the new Cabinet was an elegant combination of change and continuity: change in the creation of a Minister for Social Justice, continuity in most other respects. To the extent that this last point suggests complacency, especially in the directions the Assembly Government has been taking in health and economic development, it will face growing opposition during the second term. Above all, however, the new dispositions reveal how easily the strengthened Labour Group has dispensed with the services of the Liberal Democrats. Alun Pugh is likely to prove energetic in delivering a fresh agenda for Culture in place of Jenny Randerson. Meanwhile Mike German’s uneasy portfolio, combining Rural Affairs with Wales Abroad, has been more logically divided: Carwyn Jones taken over the former, and the First Minister himself has assumed responsibility for Wales Abroad, no doubt with some anticipation given the record he established in the first term of a formidable itinerary of travel across the globe.

(1) Welsh Mirror, 10 May 2003
(2) Western Mail, 15 May 2003


John Osmond is Director of the IWA.

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