, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Dr Goodall, thank you so much for answering my questions. I'd like to welcome back our original Chair, Mark Isherwood—it's a pleasure to have you back with us, Mark. Just to let you all know that the following two questions—3 and 4—will be taken now by Mike…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Okay. Thank you, Dr Goodall. And my final question is: the creation of designated Members who look like quasi-Ministers protects party independence and the resources and status that comes with it. Plaid Cymru has also secured two special advisers, which is an…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Thank you so much. I'd like to touch upon the co-operation agreement. It's something that, obviously, is quite new to many of us here at the Senedd. Now, a joint oversight board, joint policy committee and a co-operation agreement unit, staffed by civil…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Thank you so much, Dr Goodall. Now, with relation to the senior-level restructure that's taking place, has the impetus for change come from the First Minister and Cabinet, or directly from the civil service itself?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Thank you very much, Dr Goodall. I'm going to ask you a sub-question, because you gave such succinct and elaborative answers. I want to go back to one of the points that you mentioned earlier about working with the UK Government. We often talk about working…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Of course. Thank you, Dr Goodall. As you'll expect, we do have a number of questions and I'd like to ask Members and yourself as well to be as succinct as possible to enable us to cover a wide range of issues that the topic has generated. So, I'll start off…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Scrutiny of public administration: Evidence session
Welcome back, everybody. This is item 5, the scrutiny of public administration of the Public Accounts and Public Administration meeting taking place today. I'd like to welcome not only our Members but also our guest here for this segment. We're joined by the…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you very, very much. Heléna Herklots, Older People's Commissioner for Wales, I'd like to thank you so much for joining us this morning. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. I'd like to also thank Members for their questions and I'd like to…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Okay. Thank you so much. I just want to give Mike and Peredur the opportunity now if there's anything they wanted to add. No. Okay. Thank you so much, Heléna. Just one last remark for you: if there's anything you wish to add to any of the comments or…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you for that. Commissioner, in many of the answers you've given, you've spoken about ageism. I personally hate it, I know my colleagues do as well. Racism, sexism, we're not fans of any isms here. But I just wanted to ask you whether, overall, you're…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you so much, Peredur. Commissioner, I'd just like to ask you a couple of points, please, before we wind up the session. Firstly, I just wanted to ask if there are any observations that you had, particularly, that you may want to raise about the auditor…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you so much, Mike, for that. I do appreciate it. The final comment you made was something I was going to say, which is that none of us like layers, layers and layers of bureaucracy at the end of the day. I'll move on to our next Member—Peredur…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you very much, commissioner. I'm now going to move over to Mike Hedges, and he'll be asking you some questions in relation to improving performance information. Mike, over to you.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Okay. My final question to you, commissioner, before we go on to Mike Hedges with his next set of questions is that there's no denying, and I'm sure my colleagues here will agree, that the population here in Wales is ageing. It's ageing across the United…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you for that. What are your views on the fairness of the funding model in Wales, relative to what has been proposed in England?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you so much. Commissioner, you kindly provided us with a lot of information, which I know my colleagues and I have all gone through prior to this meeting, and I just wanted to know—. There were issues relating to funding, cross-subsidisation and top-up…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
What do you think would be a good solution to create more equality in the system to stop that happening in future?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Okay, thank you very much for that. I'm going to reiterate a question that I asked our previous attendees here in the meeting: with the cost of living on the rise, it's evident that everything in cost, whether that be gas, electric—you know, it's all going to…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you so much, Mike. Heléna, the next part is my section, which is going to be revolving around expenditure. So, I'd like to ask you: what do you see as some of the reasons for the variations in unit costs—for example, weekly placement costs—across Wales…
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you very much, Owain. Heléna, welcome to the committee. I'm Natasha; it's a pleasure to have you here. I know our Chair has begun by asking you the first question, so I'd now like to pass over to Mike Hedges with his follow-up questions.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you very much. I'd like to—
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Election of Temporary Chair
Thank you so much, Chair, for that—
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Care Home Commissioning for Older People: Evidence Session 3
Thank you, Chair.
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Care Home Commissioning for Older People: Evidence Session 3
Fantastic, thank you. My final question is: do you believe, at present, the balance in the market between the public sector supply and the independent provision provides value for money?
, Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee
Care Home Commissioning for Older People: Evidence Session 3
Thank you so much, Maria. Maria, in one of your previous answers to me, you mentioned the 'Let's agree to agree' toolkit. I just wanted to ask you, what are some of the positives and negatives of this?
