Finance Committee

Our first substantive item is item 3, which is scrutiny of the Senedd Commission draft budget 2027-28. We have our witnesses in front of us. Perhaps, Peredur Owen Griffiths, you want to introduce yourself and colleagues.

Certainly. I'm Peredur Owen Griffiths. I'm the Commissioner with responsibility for finance, and I'll ask officials to introduce themselves. I'll start with Manon.

Thank you. Manon Bonner, clerk and chief executive of the Commission.

Ed Williams, director of resources.

Lisa Bowkett, chief finance officer.

Okay. Good morning, all. Thank you for being with us this morning, and thanks for sharing your report with us as well. We have around an hour and a quarter together, so I hope we can get through the questions as necessary.

I just want to go through a couple of specifics before we look at some broader points, if that's okay. I noted that in annex 1 of the report you published, the staff salaries and related costs in 2026-27 is £34 million, and then the estimate for 2027-28 is £37.5 million. It doesn't line up with the figures in table 4, which show 2026-27 to be the same at £34 million, but show for next year an estimate of £38 million. Could you just explain why there's a difference there?

Certainly. It's good to be here, and thank you very much, Chair, for the welcome. The staff salaries and costs for 2026-27, £34 million, and then the £37 million in 2027-28, 2027-28 includes the new baseline with Senedd reform added into it. The Senedd reform cost was split out into the 'Ring-fenced project', which is a line lower down in the table. It doesn't quite match up because that's the whole of the ring-fenced budget rather than just the staffing costs. So, when that is taken into account, that's where the difference comes in.

Lisa, could you just explain a little bit further what that would do? But I'm quite happy to send a note to you with how that works, and if the committee would like, we can change that before the final budget is laid.

Okay, thank you. Do you want to comment further, Lisa?

I think Pred's explained it. Table 4 should include the Senedd reform staffing. Apologies, it doesn't include it there, but we will do for the final budget. And like Pred says, we're happy to send you a note to show you how they reconcile back.

Okay, that's appreciated. So, an element of the £6.3 million of Senedd reform from the current financial year, an element of that is required in the next—

In the order of about £4 million. That makes the difference.

Yes, okay. Thank you for that. We'll appreciate that note coming through with just an explanation, and the report, I would expect, needs to reflect that as well.

Another specific point: the baseline on the total Senedd Commission budget for last year shows £12.7 million, and then next year we're looking at £109 million. Of course, last year's baseline includes £4.5 million of election-related expenditure, which is outside of your control, and it is a one-off every four years, we hope. I wonder if you think a more accurate reflection of a baseline figure shouldn't necessarily—. It has to be accounted for, it has to be reflected, but, actually, perhaps your baseline from last year was actually closer to £98 million as usual spend rather than £102 million. Is that a fair comment, you think, or not?

It is reflected in that annex 1 table, and you'll see that the difference is there, so you can see why those figures are there. I'll just bring Lisa in on that technical point.

Yes, it's a fair point. We do try and split the budget into the different elements to make it clear what the operational baseline is, the ring fences and then the elements related to Members. You'll notice for last year as well that the determination is quite a lot lower than for 2027-28, and that reflects the fact that we only had 96 Members for 11 months of the year. It reflects the fact that new Members take time to set their offices up and take staff on board. So, if you add the determination and the election budget from last year, it's broadly comparable with the determination for 2027-28. So, I take your point that it's a one-off cost in the baseline, but there was also a one-off reduction last year as well—or this year, sorry—to reflect the election year.

I think, in the way it's presented, it seems like less of an increase being requested from £102 million to £109 million. The reality is there's £4.5 million, which is very unusual and is outside of your control. So, really, what's been asked for is a £98 million increase up to £109 million in terms of things that are within your control.

I think the main point is that we try and keep the ring fences away from the operational budget so that at least we try and get a baseline that you can compare year on year. And when you look at the business-as-usual costs over from last year to this year, this new budget is down 7.67 per cent, and that's without the election costs. The election costs are in the ring-fenced budget, so it means that the operational costs before the ring fence is down by 0.754 per cent. But, obviously, we've got the other either one-off costs accounted for as the pre-election budget, or also with Bay 32 coming in. That's the—

Sorry, can you explain how you've shown a reduction in BAU? Because I can see total operational resources going from £48 million up to £50 million, which is an increase, not a decrease. So, how are you saying there's a decrease, sorry?

So, the overall staffing costs for 2026-27, when you add everything together—well, when you add all the operational costs before the ring fence—comes to £59,987, and then the draft budget this year shows a figure of £59,541 when you add them together. That's where you get the reduction.

Okay. I'm not sure if it's in a different report. That's not shown in the report you published.

It's in my own notes. Lisa, do you—?

In table 2, if there's a subtotal before the ring-fenced project budgets line, that's the total we're looking at. So, again, we could include that subtotal for the final version, if it's helpful.

Yes. I'm just doing the maths in my head. That doesn't make much sense, quite honestly, because included above the line of ring-fence projects is actually £3.2 million of depreciation charges as well, which would further increase the increase from £48 million to £50 million and beyond—yes, closer to £60 million before ring-fenced projects. Perhaps we need a bit more clarity on some of those numbers. I appreciate there are some internal reports you may have as well, and I think it'd be useful for the committee to have sight of those.

Sorry, one last specific question from me before we bring other Members in on movement in provisions. Provisions are a slight dark art, I would have thought, in the accountancy world. There's zero movement in provisions. What are the total current provisions? Is it £0 or are you just reflecting the movements in the provisions there as £0?

Just the movement is £0. I can't tell you what the actual provisions are off the top of my head, I'm afraid.

Okay. It just caught my eye because, obviously, provisions are set aside for likely risks in the future. I'm conscious that Bay 32 is a fairly significant financial risk to the organisation. I was probably surprised to see zero movement in provisions there. Is it something you've considered with Bay 32 in mind, having a provision set aside for that?

Lisa, you've pulled the figures together for us, so—

There are no provisions in at the moment. The costs, we're assuming, would be contractual, as and when they start to arise, so there are no provisions in for anything at the moment in that regard.

Okay. Sorry, before we go on, is it something you've considered as an option, or is it not in your thinking at the moment until contracts are potentially signed?

There may be some elements that we might need to make provisions for once contracts are signed, but at the moment there's nothing included.

Of course, the decision on going ahead hasn't yet been taken. That's why it wouldn't have been reflected in this budget currently.

Understood, okay. Huw.

Just while we're focusing on some of the numbers, Chair, if it's okay, can you explain the increases over the next three years in the depreciation charges, which grow very significantly over three years?

They're mainly linked to the Bay 32 project. As the budget is currently set, and sorry if this pre-empts further questions, we're assuming that we're going to take on additional accommodation elsewhere, which will give rise to right-of-use assets. We'll then have to depreciate those assets whilst we're using them. So, over the three or four-year period that we have the additional accommodation, we'll have to depreciate. That's why it's going up for the next couple of years.

Okay. That's a clear explanation. I guess that's the right accounting treatment. I just wonder whether, for clarity, it's simpler to have all the associated Bay 32 costs in one budget line, rather than have them split out over different lines.

Possibly, but also, for Welsh Government, they need to understand the breakdown of our budget as well so they can incorporate it in their overall budget motion.

Okay. But then on the interest charges, those are falling away. We're not going to fund Bay 32 via—

The interest charges are again to do with right-of-use assets. When you set up the initial right-of-use asset as a depreciation charge and an interest charge, the interest charge reduces over the life of the asset. So, it's not interest in terms of an interest on finance, it's almost notional in terms of the right-of-use asset calculation.

Okay.

Okay. And then just perhaps a broader question before I bring other Members in as well—I'm just interested to understand how you've engaged with Members on the draft budget before it was laid before the Senedd.

As you'll be aware, we've got quite a few new Members, so it was an interesting time when we all came back or came for the first time. What the new Commission did in the engagement was—. The initial engagement was with groups. When I took the role on for finance after the second meeting of the Commission, we sent a note out to the groups, and also engaged with Anthony Slaughter, Paul Rock and Jane Dodds, so that they were aware of what was to come. Also, we reached out to all groups to give technical briefings. Not everybody took those on board. But I'll bring Manon in on anything else that the Commission itself was doing on engagement with Members.

You've covered the main points there, Peredur.

We're trying our best to engage as much as we can with all of the groups. We appreciate that last term and the start of this term weren't ideal periods for groups to find time to talk to us on two subjects that we need to discuss with them, namely Bay 32 and the budget itself. We've had a new directive from the Commission when it met about a fortnight ago, and we have scheduled time with some groups already and we're pressing ahead to look for more opportunities. We remember the good work that was started last year and the previous year on that. We hope that we can duplicate that and confirm more of that kind of activity in the years to come when, perhaps, groups may have more time to speak to us.

And, of course, to follow up on that, there's the good work that our colleague Hefin David did in the last Senedd to engage with this committee and also, of course, with groups, and being available to discuss and make sure that technical briefings were provided, in particular with the major Bay 32 project going ahead, so that we were engaging regularly with Members. Of course, the groups also have representation on the Commission, so other Commissioners, as well as myself, can report back on the Commission's work to engage on that as well.

So, it is a new period for us as a Senedd, and it is a period of time with a lot of new people here, and to understand, possibly, the nuances of how all of the budgets engage with each other—that will take a little bit of time to settle and for people to understand that. Hopefully, Members will have patience while things settle in, but, of course, I am available to speak with any individual Member who has an interest in this area and wants to know a little bit more about the processes. I have had a few such discussions with individuals around this table and in other places as well. So, we are trying to be as open as possible, in particular in order to be able to manage a budget that is different this time, because of Bay 32, and for people to understand what the different moving parts are within that.

Diolch yn fawr, Peredur. Lyn, you've got a couple of questions.

How have you sought to reduce the percentage increase requested for parts of the budget within your control?

Well, we've tried to manage within—. It's a long-standing commitment that the Commission has to the Finance Committee and to the Senedd to make sure that we only ask for the resource that we need to be able to carry out our responsibilities, as a Commission, to parliamentarians, because we're all parliamentarians and our responsibility, as a Commission, is to make sure that this Senedd works in the most efficient way possible. So, part of that is making sure that we are sticking to our principles of good value for money when it comes to any project or any day-to-day work that we undertake on your behalf, as Members.

The specifics—I might go to Manon in a second to talk about some of the ways that some of the projects are managed to make sure that we are setting the right envelope for those budgets so that we don't overspend, because we can't overspend. We don't have a reserve, so we have to set enough of a budget to make sure that we don't fall foul of any penalties or anything like that. So, the process that we go through is quite intricate to be able to make sure that we only ask for what we need. Of course, as we have seen in the last Senedd and in the last budget, if a windfall comes our way, like the rebate that we got on rates, we actually return that to the block grant. Also, a very important principle within the budget-setting process is that ring-fenced budgets don't go from one to the other. So, if there's an underspend, say, on the remuneration board budget, that goes back, as a matter of principle, to the block grant, it doesn't come to the Commission to be spent outside that. But maybe I'll ask Manon just to talk a little bit more about how we strategically go around checking that we're having value for money when it comes to spending public funds.

Thank you, Peredur. We have spoken about this subject before with the Finance Committee, and we don't have a target for savings, because, as Peredur said, we only budget for what we think the Commission will need, and we are looking for savings consistently as we look forward. We look three years ahead, and we have a medium-term resourcing framework, and that is refreshed every year, and that's an opportunity for us to look ahead and identify past that financial horizon what we think the different pressures will be on the budget, and to forward plan in good time for us to be able to reduce those pressures within the funding envelope that we've requested.

So, we see pressures coming from Bay 32, in terms of the plans that we have for the estate; we see pressures emanating from incorporating the impact or the outcomes of Senedd reform into the baseline; and we foresee different pressures emanating from energy and fuel costs, and the sorts of things that affect our costs from year to year. And in that context, we couple that with an overview of our workforce, because our workforce accounts for more than two thirds of the costs that we can control. And so it's very important that we have the correct level, a level that allows our staff to have a level of personal well-being and to be industrious within their ability, but is not too many staff members. So that is something that we look at and manage dynamically from year to year.

Sorry, Manon, I think Lyn wanted to ask—

Oh, sorry.

I was going to say, my second question comes on to that.

Oh, sorry, of course.

You say staffing accounts for 70 per cent of your costs. How have you sought to reduce the growth in your staffing numbers?

Well, uniquely, I think, I'm coming to the Finance Committee, and I'm conscious of how unusual this is, but there has been growth in our staffing numbers, which you can see within the Senedd reform ring fence. That has been kept to an absolute minimum, and I think I'll talk a bit about the way that we've done that maybe. We identified at the outset that we thought we would need 75 additional posts to respond to Senedd reform, but that depended on our understanding of the changes in business and so forth. So, we separated those staffing recruitments into four tranches.

So, we started—it's a good two or three years ago now—looking for staff where we knew there was already an evidenced need to prepare for Senedd reform, and we could foresee that there would definitely be a need for more members of staff on our side who could be preparing for the intake of the new Members when they arrived. But beyond that, we have, through a system of annual service planning, kept together by the corporate plan, which is within the medium-term resourcing framework—I'm sorry to use all these words, but just to explain the levels of assurance that we go through—we have not gone ahead and recruited staff until there is evidence of need, so we've waited until decisions have been taken. We still have some staff within that total that have not yet been recruited, because we have been waiting for the Senedd to take final decisions on the pattern of business and how many more committees there might be, or whether there's an extra Plenary; that sort of decision.

So, we've tried to strike a balance throughout on getting staff in place to serve the Senedd, which is our core job as Commission staff, but not go ahead of evidenced need. And in that, we have each year been scrutinised by the predecessor of this committee. We've then been scrutinised in terms of the previous year's budgets by the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee. We also have several lines of assurances, including our audit and risk committee, which is made up of independent people who are all expert in their fields and, of course, the Commission itself, to whom I report.

Okay. Thank you, Lyn—happy with that? And just in terms of staffing costs, of course, in your report you show a decrease in employer pension contributions from 29-ish per cent down to 22 per cent. How much is that in actual pounds?

Lisa, do you have the figure to hand?

Yes, if the pension contribution hadn't come down, the budget would be around £2 million higher for next year.

Okay. So, how is that reflected in the tables that have been presented to us? Is it just in that full line of staff salaries and related costs? Is that right?

Yes. So, it would have been last year's baseline plus the pay award, less the adjustment for pension, and then adding in the new Senedd reform staff.

Okay, thank you for that. Okay, before we come on to—. I don't know if some Members have any particular questions on business as usual. Elfed.

You mentioned, if a post comes up or if a post is vacant, do you assess whether that post is needed before it goes out to advertisement?

We do.

Okay. I just wanted to—.

Sorry. If I could just expand on that—sorry, Cai. On the posts that I've mentioned, there is a slightly different number of course for full-time equivalents, because we try to be flexible from time to time, if people want to job share or work full time and so forth. So, the full-time posts is the number that I've given you. I'm sorry.

Okay, thank you. Cai.

On the new staff mentioned, quote, 'evidenced need', is it possible for you to share that evidence with us? After the meeting, obviously.

Yes, of course.

Okay, thank you.

Also on the new staff and the 75 positions, is it possible for you to provide us with a breakdown, by function and pay range, and identify the specific additional workload that justifies each post?

We can.

Great, thank you. And then just on staffing, just obviously because it's such a big part of the budget—it's 70 per cent of the Commission's operating revenue expenditure, which is a lot—could we ask for more details in the budget? So, I know that the public accounts committee asked for a breakdown by department. Can we ask for that in this budget we're reviewing as well?

We have previously shared the medium-term resourcing framework with predecessors of this committee and we're happy to do so again.

Great. This seems to be a recurring ask. Is it possible to provide it to us without us asking?

By all means.

Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, Cai. We're going to perhaps move on to—. Are there any particular areas before we go on to Bay 32 points? Huw.

Just on the numbers again—table 8, the analysis of income—is that net income or are the salaries for people running the shop, for example, shown elsewhere?

The salaries of the people who run the shop are within the catering budget line. So, the income is pure income. And we're limited in the amount of income we're allowed to receive in and anything we receive over and above that limit has to go back to the Welsh block.

What's the limit on that income that you're allowed?

It's £85,000 for next year.

So, you're only allowed to receive an income of £85,000?

Sorry?

Is that in legislation or guidance? Who puts that limit on you?

Who puts the limit—

The limit on you, yes.

It's an estimate of how much we think we'll make. So, the shop generally brings in around £15,000. We rent out parts of Tŷ Hywel to other partners as well. And then occasionally, we'll get other income from other sources. For example, if we've got some IT equipment that still has a residual value, we'll try and sell that on as well.

I think—

Sorry, go on, Peredur.

I think the point is that we're not a commercial entity, so we shouldn't be using the estate to make profit. I think that's the point.

You do make money out of it, so—

Well, I'm not sure we do. That's why I'm asking if it's net income or not, because if the catering—. If the employment costs are shown elsewhere, are we actually making any money on it?

No, it's not—

It's positive £15,000, isn't it?

Yes.

No, there's the cost of staffing as well.

But it doesn't include the staffing costs. So, we make £15,000—

It's revenue.

It doesn't take into account costs. It's not profit.

It's not profit. Yes, exactly, it's not profit.

On the—

Sorry, Cai, go on.

On the £15,000—. And it's a tiny amount, but I was curious as to—. It's £15,000 this year, next year, the year after, the year before, the year before that.

Where's the growth?

Well, yes. But could we not do a little bit more analysis where we go, 'How much did you actually make?' 'Oh, right, it was £16,500', and place that in there? I don't know, it feels a little bit too—

Regular.

—stiff.

It's something that I know the Llywydd has spoken about in the Commission, looking at the shop provision. And, obviously, as somebody who visits other Seneddau around the world, it varies very much, even if you go to Westminster. But it's certainly something that we need to possibly look at and see what that looks like.

And it might be something that—. Obviously, we have very strong opinions around the room, and in different groups, about what should be provided as a commercial shop, with merchandise and all that sort of stuff. So, it's something that I'd be happy to look into and talk to my fellow Commissioners about.

Okay. Huw.

I guess we're not here to make a profit, but if we can make an income that contributes to the bottom line, that's good. And there are attractions elsewhere in Cardiff, for example, with a cafe function—cafe and shop—that make a six-figure income profit. So, I think there's a case for seeing if, to use a horrible phrase, we can sweat that asset a bit more.

Okay, thank you, Huw. Sera, if we can move on to your question, please.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for being here today. I have a couple of questions about Bay 32, but before I come to that, I have a question about engagement and communication. You have noted a budget of £309,000, but in terms of page 32 in our pack, or maybe it's page 21 in your pack, there's no—. I understand that this is a succinct report, but I would like to see more metrics, to be quite honest with you. And I read this and I didn't understand how it would be different from the years prior. And, in terms of measuring the extent of the engagement, and the success of the engagement that you undertake, have you, for example, done any kind of exercise with an external agency, or even anyone internally, to try and understand how successful your engagement efforts have been?

It's not a large amount of money in terms of marketing, considering other budgets. But I just didn't feel that this told us a lot, to be quite honest, and I'd just like to see how we measure engagement. I think that we have quite a bit of work to do to promote the work of the Senedd amongst the public, in order to show how important the work that happens here is, and this didn't give me the confidence that we're measuring how we go about doing that, and the success of it.

Before brining Manon in, I think that is an important issue. Getting the balance of what we put in a report, and what we don't put in a report, in terms of accessibility and the ability to read it and understand the document—. I do take your point clearly on that.

I think that the engagement that's undertaken by the Senedd with schools, for example, and beyond, and the Youth Parliament and so forth, is positive. And I know that we as a Senedd have been nominated for an award in certain categories in the past as well. So, I do take your point about being able to see that.

But, Manon, do you want to add anything on what more we could give to the committee to understand this better?

I think there is quite an interesting story, and Cai will have heard us mentioning some of this in the public accounts committee. I think that there is a lot more to report than this brief narrative that's in the budget. A lot of that story is told in the annual report. So, what we'll do is pull together a package. We have several performance indicators that relate to hitting specific targets on engagement. We've had success in increasing how many people we reach on social media and through different channels. Peredur mentioned the important work that's undertaken by the team that visits schools and welcomes schools here as well, so with younger people. But we drew up an important campaign, in terms of sharing information with the public, before the election this year and in the month that falls in the current financial year that led up to the election in May. That showed that, in working with other partners such as the Electoral Commission, we had managed to increase information, in a completely neutral way, and to encourage people to vote and to explain to them the new system that would come into force for the next election. So, there is a lot to say about this. We visit shows as well from time to time and we engage with people. At the outset of the seventh Senedd, we are speaking to the Commission, and we'd be happy to speak to other groups, about the strategy for the seventh Senedd.

Sorry, before we go into some of those broader points, I guess what we're more interested in as a Finance Committee is how you know it's value for money.

How do we know it's value for money? I think I will draw that evidence together. We have KPIs, we have targets that we have for individual parts of the campaign and, as I just said, there is, I hope, a 'good news' story that we can tell you there.

Okay, we'll have to look forward to that. I'm sorry, time's really going. Sera, do you want to carry on?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Just to make it clear, it wasn't a criticism about how you have been engaging and the work that's been going on. I've had excellent experience of that, just to give you that feedback. But it just didn't feel very measurable, and I just wanted a bit more meat on the bone there in terms of the £309,000, as the Chair mentioned.

I have three questions about Bay 32. Huw has mentioned a little bit about this in terms of the accommodation and so on. But the first question is about the timescales for the Bay 32 project, in terms of how Members in particular can input into considerations and influence the scope of the future development agreement contract in the future—so, not necessarily that general engagement, but that particular point? And when will the more detailed costs be published publicly?

As we've said already, the project is a major one, and there's a lot of movement in it. The decisions, in terms of proceeding with the project will be made before the end of the year, and the process—. I'll ask Ed to expand on the process so far and what is to come. We've gone to all the groups and offered a technical briefing on this and, of course, as you understand, there is some commercial sensitivity on certain elements, in terms of when these things are released publicly. We're negotiating on contracts at present, so we have to consider what we do release. But it's possible to come back to this committee with a technical briefing, maybe in private, with those figures in the future, if you would desire that as a committee. But I'll bring Ed in now in terms of the timescales and when the next decision points will emerge.

Ed, and for everybody, if we could have brevity, because time is going. We've got quite a few questions to get through too, so succinct points would be lovely. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Peredur. Just very quickly, we're at the point of developing the design to RIBA 3 status, so a fairly detailed design now that allows a cost plan to be developed, and that's in the next few weeks. And we're also developing our decant options, so we'll have a decant strategy. All of that in the next month or so is going to be pulled together into a full business case, and our legal advisers are working on a draft development agreement. All of this is going to come together in December for presentation to the committee [correction: Commission] and, as has been said, we're in the process of setting up briefings for all the groups on all of those elements, where we intend to show Members where we've got to on the design and where we've got to on decant, and take some feedback there. Obviously, there will be a debate on the budget as well because a large element of the Commission's budget interest is around Bay 32. So, there will obviously be full engagement by the Parliament there.

Sera.

Thank you. The next question is about the temporary accommodation and operations cost for Bay 32. It is estimated that this will cost £11.1 million in 2027-28, and over £24 million over a three-year period. What are these costs, and how can they be minimised as much as possible?

I'll ask Ed to provide those details, but just to address why we need to decant to get the work done, the initial strategy was to remain in the building and to move people from one side to the other and back, but given the details of the structure of the building and the extent of the work that's going to be done, it became evident that the disruption on Members was going to be very significant. So, one of the benefits of moving out and decanting is that the project will be completed a year sooner than previously thought, which saves money and saves costs as a result of the decant. That's just to give you the context of why we need to do this.

Ed, do you want to talk through some of the specifics on the costs?

Absolutely. A large element of the cost is around decant and taking on additional leases—and you hear the plural there—to allow—. That is making budget provision; that is not necessarily what we're going to spend, but this is a full potential provision that allows the Commission room to manoeuvre to take decisions. So, what we're budgeting for is towards a maximum of what we think—not an absolute maximum, but a reasonable maximum—we might spend, based on what we know today. There are other elements within those, and I'm happy to talk more about the temporary accommodation options. Peredur gave the context. Just to say also, whilst you are seeing the costs there, quite rightly, and need to scrutinise those, our decant planning overall—our current estimate—generates a saving to the whole life of the project so far on the options that we're looking at. But, obviously, it comes with upfront cost, but there are some longer term savings there as well. In these costs, just to say, there's a large element of professional fees. There is a lot of legal, commercial and procurement advice.

Okay. Just briefly.

Just to mention, on the savings, because we're potentially moving out of the building, it means we save on rates, we save on rent. Plus there's also been, for the project to date, at least two rent reviews that have been frozen, so we haven't seen those increases because we're in the process of going through this project. So, there are savings offsetting the cost as well. So, that's why we're trying to be as prudent as possible.

Sorry, to be really clear on that, you said savings on rent. The rent will still be paid, I assume.

Rent is being paid, but the rent reviews haven't.

Briefly, Sera, and then—

Yes. My final question, therefore, on Bay 32: you note that there will be a dilapidations charge at the end of both leases to return the buildings back to their original condition. How much do you estimate the charges will be and in which line are they included in the draft budget?

I'm going to look to Lisa.

I don't know off the top of my head. I think it's roughly £1 million included for each additional accommodation at the moment.

We can get those details back to the committee, though, yes?

Of course.

Okay. Thanks for that.

Diolch.

Huw.

Just picking up on what Sera was saying there a minute ago about the growth in costs for Bay 32, which I guess are partly related to the decant, by 2029-30, between the Bay 32 lines and the depreciation, you're up to about £30 million. Is that the peak, and does it fall off—are you expecting it to fall off after that? I appreciate this is not the go/no-go on Bay 32, but what's the profile for the Commission budget going to look like beyond the three years?

We're currently expecting that to be a peak. That is a live conversation, so I can't give you an absolute guarantee today that there won't be significant costs going slightly beyond that, but, at the moment, certainly in terms of our decant planning, which is a large element of those costs, that's expected to be—

So, I think, when this committee considers that go/no-go decision, I think having a clear profile over the 25 years or whatever the project length is, would be really helpful so that we can understand the impact to the Senedd Commission budget beyond the medium term.

Just to add, the full business case is on a 50-year appraisal period at the moment, so you'll see there's a lot of detail going into that.

Yes, I'm sure there is.

Indeed. We would be happy to share.

Thanks. Huw.

Obviously, Senedd Members, et cetera, are not the only residents of Tŷ Hywel. It's also used by the Welsh Government and press organisations. How are you engaging with them about the Bay 32 decision and what's their influence, but, also, what's the expectation of them in terms of contributions to the Commission budget?

We're fully engaging with the Welsh Government at an official level, and I know that the chief executive is speaking to senior officials within the Welsh Government to make sure that they're fully apprised of what's going on. With any decant strategy, that comes into effect as well, because everybody moves out of the building if that's the case. So, again, managing what Ministers and the Government want, as our sub-tenants, if you like, is something that happens. So, the Welsh Government, as a key tenant, would be an operational stakeholder. So, a Welsh Government official sits on the Bay 32 project, so there's one member there, obviously, because they're a significant stakeholder in that. And then, through the joint assurance board, they co-ordinate the dependencies and escalate any issues that they might see. Obviously, from an accountability point of view, it's close stakeholder engagement, so we have to manage that, as you'd expect.

But just to be clear, those organisations will contribute a proportional sum of moneys into the overall costs as a rental charge?

I think commercial negotiations are still ongoing about that, as our options emerge and as the Commission makes decisions on how we're going to move forward. But the Welsh Government is in a slightly different position because they have a right to accommodation within the building. With others, there are tenancies that are negotiated.

Okay. And then the last question, I think, about this area: obviously, there was some refurbishment work in Tŷ Hywel ahead of the May 2026 elections—just commenting on what I can see around me, the accommodation looks of really high quality—so to what extent are the benefits of that work going to be retained or lost as part of the building refit?

Sorry, Ed, did you—?

I'm happy to come in after you.

I think staging is part—as in, the stages at which these things happen—. We had to make decisions, or the Commission had to make decisions, before the 2026 election as to what accommodation was needed when we all came back into the building. So, we had to do something; we couldn't not do the work. The work means that we, as Members, have adequate places for us to be able to work. So, I think that's an important part.

When it comes to the retention of the improvements, what can be reused, for example, I'm sure will be. But, Ed, could you comment a little bit about those tensions, I suppose, or how we manage that, because, obviously, with a decant strategy of moving out and work happening, we'll need to be in here until at least next summer, as well? So, there is a period of time where, that work, we will benefit from. Ed.

Yes, indeed. So, just to add to the context, the Commission was taking decisions around the refurbishment of Tŷ Hywel in advance of the 2026 election in 2023-24, and those works were delivered in 2024-25. So, it was a long way before we were at the point we are now with Bay 32. There was a clear risk in terms of the spend that you're referring to, but no assumptions could be made about which direction, at that very early point, Bay 32 was going to go. So, the office works were done in 2024-25 to allow the Siambr project to then be delivered in 2025-26. There was careful management of the projects, as we went through. We have now engaged our preferred bidder, which is the current landlord of Tŷ Hywel, and we're refurbishing Tŷ Hywel as our preferred way forward. There is a major emphasis on reusing materials. We don't have precise figures, but we are keeping a very close eye on all the investment we've made, not just to the Member offices areas. We're very proud of the maintenance of the asset over time, as we have been responsible fully for that, under the lease, and we have got a very close eye on reusing all the materials and minimising cost, going forward.

Do you want to pick up any points on that, Huw, in particular, before I bring Cai in? Cai.

Coming back to the temporary office, has there been any consideration of taking advantage of the Welsh Government estate or somewhere else? I get that they're different institutions, but, ultimately, the stakeholders are the same, which is the taxpayer. I'm sure they'd appreciate knowing that you guys have been working together to see if there's some space available. I'm sure there is space available, given there's been a revolution in working from home.

I think the locality is one of the—. The Senedd building isn't moving and, therefore, being able to have offices that are close enough for us to be able to carry out our work as parliamentarians, and being able to access this building that we're in now, from our offices, in a prudent way—. There isn't, I believe, a Welsh Government estate asset that's big enough, close enough, to be able to make that happen. So, it's more of a physical element that that would be the case.

On the Bay 32 deal, it was reported that the contract would finish in 2082, in 56 years, to be purchased for £1, which means, essentially, the deal is expected to benefit us much further than 2082. Has there been any consideration into the fact that, in the future, we may not require the same style of office that we require today, and certainly not yesterday?

I think the main point is no decisions have been made as to how we purchase the Tŷ Hywel property over time. The decision to do that will be taken in due course, after a very clear cost-benefit analysis. Obviously, we'll have use of it for that 50 years anyway, so it then becomes a—. But I think having a building that is flexible enough to be able to accommodate future working is something that is in the design stage, to make sure that—. The building that we have currently isn't flexible in being able to adapt spaces very easily, and to be able to give us the flexible space that, potentially—. As you explained, in 50 years' time, it might be a very different way of working, so we need to be able to adapt a building during that time to be able to work for us. So, I think your point is valid, but as part of the design and the considerations of a refurbished building, it would give us that option of being able to adapt the building easier for future ways of working. I think that's—

Okay. Cai, is there anything else you want to take up on those points at all? No. I guess on that broader point, then—and I'm sure you've considered this fully as a Commission—the difference between a refurb and a new build, of course, is that in 50 years' time, a new build is 50 years old, which is very obvious, whereas a refurb is 50 years plus the existing age of this building. So, it's one thing tarting up an old building and it looks fine for a period of time, versus the fundamental structure of the building—the age of that may not be as long, essentially. So, how has that affected your decision making in terms of the direction of travel at the moment?

I'll take that to start, and then I'll bring Ed or Manon in afterwards. I think the extent of the works that are going to be carried out in our preferred bid is significant. In effect, it will probably look like a new building on the same site without knocking it down. So—

But that's the point, sorry. That's the point—it looks like a new building, but the actual structure itself is not.

I'll bring Ed in on the structure and what works are going to be carried out during that refurb to make it fit for purpose for the future. Ed, did you want to comment a bit further on that?

Absolutely. Just to quote our commercial adviser, we are essentially getting a new building. I appreciate it's not going to go all the way down to the foundations, but all of the exterior—. The windows are going to be redone, a lot of the superstructure and the steel structure is going to be redone. What we're working on is all to 'excellent' design and sustainability standards. So, it's a very good question, Chair, and it's something that's baked into the project in terms of the build life and that we don't want something that starts to wear down during that 50-year period.

I guess it comes to the point—. The Finance Committee consideration is the numbers behind this. So, it's the value of the asset at the end of the 50 years, and the value of an asset that is only 50 years old versus the value of an asset that is considered, on an asset book, 50 years plus the previous life. It's quite different. That's the consideration, I suppose. We don't have to have a specific response on that right now, because we've got lots of other things to get on to, but it's just a point I wanted to clarify. Manon, do you want to say something?

I think this project has been driven by value-for-money considerations and considerations of what is the best way to solve the problem that we have. Doing nothing was not an option. The lease was coming to an end; there had to be a decision on how to take it forward. The calculations—which we hope we will be able to share more widely once we're not bound with commercial confidentiality and once decisions are made by the Commission—and the considerations are evidence based and include the best professional estimates of what it would cost us to remain in the current building and not make any differences to it. We challenged the market to come up with a solution that answered our needs to develop this Parliament and give it—to Cai's Point—the flexibility to adapt to future needs of Parliaments, over decades to come. This is the option that came out as the clear winner in terms of value for money. But we look forward to discussing the detail of that with you in due course.

Thank you. I appreciate that. The challenge we have, I suppose, is that there's an ask in this budget today. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg—I appreciate that—because there has to be a funding envelope to start making some decisions. How we consider that as a committee is the thing that's not necessarily as straightforward as everyone would like it to be. Ben, did you want to come in with some questions?

Looking at the experiences of this Senedd so far and the impact of Business Committee decisions, you've stated that there are further staff and non-staff costs in regard to decisions regarding Senedd business—changes to Plenary and things like that—and that those will only be allocated when the need is evidenced. Can you explain how that decision is made when you decide to make that allocation, and have you mapped out any different scenarios so far as to potential changes to business and the associated costs that would come with them?

As you'll be aware, the Business Committee make those decisions as to how the business runs, and that's something that we as Commissioners and officials then have to bear in mind. Obviously, we, the same as you, will have seen some of the papers that have been shared with us as groups on the modelling—is there going to be an extra Plenary session, is there going to be extra committee time, what that looks like. As part of our planning assumptions, coming up with budget lines with enough flexibility in them to be able to deliver that is paramount. Manon, did you want to talk to how those decisions are brought together and how you as officials work through the need for changes?

I touched on previously the way that our corporate plan and our medium-term resourcing framework are then cascaded through the organisation in more granular terms, and we have service planning that feeds back into that going forward. We have business plans. The key decision-making body here is the executive board, which I chair, and we have business cases coming forward to that on a regular basis, where we take a view on what is affordable, what we need to move ahead with. Did you mean on a more annual basis how we decide to construct the budget?

If the Business Committee makes a decision to change the way that Senedd business works, what's the process in the Commission in terms of deciding how the staff costs come along? And then, have you mapped out any potential scenarios based on ongoing discussions with the committee at the moment?

The planning we have goes all the way back to the planning we did when we needed to give the Welsh Government figures for the regulatory impact assessment of the reform Bill. We've referred back to that as we go forward. There was a higher estimate there and a lower estimate in terms of how radical a change we could expect. This was years ago, so it was difficult to foresee then how things would work out. We undertook to inform the Business Committee if decisions that it was taking were outside the envelope of our planning, so that that could be taken into consideration by the Business Committee when it considered expansion of business. We haven't reached that point, I don't think, where any decisions currently being considered by the Business Committee are outside that envelope of what we consider we can manage and deliver within the envelope of the budget you see ahead of you.

Can I just try to make that point really clear? I think in the report, if I remember rightly, you said there were an extra 75 staff to handle the changes in Senedd reform. I think eight staff have yet to be recruited because we're awaiting that decision from the Business Committee. I guess that's an example of what Ben's looking at, isn't it, and then as and when that decision gets made by the Business Committee, whether to recruit those extra eight staff. Is that fair?

That's it.

Okay, thanks. And if they're not recruited, that money goes back into the Welsh consolidated fund, I guess. Yes. Ben.

Obviously, AI is the buzzword at the moment in terms of an emerging technology. How has the Commission used AI so far and other emerging technologies, and how has the tool influenced your ability to plan for resources going into the future?

I'm quite interested in how AI happens in different Seneddau and different Parliaments around the world as well. We're currently exploring and piloting AI through Microsoft Copilot, Teams and Teams Premium, and individual cases have clear successes, but obviously we keep it under review. It comes from a point of view of governance first, before opportunity, because we need to make sure that we don't breach any data issues or anything, as you'd expect for us to be prudent.

As part of that, there are two groups that work in tandem, with one member crossing from one to the other. One is an AI governance group and the other is an AI opportunities group. That helps us to manage how AI is used. Translation services are something that is a key element for us here, and seeing how we can potentially use AI to help with some of those issues. An initial test with it wasn't great when you check how it works, so it's work in progress, but, as you know from AI, it learns. So, it's how do we do that as well.

But it keeps coming back to being controlled and evidence led. There are examples where AI is being used in committees, and looking at evidence that comes to committees and being able to summarise some of that evidence, especially when you have a large amount. So, using the tool, but obviously keeping a view of that—. The human being then keeps the overall control over it, making sure that it is a tool to be used, rather than—. But that gives you a flavour of the type of work where AI is happening in the Senedd.

Okay, thanks. Anything else, Ben?

Yes, just quickly on that, you mentioned you've done testing with Copilot. Have you done testing with any other models to measure the potential effectiveness of other models compared to Copilot at all?

Manon, did you want to comment? We have a licence with Microsoft and, I think, because of the governance-first aspect, we need to be very careful what we put into, maybe, a different entity, just to make sure that we're fully in control of where that data goes and understand what it's doing. That's the answer. So, at the moment, because we're doing it as a governance-first aspect, we're looking at that first.

Thank you. And then the last one from me is just on project expenditure and capital funding. What's the distinction between the project fund and the capital expenditure in the budget, and what will you achieve with the combined £2 million in the budget next year?

It's on capital and technical, so I'm going to ask Lisa just to give us an overview.

So, the capital forms part of the overall project fund, which is £2 million for next year. The remainder of it is shown within non-staff within the budget. Historically, we've allocated less money to capital and more to revenue. But, over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of discussions with our auditors about how we classify our spend. In particular, we used to not capitalise spend on Tŷ Hywel because we didn't own the building. But I think it's fair to say that we do benefit from a lot of spend that we put into Tŷ Hywel, so it's right to capitalise it. So, for 2027-28, we've switched the ratio slightly to up the capital spend. It's itemised separately in the budget. I reflected on it earlier slightly. We have to report our separate totals to Welsh Government, so it just helps them to see how much we expect to spend on capital. But, for next year, a large element of Bay 32 is also expected to be capital.

Thank you.

Before I bring Elfed in for another question, the envelope there for that project fund is £2 million, and to say whether it's capital or revenue, there are different arguments. Is it reasonable to continue seeking that amount when part of the current plans in the budget are for this building to be decanted? How will that money be used when, actually, you're already seeking lots of money to bring other buildings up to scratch? Is it needed, essentially?

Would you like me to take that?

Yes, if you could.

It's a fair question. We have done some work to see the level of savings we expect next year in our baseline estates budget. Obviously, if part of the building is empty, we wouldn't expect to pay business rates on it. We also wouldn't expect to clean it, and the reactive maintenance obviously will go down.

In terms of the project fund, that also covers maintenance for the Senedd building. It covers things like laptop replacements for Commission staff. Generally, every year, the call against the project fund is almost double the funding we have available. So, things that we're maybe not able to do this year will slip into next year and so on and so forth.

At the minute, we've left £2 million as a holding figure, but I absolutely take your point that, without Tŷ Hywel to maintain in the intervening years, we could look to adjust that depending on what's in the project pipeline.

I think it's quite hard for us to understand why the same amount is required when half the building that the Senedd estate uses is not going to be needed in that time. So, I think it's something to reflect on further, perhaps.

I think the oversubscription of the project fund—

Yes, but we've survived pretty well for 20-odd years with the oversubscription year on year.

Because we've managed it over time.

Yes, understood. Elfed.

Before I come to the questions that I have, I just wanted to pursue future rent and what it is now, given that you mentioned that it will be cheaper, the rent, if I understood correctly. Over 50 years, I think it's £135 million. If we were to do nothing and not continue with the project, what would the cost of the rent be moving forward?

In terms of—. Just using very rough figures, the rent—.

I think the current rent is—

Two point seven.

—£2.7 million, times 50 years.

That gives you £300 million, doesn't it?

That will be if—

No, £150 million. That's doing nothing, but that's without dilapidations, any rent reviews and so forth. So, what is your point here?

I thought that the rent was going to be cheaper because of that deal that you cut with the—

It's cheaper in terms of—. Actually, I'll bring Manon in here, because you know more about this.

The costs of staying in the building are more than just the rent; there are other costs. So, one can reach a sum such as that over 50 years. The solution that we're looking at—. I can't provide detailed information. I think maybe the comparison that you were thinking of, Peredur, was that £6.2 million per year is what we spend to stay in Tŷ Hywel, so, if you multiply that by 50, you arrive at a figure that is something that we would have to pay at least to stand still and do nothing. And of course, in reality, the rent will rise during that period, and we will pay for dilapidations and so forth over that period. But, in terms of the rent, the rent per square foot is to be negotiated, but the initial analysis has provided us with a business case, which is now being developed further, but it was a sufficient business case to persuade the Commission that this is a valid way forward that offers value for money for the taxpayer in the long term.

I want to ask about something completely different now. We are in a challenging time in terms of social media at the moment. You've been running a social media monitoring pilot scheme. What actions have you taken to ensure that Members and their staff have the measures and the advice in place for personal safety? What steps have you been taking on that?

As you said, we did, and this committee, when I chaired it in the last Senedd, had an interest in this, in seeing how we could monitor social media in terms of threats to our Members. It was something that emerged from work that was done in Scotland, and we saw that. There is a pilot scheme that was run with 10 Members in the last Senedd, and a lot more have come in to use the system in this Senedd. We've had more than 9,500 incidents that have been picked up, with more than 800 logged as incidents, and some of those have gone to the police. But, of course, the threshold for the police to take action is very high. So, we're continuing to review the project—it's coming up for tender again—to see whether it provides value for money, whether it benefits Members, and whether Members think it's a good way to—. You may remember the threats made to the lives of Senedd Members in the last Senedd. That's one reason why we introduced this in the first place. The cost involved in extending and using the system into 2027 is less than £10,000. So, it's something to bear in mind. But, in terms of value for money and keeping people safe, I think it's worth doing.

Do you want to come in on this point in particular, Cai?

Yes. That system, how do you—? I'm just thinking back to my time working on similar-ish systems. How did you work out that that was the best choice, versus other systems that could do the same thing?

We went off, I believe—. I wasn't involved in the decision at the time, because obviously it was—. We went off the experience of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament had run a very similar system, and I think with the same provider. As a pilot, it was decided to use the same system as a sister Parliament that lives on the same islands, if you like, and in the same sort of social media sphere. But did you want to just comment on why we didn't go for a different system?

Only that, first of all, we would welcome the expertise and interest of all Members and important stakeholders in this. We started the system as a limited pilot in the last Senedd; it's been extended now and the offer's been made to all Members. We know that we need to have an ongoing review. There is an ongoing review that Ed, as director of resources, is leading. We are due to consider this as an executive board soon, how we can reflect on Members' experiences and how we can improve this. We recognise that it is a very, very difficult and challenging atmosphere to be undertaking politics in.

So, this software, it sounds like it hasn't—. It sounds like we've just picked the software that Scotland are using and we've had a pilot and then we've expanded it, and it doesn't sound like, at any stage, we've gone, 'Is there a different software that can provide better value for money for the same service?'

That's what we're doing now.

That's what we're doing now.

That is what we're doing now.

So, there's no long-term contract at the moment, it's yearly.

If I may, Chair, there's a short-term extension in place. So, certainly, the experience of other Parliaments was key, also deliverability, to move quickly to meet the needs of Members in the sixth Senedd, was a key factor to bringing that system in. It's a broad and wide system, but it does have some limitations and we were aware of that. So, we set up the pilot and then there was a need to continue the pilot, and that's what's happening now and we've expanded the offer to all Members whilst the detailed options appraisal—. We very much take the point and are happy to continue this conversation. There are other options. The UK Parliament, for example, has gone in a slightly different direction now—rather than a broad monitoring, going much more down to targeting and looking at individual Members and the threat landscape for individual Members. So, there are different ways of coming at this and we're doing an options appraisal now, in effect, an outline business case, and then we'll go to procurement.

That's great. I think the opportunity for Cai, perhaps, to pick this up would be very helpful, elsewhere, as well.

Yes, very good.

But, from a value-for-money point of view, I think you were right to raise that here as well. Elfed, do you want to come in and then we'll go—? I'm going to keep you for a few minutes over, if that's okay. I appreciate your patience with this. Elfed.

Yes. We are frequently under threat in terms of ICT, and there are many bad actors out there who want to threaten companies and institutions like ours. What steps are you taking to ensure that this Senedd is protected from that?

That has been something that, from what I understand—. I've just joined ARAC, the audit and risk assurance committee, as the Member with responsibility for finance, and there has been a significant focus on the audit and risk work, and it is a known risk within the Senedd in terms of cyber security and the fact that we're under threat almost permanently.

In terms of the systems themselves, Manon or Ed, do you want to talk about those systems?

Well, I think, Chair, given that time is running out and some of the measures that we are taking are difficult to speak about in a public forum—. We sent a note to the committees last year with more details. Would it be acceptable for us to do the same thing? We are very aware, and our accounts committee does keep a very close eye on this.

Yes. Happy?

Yes.

Okay. And one more question from you, Elfed.

Yes. How are you adapting and investing in translation services and other services that support bilingual business? And what possible impact could an update to the Senedd's official languages scheme have on your draft budget for 2027-28?

In terms of the draft budget, the money is in it for bilingualism, and, in terms of our priorities as a Senedd, everything is planned bilingually as a matter of course. In terms of measures in terms of holding sessions such as this bilingually and, in terms of the papers and the clerking duties, managing that and ensuring that we have enough people who can do that. Of course, we've talked about AI earlier in terms of how translation can be used in that field as well. So, it's becoming more and more interesting to see at how technology can help us. We know that in terms of the Chamber, and committees like this, that the interpretation service works very well, but we're always looking at how that works. It depends on the availability of translators, and, of course, we're a trilingual Senedd now, rather than a bilingual one, because we have BSL in the Chamber, which is a very good development following the Act that is now in place, for deaf people.

Is there anything that you'd like to add on that?

Just to add that we are now looking at refreshing the official languages scheme and we will respond to that when the results of that are known. We are aware of the technological advances, and our translation team has been very prominent in maximising the use of machine translation in order to make their work more efficient over the years. We are now assessing some of the new AI options. AI can't interpret to a sufficient standard at the moment, but there are ways that we could be using the latest technology to assist. But, in essence, there is a commitment that has just been re-confirmed by the Commission to maintain high-quality services as a default, so that people can use their language of choice in undertaking their work in the Senedd.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. The time has gone, and I appreciate the response you've given the committee today. There are a few bits we're going to follow up, and I'll allow the clerks to make sure that they communicate in terms of what's expected to come back.

And we'll get those to you as soon as possible.

Yes, I appreciate that so much. That's the end of that item there, Members, so thank you for your time; I appreciate it.

The next item on our agenda, Members, is item 4, a motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to resolve to exclude the public from items 5, 7 and 8, under Standing Order 17.42(ix) and from the entirety of the meeting on 22 October. Are Members content with that? Yes. Okay, thank you. We'll move into private session then, thank you.

Bore da. Good morning, pawb. Welcome back to our Finance Committee, 8 October. We're on agenda item 6, which is an evidence session on the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales's annual report and accounts 2025-26 and the estimate for 2027-28. The membership of the committee remains the same as previously. We have Michelle Morris, the public services ombudsman, with us here today, with members of her team. Do you want to introduce your colleagues, Michelle?

Bore da. I'll let them introduce themselves.

Good morning, bore da. I'm Katrin Shaw, executive director for casework and legal.

Bore da. I'm Sarah King, executive director, corporate resources.

Great. It's lovely to have you with us here today. We have a couple of hours to run through these items. We'll make the most of that time, as we go through. Just a reminder that simultaneous interpretation is available throughout this and we are being broadcast on Senedd.tv as well.

Thank you for the report. There's a lot of information in there. We appreciate you sharing that with us. I noted the quite extensive increase in case load over the strategic plan as set out. I'm interested to understand how that has informed your plan for 2026-29.

For the new strategic plan, then, yes it has informed it, because we know that caseloads have gone up consistently since the pandemic, so since 2022. Last year was the sharpest increase that we have seen in a single year, and we've detailed those figures—a 29 per cent increase—in our report. What we do then is project forward and look at where we think that increase will go in the future. It's always difficult to project forward, but based on what we've seen in the past, we project forward and we do see that we expect that complaints will continue to increase, going forward, and that we need to take that into account in the planning for future years.

I'm grateful that the Finance Committee were able to support the increase in our funding last year, which enabled us to do a reset around our structure—our organisational structure. We used that to invest in more caseworkers to deal with front-line services and the delivery of our complaints service, and we hope that will help offset some of those pressures in the coming years.

This year, our focus really is on how we work, how we use technology, to continue to look at that to make sure that we continue to challenge ourselves about how efficient we are, because we recognise that, in the past, our resources haven't gone up in line with the complaints that we've received. And we don't expect that to happen in the future; it wouldn't be sustainable. So, we've got to look at ourselves in terms of our efficiency, and the estimate, which we'll come on to talk about, talks about investment in technology in particular to help us with that work over the coming years.

So, it has very much influenced, that increase has very much influenced, our thinking for future strategies.

Thanks. And what do you think is driving the increase in case load?

So, I think there's not one thing going on here; there are multiple things going on here. First and foremost, I think the continued pressure on public services in Wales has to be a factor here. We know that, with the capacity and the resources that public bodies have to deliver services, there's no keeping up with the demand for those services, and that is bound to have an impact. Things do go wrong, and when they go wrong, I think now people are far more aware of their rights, of their ability to complain and how to complain. And I think that's also driving increased complaints to public bodies, but also through to us.

We also do feel that expectations have changed amongst people in Wales, and I suppose that's why we're seeing that they're less likely to accept, perhaps, that things have gone wrong. They want answers. They want to find out why it's gone wrong. Very often, when they come to us, they want to make sure that doesn't happen to anybody else. So, I think people's expectations have very much changed. And, certainly, there's a persistence that we see with complainants. People far less likely to take—. If the answer is, 'No, sorry, we think this is okay', or, 'We're not going to uphold your complaint', people are far more likely now to persist and to continue with that, even if they remain dissatisfied.

There are a few things that we're doing in our work as well. So, our complaints standards work, we're rolling that out across public bodies in Wales. As part of that, if public bodies are operating under our complaints standards, they are required at the end of the process, if service users remain dissatisfied, to send that through to us—to point out to the complainants that they can refer that matter to us. So, I think that will drive more complaints as well.

And we continue to try and do more work around accessibility. You might say, 'Well, why do we have to do that when we're already receiving such a huge number of complaints?', but what we want to make sure is that everyone across Wales, whoever they are, wherever they live, has that knowledge that they can come to us and that ability to access our services.

And then, the final point, Chair, I think we'd make is that—and I'm sure you've heard this from other public bodies—we are seeing more AI-generated complaints, and we do think that that is a factor. It's not the only one, but we do think that's a factor, and we're starting to see complaints that are overly long, detailed, complex and, therefore, very resource intensive to deal with. And AI does generate some of that activity.

Okay, we may come on to that a bit further on, on some of the AI points. But just going back to the broader increase in complaints being reported, a significant proportion of that is in health-related complaints. Do you think health boards have taken enough notice of that significant increase in complaints to you?

Well, we do annual letters every year for the public bodies that are operating under the complaints standards, and we've just recently released those annual letters, and that includes all health boards. So, I think they're very aware of their complaints numbers and the increase that is happening.

I think, within health in particular, that increase, and that continued increase, reflects the pressure that there is on that sector, and the fact that it impacts on everybody's lives in Wales to such a huge extent.

Can I just come back to that point? You're absolutely right, I'm sure there is pressure, but how much of the source of the complaint is avoidable, I guess, is a factor, isn't it? I think we would acknowledge pressure in all sorts of roles in life. I guess you're very interested in those areas that are clearly avoidable. Is that fair?

Yes. So, there are a couple of things there. First is complaint handling. I think it is a frustration to us that we continue to see—and this, I think, is probably true particularly in health—we continue to see complaints coming through to us that we have to deal with where the health body has not dealt with that complaint properly in the first place. Now, that is entirely avoidable. They should be able to deal with those complaints properly, do proper, objective investigations and come up with robust answers for the complainants. Now, if they're not doing that, we have to redo that work. So, I think complaint handling and improving the standard of complaint handling across all health boards is definitely needed because that would avoid a significant number of complaints that come through to us. And because they're not well investigated in the first place, we have to reinvestigate. So, that's public resources being used twice, and that is entirely avoidable.

I think the other thing with health is, the reason we—. Where we see cases that are particularly serious or where there has been personal harm or injustice or, sadly, sometimes avoidable—certainly avoidable harm or injustice—sometimes avoidable death, those are the reports that tend to be public interest reports. They are put into the public domain in full, along with the recommendations that we make to those health bodies for improvement. Those improvements are about avoiding that happening again and those public interest reports are about making sure that everybody, right across the sector, can learn from that, but that those who are charged with governance and holding those bodies to account are also aware of those things and what could be put right to try and avoid those things happening in the future.

Thanks. And in terms of the complaint handling you referred to, I guess you would probably say it's a bit of a false economy if health boards in particular are cutting back on how complaints are resourced, because I expect if they are handled poorly, the cost of a poorly handled complaint is much more significant than the upfront investment in complaint handling. Is that a fair comment, do you think?

Yes, absolutely. We understand the pressure health boards are under and probably the pressure front-line services are under to put more into their clinical and front-line work, particularly in hospital settings. But you're absolutely right, if a complaint is dealt with quickly and properly at the first point by that public body, then it doesn't flow through the rest of the public sector and it doesn't create additional resource demands in other places. But also, for that complainant, they get a resolution earlier and if there are lessons to be learned and improvements that need to be made on the back of it, they're made earlier, and then from that can flow a whole pile of other avoidable costs, if you like, because those things don't happen again to other people. So, absolutely, complaint handling swiftly and promptly at an early stage is very important.

And do you think a significant element of that is the culture within the organisation? I guess the first point of complaint could be with somebody right at the front line and if they feel empowered to handle that and deal with it appropriately, then there's a significant resource saving to the organisation and to the complainant themselves in getting it dealt with very quickly. But is that a cultural thing in some organisations perhaps, where complaints aren't dealt with as close to the front line as possible? And is there a piece of work that you're able to highlight to show that if there's more focus culturally within organisations to empower their staff to deal with complaints early on, actually, it has a significant knock-on effect elsewhere?

Yes. The duty of candour that now is a requirement of all health boards, and came in a few years ago, should achieve that. It should empower staff at the front line to be able to identify where things have gone wrong, perhaps pick those things up and try and address them at that early point with the service user, with the patient. Definitely, I think that is taking time to bed in because we see time and time again in our more serious complaints, in our public interest reports, instances where that duty of candour hasn't really been—you know, that ethos hasn't really happened within the health board, and therefore the complaint then rises later on, because it wasn't dealt with at that front stage. So, yes, it's all very well introducing a new policy or a new obligation, but if there's not proper training and support for staff to make sure they can do that—and there are no repercussions on them if they raise these issues—then they won't do it.

You say about work that we've done. One of the things we have done in recent years is a thematic report, where we looked across all of our work in health and tried to bring together what were the common themes that we were seeing that, actually, all health boards should pay attention to and should think about how they can improve. We did that thematic report on complaint handling, called 'Groundhog Day 2', and that looked at those sorts of issues in terms of the culture within organisations in dealing with complaints, and how they robustly, then, dealt with complaints that came forward, to try to put that learning into a report and to put it in front of the sector.

Thank you. Just a couple more quick points, then. You mentioned how you're seeing AI-assisted complaints, perhaps, from complainants. What can you do about that?

So, a few things around AI-generated complaints. We've just been doing some work, and Katrin's been leading on this work, putting some notices on the front of our website, but also some updated guidance for staff, to say that, really, where we see complaints that are—. We can get complaints that are literally hundreds of pages long, and there's so much detail in them. We're saying to staff that it is okay to now go back to the complainant and say, 'Actually, can you just summarise this down into the key issues? Can you just summarise it down into a couple of pages, so that we can deal with it promptly and efficiently?' So, if you like, we're giving our staff—they don't need permission, but we're saying to them, 'It's okay to go back and ask for this in a more manageable format.' So, we do that.

If complaints come in that are simply incorrect—. People assume AI's always right; it of course isn't, and if people don't check it before they've sent it in, it can be wrong. So, one of the things we see is—. There's different legislation in England to Wales, and they will bring in complaints based on different bits of legislation. Again, it's okay, we say to staff, to push that back and say, 'Sorry, this is incorrect; you need to apply a lens [correction: a Welsh lens] to this.' So, in that way, we're trying to put it back to the complainants and asking them to do that again in a way that is a bit more manageable for us.

And on the other side of it, obviously, we're starting to think—and we'll probably come on to this later; Sarah can talk about the work we're doing on AI within the organisation—about how can we use that to help us with our own productivity and efficiency. So, that's the other side of it, really. But, with the complaints, it's just a pragmatic approach in saying to staff, 'It's okay to go back and ask for another revision of that complaint.'

That seems absolutely sensible. I guess there's also the side where it is a useful tool to support people in appropriately complaining about areas where they may feel either ill informed or less confident in how to structure a complaint. So, there are some parts that allow some people the access to this service that, perhaps, they may have found difficult in the past, I suppose. But, before you respond to that point, Ben, did you want to come in on this point?

Yes, just quickly. When it comes to assessing complaints that have come in and trying to figure out whether they are done by AI or not, is there a defined process in the organisation for that? Or is it just more on an ad hoc basis? Because, as AI gets things wrong, so can people, and quote the wrong legislation and things like that as well.

Do you want to pick that up?

At the moment, it is more ad hoc. Michelle has spoken about the very wordy submissions we have. They tend to be very legalistic, so it's quite clear from the start, actually. And one of the risks with them is, actually, it's really difficult to know what outcome a complainant is looking for, and that's really important for us, because we try and resolve things at an early stage whenever we can. But I'm sure Sarah will talk about the work we're going to do to use AI for our productivity, and also, then, to look at trends coming through the front door of our service. But, at the moment, it is ad hoc, and it tends to be quite clear at the start, really, when somebody has used AI, and it's really impossible, sometimes, to get through the detail there.

Thank you.

Huw.

I've got a couple of questions just on this theme, if that's okay.

Sure. Please, yes.

Thanks, Chair. Just on AI, rather than just empowering your staff rather than just empowering your staff to go back and say, 'Can you give us something shorter?', have you considered just having a form for the public to raise complaints that sets a word limit and maybe breaks out what action is the complainant looking for, rather than just having an open-ended, you know—?

Yes. We do have that. So, the majority of our complaints are lodged with us online. So, we have an online complaint form, exactly for that reason, to try and keep people focused on the information that we need from them in order to be able to effectively deal with their complaint. So, we do do that.

You get e-mails as well.

But we get e-mails and other traffic as well.

If I can just zoom us back out a little bit, and into the discussion about how you're working with bodies around complaint management, I wonder if you could speak a bit more about any preventative work that you do as ombudsman, both in terms of managing or supporting organisations to better manage their own complaints—. Obviously, you've referenced public interest reports et cetera. But I wonder, if there are systemic complaints, or complaints indicating systemic issues, do you have an interface with, for example, Welsh Government that allows you to say, 'Look, we're getting a raft of issues relating to GP booking appointments'—for example—'that indicates something systemic is wrong', as opposed to just how an individual health board is dealing with this? Do you have that route into Government, for them to then, in turn, say, 'Well, actually, we have to put more money into this, or change policy', or whatever?

So, on the systemic issues, where we see systemic issues, that tends to be the public interest report, it tends to be the more serious issues. So, we would probably put them into that format. The other power that we have is own-initiative powers. So, those were put into the Senedd Act in 2019. So, what that means is, even if we haven't done a public interest report on it, if we see—and Katrin referred to using AI to interrogate our data to see what the themes are—we've got a lot coming through from a particular public body, or on a particular issue, and we can pick that up, then we can use own-initiative powers to go and look at that further, to see if there are systemic issues causing that big spike in complaints. So, those are the sorts of powers that we have.

But to your question about back into Government, what we always do is that the reports, whether own-initiative or public interest, the ones where we're identifying systemic issues, those reports will come to all Members of the Senedd. But, absolutely, we specifically write, or I specifically write, at that point to the Minister. So, everything on health will go to the Minister, and likewise to other Ministers. But, as you can imagine, a lot of the systemic issues would be in health.

We also meet on a twice-yearly basis with senior officials in the health and social care department. We talk about our work, what we're seeing, and, certainly, the themes and the concerns we might have about what we're seeing coming through. I am about to write to the Cabinet Minister again, really, just highlighting some of the themes that we're seeing coming through in our work, aside from the formal report. So, we do try to do that. We're very conscious that the public money that's invested in the work that we do—. It's important that, when we find things, we put them in front of the people that have got the authority, the power and the responsibility, actually, for holding these bodies to account and driving service improvement.

Thank you. We're going to continue looking back at the report, the annual report as well. So, Ben, do you want to continue that?

Yes, absolutely. So, on the theme of satisfaction, which was touched on a little bit, the proportion of people who were satisfied with the ombudsman's work was 36 per cent in 2025-26; that's against a target of 50 per cent. It's also a decrease from 42 per cent in 2024-25, and 40 per cent in 2023-24. Are you concerned about this decrease at all? And what engagement are you having to understand the reason for these scores at the moment?

Yes, it is a concern to us. Obviously, we want to have higher satisfaction levels than that. I think the first thing to say is that we've talked about case load and the pressures there are. We had just over 4,500 complaints last year. We don't investigate and take forward every complaint—we couldn't. But, actually, it's not proportionate to take forward every complaint; it wouldn't be a good use of public money. So, we focus on those complaints where we see the most serious personal harm and injustice. That means some people don't get their complaints taken forward, and, clearly, they're dissatisfied with that. When we investigate complaints then, we do that independently and impartially. We will not always agree with the complaint and we will not always uphold their complaint. We might say, 'Actually, this public body's done a good job of this complaint—we don't see that we can add anything further to this.' Those people will be dissatisfied. So, I suppose what I'm trying to say is it's inevitable in our line of work that some people, sadly, will remain dissatisfied, because we have to keep on that independent and impartial line.

Having said that, we would want more people who don't get the outcome they want to be satisfied. I am reassured that 87 per cent of the people who get the outcome they want are satisfied with what we do. What drags that figure down to the 36 per cent is the people who are not satisfied because we don't take the complaint forward, or we don't actually uphold it.

So, it is of concern. We are very aware of it. We will continue to work, particularly through our caseworkers who have the contact with complainants, to make sure that we're quite clear about why we can't do something, why we've made a particular decision, and try to explain the rationale for it. Sometimes, people will accept that and perhaps say, 'Okay, I can see that; I'm satisfied.' Other times people will not, and I referenced already at the start of the meeting we are seeing more and more persistence amongst complainants—they have a right to that, of course—but less likely to take that 'no' for an answer, and those are the people who will remain dissatisfied.

We'll keep working on this. We want to drive this figure up, and we've set ourselves a stretching target to try and achieve that. It is a concern, but we'll carry on working on it.

And is that data that you collect, in terms of what the outcome of someone's complaint was and whether or not they were satisfied with the ombudsman in general?

Yes.

All right, thank you. Fantastic. So, in terms of that you were saying that people are a lot more persistent than they have been previously, you had an increase of 39 per cent in requests where people were asking for the decision to be reviewed, and in addition there were 33 that were carried over from previous years. Are you concerned about the increase at all in the requests for review, and can you identify any specific reason why people are being more persistent, or why they're asking for their cases to be reviewed?

I think part of what's driving the increase in reviews is the increase in complaints. It just follows, if you're dealing with more complaints—and we did intervene in more complaints last year, we want to intervene more this year; we want to keep driving that figure up. So, it's a numbers game, really, in effect. More people will therefore have the right to review. So, that is one of the factors. And the other is this persistence in people not willing to accept the answer. Look, we accept they have a right to the review. So, while it presents us with a bit of a headache from a resource point of view, it's not a concern, because they have a right to ask for that review, and we have a responsibility to look at it. And it's looked at by someone independent of the team who did the original complaint.

I think what does reassure me and what I am reassured by, though, is that, last year, we upheld 5 per cent of those reviews. That means, in 5 per cent of the reviews, we found perhaps we had missed something or we did need to go back and reopen and relook at part of that case. So, it's a very small proportion, and we've been pretty consistent with that figure over the last few years. So, I'm reassured by that. So, I think we need to just accept that people have the right to ask for a review. We are also looking at how we do that process, again, trying to make it a bit more efficient, so that it's not so resource intensive, but we give people that review that they've asked for.

Okay, perhaps before you continue that, Ben, Cai, was there something you wanted to pick up on this as well?

Yes. I was a bit confused with the answer as to why you haven't met the satisfaction target. You mentioned multiple reasons as to why you couldn't achieve that target that are out of your power, which is totally understandable. But then you've also said you're still aiming to achieve that target. So, I'm just a bit confused as to whether you didn't reach the target because the target shouldn't have been 50 per cent, or you didn't reach the target because you failed.

We set that target because we feel that's where we should be, and that's what we're trying to work towards. We didn't achieve it last year, but we're not going to drop that target. We still feel we should be able to improve satisfaction. I did indicate in my answer some of the ways that we're doing that, through working with our staff, trying to make sure we communicate clearly to people why we've taken the decision we've taken and trying to explain our rationale. It would be easier, I suppose, to drop the target, but we're not going to do that. We're going to try and improve that and continue to improve it. I'm just trying to explain to the committee that it's a really tricky area when people are dissatisfied with the outcome of their complaint.

You've obviously missed the target not just this year, but in previous years as well. What happens when you miss the target? Is there any sort of accountability?

The accountability is here to this committee. We set our own targets, so we've set that target. We don't set targets to fail them. We set that target because we felt it was important and we want to try and achieve it. But my accountability is to this committee.

Okay, thank you. Ben, do you want to continue?

Yes, absolutely. Looking back at the post-legislative review of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019, this committee undertook that review in 2024-25, and that review yielded several recommendations for the ombudsman. What progress have you made as an organisation to meet those recommendations?

Michelle has written to the committee in response to those recommendations that were issued in October last year. Over the last year, we've been working hard to comply with the recommendations, and Michelle has set out in her letter to the committee the work we've done. The focus of the post-legislative review was on the new powers in particular, but one of the big pieces of work that came out of that was the committee asked us to undertake a school modelling exercise, and we've issued that report and submitted it to you for consideration. But, to confirm, we have complied with all the recommendations. The timing of them was helpful. We were working on our new strategic plan, as you know, and they have helped inform that plan, as Michelle was outlining previously.

You mentioned the modelling exercise for the schooling. When it comes to that, could you perhaps just explain to us what some of the key findings were for that review and what the recommendations were from the exercise?

Yes. Just at the outset, just to explain the approach that we took, one of our independent members on our advisory panel is a former independent adjudicator for higher education complaints. She assisted us with this work, and we started by engaging with the Welsh Government, as the committee asked us to do. That has been helpful.

Michelle, Felicity—our panel member [correction: our panel member, Michelle]—and I have done some engagement exercises with key stakeholders like the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, the governor support group and also the union partnership group. And also, we had correspondence from the Cabinet Minister for Education and the Welsh Language welcoming our piece of work, pointing out that the timing is really helpful because the Welsh Government is undertaking a review itself of the effectiveness of governing bodies in schools.

So, just to give a brief outline of the report, the report is in three sections. First of all, we point out our limited role at the moment in school complaints. We can look at particular issues, but not substantive complaints relating to schools. As for the themes that have come out from our engagement, I think it's fair to say the current system isn't functioning very well. There is an inconsistency within local authorities and across Wales. There is a lack of independence in the system, which was the point that we made at the outset when we submitted our evidence to the committee a year ago.

There are three stages to the complaint process, as I'm sure you know. First, there is an informal stage, to the teacher. Second is more formal in writing to the headteacher. And then the final stage of the complaints process rests with the chair of the governing body and the governing body itself. So, there's a perception, at least, of a lack of independence. I think it's also clear that there is concern from teachers and headteachers about the stress and the impact of work. We've spoken already about AI in our complaints work, but I think that's certainly a factor that we heard about.

In our report, we've tried to provide an objective assessment, from the perspective of learners and parents who feel there is that inconsistency, lack of independence, but also from headteachers' and teachers' perspective. One of the key pieces of engagement and discussions we've had is with the Children's Commissioner for Wales, who obviously deals with issues relating to schools and school complaints in her work. So, AI is generating a lot of those weighty complaint submissions—very legalistic, again.

I think one of the failings in the current system is there seems to be no end for teachers and headteachers at times in that process. The lack of that independent oversight and external oversight at the end of the process—whoever it is, whether it's PSOW or not—means that complaints can sometimes go on and on, and of course that has a detrimental impact on the learner.

I think from the children's commissioner's perspective as well, the learner seems to not have a voice in the process. It's easier for parents to access the complaints process, but sometimes it's more difficult for learners. And of course then, where complaints are delayed and go on in a protracted way, that can have a detrimental impact on education and the provision of education.

I think generally the thing that came out loud and clear as well is currently there is no clear guidance and support and training for people who are handling these complaints in schools. One of the roles, as you know, that we undertake is the complaint standards work we do, where we try and provide general good guidance on complaint handling and support. So, those were the themes that came out.

We also looked at the committee's recommendation where the committee asked us to look at assessing what the impact would be on us as an office if we were to have a role on these complaints. We looked across at the work that is undertaken by the Northern Ireland ombudsman and also the Scottish ombudsman, who currently have a role to look at school complaints. We also looked at a pilot that occurred in England that was undertaken by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. That's quite a dated pilot, it happened in 2010, but actually the report and learning that came out of that report is helpful.

It's no surprise, in a sense, that both Scotland and Northern Ireland, in their casework, really try and resolve these complaints at an early stage, nip it in the bud and try and find resolutions. The type of issues that they're looking at are complaints about bullying behaviour not being responded to and resolved, special educational needs, as it is in those jurisdictions. We have a certain element on that.

We looked at the volume of casework that they are currently undertaking. Between Northern Ireland and Scotland, between 4 per cent and 7 per cent of their overall case load is made up of complaints about schools, so it is quite a substantial area of their work. Our jurisdiction mirrors, apart from in relation to schools, those two bodies. The last part of our report really tries to provide some very tentative assessment of what would the likely volume of complaints look like if we were to have an extension to the ombudsman's remit in this area. Tentatively, we have outlined that we feel between about 200 and 300 complaints a year may result in coming to the office. But, looking at what others do, clearly, we would have to gear up and make sure our service is very responsive so that we could provide those early resolutions on cases.

There was a lot there. I appreciate it, though, because, as you say, it's a huge topic. Sera, is there anything you want to pick up in particular on that issue?

No. I think, Chair, it's one for us to discuss and perhaps formulate a recommendation following the evidence that Katrin has very thoroughly provided to us.

Sure. Ben, do you want to come in on that point?

I was going to go back to the satisfaction quickly, so I don't know if you—

On this point here, on the school complaints, with the governing body effectiveness piece of work taking place, do you have a formal position—? Do you sit around a table formally with the Welsh Government as part of that work, or not? Are you just feeding in as and when they request?

Welsh Government officials have been very helpful and engaging and really interested in our view. Michelle has attended a ministerial headteacher advisory group meeting. I'm sure you might come in now, Michelle. But although we're not formally part of that review group, they have been very interested in our work and engage very closely with us on this.

Yes, we've met with the civil servants leading on this work a couple of times and we're in contact with them still, and we'll talk to them further following the outcome of this committee.

Thank you. Ben, briefly come back, and then we'll have to move on.

Very briefly, you previously attributed the decrease in satisfaction to the increase in complaints that you were receiving and you can't pursue all of them. But, if I'm not mistaken, the number of complaints that you received between 2023-24 and 2024-25 was also an increase, but in that 12-month period, the satisfaction numbers went up. So, why do you think that they went up in that 12-month period when you were receiving more complaints, but have gone down in the last 12 months?

That is a good challenge. I think what I was saying is that, because complaints keep going up, it makes it more difficult for us to give everyone the answers that they're looking for. We probably end up with more dissatisfied people, simply because we can't take their complaints forward. There'll be a multiple of things there. We just need to make sure that our communications between our caseworkers and the complainants is spot on. I think when you've got caseworkers with heavy case loads because of our high complaints numbers, that means they're more pressurised and have less time to spend with complainants explaining the decisions and why we've taken the position that we've taken. We also continually look at our correspondence, our letters, our decision letters that we put back to people, to make sure that we're straightforward in our language and that we explain what it is that we've done. So, there'll be a multiple of factors there. I think the heavy case loads across the office and the pressure that staff are under is inevitably having an impact.

Thank you, Ben. Elfed, I think you have a few questions that you want to bring in.

I'm going to speak in Welsh, if that's okay. Llais runs an advocacy service that deals with complaints. What impact does that have on the work that you receive? They are there to give people a voice. That is supposed to make the process easier, and people who have that voice are often more content with the outcome that they receive. How do you respond, as the ombudsman, to that work that the Llais advocates do?

The work that advocates do—Llais is a key one, but there are other organisations—is critical. It's really helpful to us, because our job is to deal with the complaints that are brought to us and do that independently and objectively. We're not there to advocate on behalf of or to support a complainant's view, nor are we there to protect the reputation of a public body. We're there to look at the evidence, investigate and make the right decision, come to the right conclusions.

For individuals to have access to Llais and other organisations to assist them in shaping their complaint, bringing it forward at the right time, is really helpful to us, because we should then have fewer complaints that we can't deal with, because a lot of that work has been done by Llais in advance. You make a good point: if they're working with an organisation and people that they trust and have been talking to for a long time, they perhaps would be more accepting of the answer at the end of that process. But we work closely with Llais. Officers meet with them on a regular basis.

I hope that Llais, the advocates and the people that work there, know they can pick up the phone and talk to us and make sure they give the best advice possible to complainants. Some might never come to us, because Llais managed to deal with things in a different way, perhaps with the public body. But if things get to that point where they feel it does need to come to us, then Llais will support complainants to bring it, and it works well.

I'll come to my other questions now. The previous Finance Committee recommended that you as an ombudsman undertake an anonymised profiling exercise to identify trends in terms of the language preference of complainants, to be published in the annual report, alongside findings to inform future service improvements. Has this exercise taken place? And if so, what has the ombudsman found out that could inform future service improvements? Off the back of that as well, only 17 people requested to communicate with you in Welsh. What steps are you taking to help people use more Welsh when they get in touch with you?

I'll start in Welsh, and maybe I'll turn to English, if that's okay. In terms of the Welsh language, we monitor the trends that we see. It is very disappointing that only 17 people used our full Welsh service. We monitor those trends. We're very aware that this issue isn't just a problem for us in our service, but it's something that people see across the public sector. We also monitor how many people choose Welsh as their preferred main language, and we're starting to monitor when people speak in a more informal way with us, on the phone, perhaps, when they know that our officials do speak Welsh, just to monitor how much Welsh language usage there is in terms of our complaints process in a more informal setting.

Just to turn to English if I may, we also then have done some proactive engagement in relation to our oral complaints service this year in response to the previous recommendation. We did some work at the Eisteddfod to promote our oral complaints service. If people are reluctant to use the Welsh language, say, on their complaint forms, we encourage them to use our oral complaints service in Welsh if they would like to do that.

Likewise, in relation to the part of the recommendation related to other languages, we have been trying to promote that, and that's embedded in our new strategic plan, to ensure that people know that if they want to use a different language with us, they can use that. One of the key pieces of work we've got in relation to the oral complaints service is to try and really target that at people who don't normally reach us, so we're working with third sector voluntary organisations to try and promote that service now as well.

But we want to improve the position on the Welsh language provision. We can't force people to use our service in Welsh, clearly, and we know from the research that we undertake that, actually, people who are fluent Welsh speakers know about our service pretty well, that the levels of recognition are good. So, we just need to make sure that our services are accessible and our website is being reviewed to make sure it's really clear that people can access those provisions in Welsh and other languages.

Before you come back with something else, Elfed, I think, Cai, you wanted to pick something up on this.

Given your limited budget, is it the best cost to be focusing on a stall in the Eisteddfod to increase the Welsh language? I know we all want to see the Welsh language increase, but, at the end of the day, that's not really what we're paying you for.

Kindly, the Welsh Language Commissioner gave us space on her stall at the Eisteddfod. We used space in her stall, so we really limited the costs. Clearly, it is the place where Welsh language is celebrated, supported, the one big event of the year. So, we felt it was appropriate to have a presence there, but we did really limit that. We are conscious that our resources are really stretched. We limited it to an event on a particular day. As I say, we're really grateful for the support, because not only was it really efficient cost-wise, but actually really good presence for us to have there alongside the Welsh Language Commissioner where people could come to that stall and hear about our work. So we felt it was reasonable and a proportionate thing to do, given that we only had 17 people using our service in Welsh, which is really low compared to the figures overall of people who contact us.

Diolch.

Thank you. Elfed, you can carry on.

Another recommendation of this committee in the last Senedd was that the ombudsman improve the efficiency of processes for developing plans to undertake a greater number of own-initiative investigations. What progress has been made by the ombudsman in regard to this recommendation?

In response to the recommendations, we have reviewed our entire process in terms of own-initiative investigations.

We've reviewed our whole own-initiative process, and the recommendations we had from the committee on our own-initiative investigations were really helpful. I think it's fair to say, when the Act took effect, this was obviously a new power—it's only Northern Ireland that have this power alongside us in Wales—and I think the committee's recommendations that we needed to perhaps think about how we could be braver, if you like, and be more flexible in our approach gave us confidence to review and look at how we can really target that power effectively.

There were quite a number of recommendations on this area of our work. But just to summarise at the outset, when we reviewed our processes, we looked at how we could be flexible. There are particular consultation requirements set out in the legislation. There are some consultations that we always have to do, and obviously, we will make sure we meet those statutory requirements. On some of the other consultation responsibilities, we've been flexible there to try and really make it more streamlined, the process. For example, we started one of our wider own-initiative investigations in April, and we're drawing that to a close now next month. That really demonstrates that we've reviewed that process and made improvements in how quickly we're able to look at issues. That one I mentioned related to financial redress under the then 'Putting Things Right' scheme. Our aim with the own-initiative investigations is to really target recommendations that will help a number of people through one efficient investigation.

We've also looked across, in response to the recommendations, at what Northern Ireland does, because one of the committee's observations was that we should look at how they are doing some of their work. Our processes are very similar. But one thing we have picked up that Northern Ireland do is that, when they consult on an investigation, and perhaps the responses they receive, either from the public body itself or other parties, lead them to take a decision, 'Actually, we won't conduct a full and formal investigation here', they publish all of that intelligence and work as an overview report.

In terms of the current position we're in, as a result of the changes, we already have five own-initiative investigations under way this year and we have a number in the pipeline that we will propose. If, following those proposals and consultations, we feel that it's not in the public interest for us to devote our resource to look at a particular issue, and we're satisfied that public bodies are responding to the issue, and there's no need for us to go there, if you like, we will publish those reports as well.

All of the measures we've put in place are aimed at being slicker, quicker, focusing on the key issues. We've spoken briefly about data, but it's key for us in terms of that intelligence and knowing where an issue might be where we can effectively and efficiently use one investigation to deliver outcomes for many people through that important power we have.

Thanks, Katrin. I expect, Elfed, most of your—. Yes? That's fine, thank you. I'm going to bring Huw in in just a moment. I know there's a lot to get through, but if we could try and keep responses a little tighter, just so we can get through everything we need to, that would be appreciated. Huw.

There are a couple of other areas to delve into. On key performance indicators, first of all, just a comment: I don't wish to sound ungenerous, but on your KPI measures, you say that if it's within 10 per cent, you rate it as green, if it's between 70 and 90 per cent, you rate it as amber, and only below 70 per cent is it red. That feels quite generous, I think—that would be my personal view. I'd probably say if you're achieving it, you're green, if you're within 10 per cent, you're amber, and if you're below 90 per cent, maybe you're red. That would be my suggestion, perhaps, for you to reflect on.

I notice, obviously, that there's been a budget increase from the previous year to this year, and you've employed more staff to deal with case management, but also improvement. But then looking at the KPIs under strategic aim 3, which is the proactive improvement work, there's been a general deterioration in the KPIs in terms of that improvement work. What do you ascribe that to?

On your point on the margins around the KPIs, I smile because we've had that conversation in the organisation, particularly on the greens, because you're right, you look at that and you think it's not that close and it's still green. We've done that this year and it's now within 5 per cent. So, perhaps it's still generous by your measure, but not perhaps as generous as it has been.

We'll reflect on that in the wash-up.

We take your comments on board. I think the—. I'm just looking for—

It's pack page 231:

'proportion of complaints handled by public bodies and then escalated to us'.

I think your target is under 5 per cent, and it went up from 6 per cent to 11 per cent. Likewise there's been an increase in some of the similar KPIs, and that's having invested in and improved capacity.

Yes, and particularly around health, that's quite a way off. We've talked a bit about health already. That shouldn't be there. We should, given our complaints standards work, you're right, be seeing fewer coming through from health boards and indeed local authorities as well.

What do I attribute that to? Our focus this year has been bringing housing associations on board. We've now got all social housing landlords and housing associations in Wales also operating under the standards. So, that's an important milestone for us, because when the legislation was set, it was anticipated that these standards would be rolled out right across the Welsh public sector. So, we're on a bit of a journey there.

We probably have not put as much effort in on health and local government. They're operating under the standards, they comply. We do training at the outset, when bodies come under the standards. I know we've had lots of requests from public bodies, probably local authorities in particular, for top-up training, refresher training for staff, because obviously they have turnovers of staff as well. We haven't been able to give as much time and resource to that as we would normally, because we've been focused on housing associations.

So, there's a limited resource that we have to go back and keep doing that support. That will be part of it. But I think it also probably reflects the pressure those sectors are under, in terms of seeing an increase in their own complaints and the pressure on resources to deal with them as well. So, we don't want to see it going that way. We want to see it going the other way and we'll continue to look at that.

Thank you. That's helpful to understand. And then on strategic aim 4, I mean, firstly, just to commend the improvement in the sickness absence levels. I don't know if there's anything particularly that was done that achieved that improvement. I think we'd be really interested in understanding it.

But my real question was about the line on 'proper management of our budget', which is, I think, amber, because as opposed to being unqualified accounts and 'substantial' assurance, it is 'reasonable' assurance, and I wonder what's going on there.

Well, it's important to say the accounts were unqualified—

Yes, I accept that.

And I think probably the—

I guess it's the difference between 'substantial' and 'reasonable' that I'm just interrogating.

'Reasonable', yes. I think that's down to the recommendations that were made.

Yes, unless—. I think it's down to the fact that one of our internal audit reports came out as reasonable assurance. That was in relation to financial controls and management. But I really want to emphasise it's not in relation to any problems with our financial management. What the audit looked at was some issues in relation to our employment contracts, whether they were signed off on the day when somebody started. So, there were a couple of recommendations in that report that we've complied with. But we aim to have substantial assurance on all our internal audit, which probably sets the bar quite high for us, but is right, I think. But absolutely, our accounts were unqualified.

Yes, absolutely. So, those issues are from our internal audit. They didn't come from external auditors.

And then sticking with the accounts—so, I think I'm now on pack page 216—on provision for liabilities and charges, there were nearly £200,000 of provisions utilised this year in relation, I think, to the pension for former commissioners and dilapidation costs. I think I've got that right.

Yes, movements.

Can you explain what's going on there?

Yes. There were some movements in provisions there, so there are two things going on there. There was a reduction in our pension liability, because, sadly, there was a death of one of the pensioners, so there's an adjustment there for that. The dilapidations adjustment: three years ago now, we downsized our offices from three to one floor, and there were some adjustments made at that point. In our annual audit that Audit Wales did the year before, they recommended that we do an independent assessment of our dilapidation costs. We'd made an assessment, or an estimate, sorry, of it in our accounts for that year. They recommended that we go back and get someone independent to look at that, which we did. They supported what we'd done, but did feel that we'd overstated our provision there by £14,000. So, there was an adjustment in this year's accounts to reflect that previous £14,000 overstatement, and I believe that's the movement of the £64,000 that you're referring to—those two things.

Fine. I've got some questions on looking forward, but they can wait, I guess.

Yes, no problem at all. I think we'll probably come on to that now, and we may come back to some of these points if we're able to, but obviously we're keen to also talk about the estimates that you've outlined as well, so we'll try and manage our time through this. Sera, do you want to kick off with some of the points around the estimates that have been presented to us and we'll bring you back in, Huw, a little bit later on. Is that okay? Thanks.

Thank you, Chair. You note that the new strategic plan for 2026-29

'introduces a more outward-facing, proactive and impact-led approach.'

Could you expand on how this will be achieved and how the strategic plan for 2026-29 has affected the preparation of the estimate for 2027-28?

Diolch. Well, the estimate is based on our—. We've got a medium-term financial plan. This sits alongside this, and allows us to bring our understanding and modelling into the estimate every year, so it's based on that, and obviously, you're quite right, it's now based on that new strategic plan and what we've given a commitment on to deliver.

So, looking back at that plan, we've said that we want to deliver justice with a positive impact for people; it's our core service. So, in practice, what that looks like, what we want to do is we want to be able to intervene in more cases. We continue to increase year-on-year, but we recognise that we still have to say 'no' to a lot of people, so we want to intervene in more in the future. And the other thing is that we want to be able to do that in a more timely manner. We've had feedback from our stakeholders, from public bodies and complainants here, about the length of time that some of our investigations take. So, we recognise that we've got to focus on timeliness, so that's another area for us, and to reduce the time it takes us to intervene, doing more early resolution work where that's appropriate.

We've set ourselves targets for this year, and we've recently published our KPI targets for the three years of the plan. And we have set ourselves ambitious and stretched targets to improve all those things, and we have been listening to our complainants and our stakeholders in doing that. So, that has very much informed the estimate and what we want to do in the future.

Influencing positive change—it is about more use of those powers that Katrin's been talking about, our own-initiative powers, and about how we can be more proactive in our work in driving improvements in public service, not just reacting to the complaints that we receive.

And then I think the other point to make is just about continuing to strengthen access to our service, so that we are doing work to make sure people know about us, can access us easily and in the language and in the way that they wish to do so, as we've already discussed.

So, that's a very—. I'm trying to keep it succinct here, but that's really the thinking that's informed the estimate, and also what we want to achieve in the coming year.

Okay. Sera.

Thank you. And you also note that the number of new complaints about public services and the code of conduct continues to rise sharply in the year to date, noting a 32 per cent and 41 per cent increase, respectively, compared to the same period last year.

How do you incorporate that increase in the workload within existing resources, and is there any work that's been done regarding the reasons behind the increase in the complaint numbers? I think we've heard about the reasons previously, but, in terms of the current resources, and the estimate before us today, how have you incorporated that into that work?

Okay. Well, in terms of what we're asking of the committee this year in our estimate, it's for a cash increase of 2.2 per cent in our budget—£153,000. So, that is, we feel, a modest amount, bearing in mind where inflation is, and also that we're projecting that the pay increase for next year will actually be 3 per cent.

I think we are helped this year by the fact that the committee last year did agree that increase in our funding that I referred to, which helped us to put more staffing in place. And we set our structure earlier this year—seven new staff working within front-line casework positions. So, that is helping us. And the reason we asked for that money last year was to accommodate the increases we were seeing, but to try and futureproof us, so that we weren't continually coming back to committee and asking for more staff. So, that, I think, is reflected in the estimate this year—the work that we did last year, and the support we had from the committee.

What we're focusing on this year in our estimate, really, is how we can be more efficient, more productive with the resources that we have. And that's about investment in technology, which we detailed in the estimate, and it's about using that investment to look at new ways of working and continually sort of push ourselves in how we're doing things, to try and get more resource out of the organisation through those ways. So, that really is the focus of our estimate this year, based on the work that we did last year with the committee.

Diolch.

Anything further, Sera? No. Okay, thank you.

Perhaps just before I bring Lyn in, I just note in the estimate submission that you anticipate a 3 per cent pay award—you mentioned it already—£198,000. How sure are you of that and how have you come to that number?

It’s always a tricky area with our estimate, in terms of where we think the pay settlement will be. We're slightly different to other directly funded bodies that you scrutinise, in that both Audit Wales and the Senedd Commission do their own pay negotiations and we don't. Our staff are contractually linked to the National Joint Council for Local Government Services pay conditions. So, that means we wait for the national considerations, the national negotiations, and when that decision's made and applied to local government in Wales, we are then able to apply that to our own payroll. So, that means we're trying to project now where we'll be 12 months to 12 months plus [correction: 12 months to 18 months] from now. And I know other public bodies and local authorities have to do it every year.

So, we've looked at what's happened in the last couple of years. It's been 3.2 per cent—the low 3 per cents—3.2 per cent and 3.3 per cent, I think. We've been pretty close in our estimates in previous years. So, we think 3 per cent is a reasonable, realistic, best-guess estimate, really, of where we'll be next year. Obviously, if there's any differentiation in that, which there has been this year—we were able to find the additional 0.3 per cent from our budget to fund that. In other years previous to that, the office has been in the position of having to come back for a supplementary budget midyear if the increase was significantly beyond where we estimated it to be. So, we think that's a reasonable estimate based on previous years.

Okay, thanks. And just sticking to staff salaries and related costs, you've outlined an efficiency saving of £227,000. Are those identified projects or is that just a broad challenge you've given yourselves for the year?

That is a reduction in the pension contributions that we will be required to make as an employer. So, obviously, we make pension contributions on behalf of our staff. There is going to be a reduction in the contributions. There's a national agreement to reduce contributions, so there is a benefit to our budget of that. And as we've set out in the estimate, we want to be able to use that to reinvest in some of our pressures, offset some of our pressures, but also to reinvest in or invest in technology to help us with some of the work I've described earlier.

Okay, thank you. Those are the bits from my side at the moment. Lyn, do you want to come in?

The submission for 2027/28 prioritises investment in technology and new ways of working, along with a new digital, data and technology strategy. How integral is this to achieving the aims of the new strategic plan and what work has the ombudsman undertaken to pilot some of the technology changes proposed in the estimate?

Okay, I'll ask Sarah to come in.

Yes, Chair, I'll take that. Just to preface to the committee, obviously I'm new into the role, so colleagues might need to come in with some supplementary information if that's needed. Yes, you're right, we do now have a digital data and technology strategy, and it's about helping us to respond to the growing demand in cases in a practical and affordable way. We're not investing in technology for its own sake. We're focusing on improvements that make services easier to access, but also help our staff work more effectively and deliver value for money. We're taking a phased approach, testing ideas first, and only investing further where there is clear evidence of benefit.

The strategy sets out how we will use digital services, data and technology to help manage the rising demand, improve access to our services, make better use of our information and data, but also maintain secure and reliable systems. The investment requested in this year's estimate supports a number of practical improvements. These include an image exchange portal that will provide a secure and more efficient way to share information with professional advisers. It will reduce the administration, improve the information security and governance around that sharing of information and help cases progress more quickly. I do understand again that that is in place in a number of other public services ombudsman offices around the UK, so that would be bringing us in line with that as well.

SharePoint and knowledge information improvements—again, this is making our own organisational knowledge, guidance and information easier for our own staff to access, supporting, again, consistent decision making and reducing time spent on searching for information and data. Again, our staff survey results have shown that there's been a reduction in confidence that staff see that as a reliable source of information. So, that went down from 81 per cent to 64 per cent in the last year.

And then, a central repository. So, again, bringing together—. You know, a data repository, bringing together information not just from our own organisation, but other relevant open sources of information, to provide a more complete picture, which would allow us to pick out themes, demand and emerging issues across Welsh public services, again, which, in turn, would help us to support our decision making, strengthen the evidence-based improvement work that we've already talked about, and, again, try and identify those trends and pressures a bit earlier.

And also in the estimate is some investment in enhancing, really, our cyber security and resilience, helping protect the sensitive data, obviously, that we hold within the organisation, maintaining those services that we currently have, reducing the risk of disruption and adding some additional capacity following internal and external reviews of that area.

Okay, thank you. Lyn.

Obviously, we've discussed that you're expecting the complaints to go up and you're estimating that to go up. There is a risk that the incidence of absence due to stress will increase. What is the impact of the increased case load on staff well-being so far this year and what mitigations has the ombudsman put in place to reduce the risk of staff absence due to stress?

That's a very relevant question at the moment in particular. You mentioned that our sickness absence rate was very strong last year, very low. We are seeing an increase in that this year and that absence is linked to the pressure that people are feeling at work. So, it is a very real and current issue for us. We do our best to support staff, to mitigate the most negative impacts of what they have to deal with, which is about the quantity of work, but also, sometimes, about the approach and the challenge they get from complainants that they're dealing with. We do an annual staff survey and, generally, that's positive about how staff feel about working for the organisation, but we use that every year that we do that to try and make sure that, if things are changing, we recognise that earlier. In between the annual surveys, we use pulse surveys as well. So, we try and keep in touch with the mood of staff and how staff are feeling within the organisation.

One of the things about case loads is that, in recent years, we've moved to manage those so that staff are not overwhelmed and they don't carry huge case loads where it starts to become a bit much and they can't see the wood for the trees. So, we've limited case loads to try and help them with that and help them move through that work more quickly. We have proper supervision arrangements in place, and that's particularly important when we're working in a hybrid way and some staff are working from a home environment, and proper performance management as well, to make sure—. And that's not just about making sure that we get through the work; it's about supporting people who perhaps are struggling or who need a bit of extra help. So, all of that is in place.

We've got some very good, I think, supportive human resources policies in place. We do stress risk assessments, or we certainly offer them to staff—if they're starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, how do we help them? And we do have external counselling services if they wish to talk to someone independent to assist them with issues. So, we do a lot of different things. We also have a well-being group, who are quite active in doing different initiatives to support staff. And we recognise teams coming together regularly to support each other, and we do two days a year where we bring all staff together into all-staff events as well, and there's a well-being element to that, as well as an important business element.

We're committed to—. Our place doesn't work without the staff. They're the ones that do all the work, and we spend 75 per cent to 80 per cent of our money on staff, so this is hugely important. We want to support them to deliver to their full potential, we've got ambitious targets we want to achieve, but we recognise we've got a responsibility as an organisation to help them, sometimes, when things are not so good.

Thanks, Michelle. We've got a few more questions around the table, so we'll come to Huw and then Sera, and then we'll perhaps cover some other parts as well. So, Huw.

So, picking up Lyn's line of questioning about case-load management, but looking specifically at some of the expenditure around it, I think, in 2025-26, the spend on computer services was increased from £405,000 to £438,000, as part of an investment into a new case management system. So, the obvious question would be: how has that driven efficiency and led to further efficiency? If I'm following it through in the estimate, it looks like the spend on that line in this year's estimate dropped back down to £406,000, but now you're proposing to increase it significantly. I appreciate some of this is one-off costs, and you've touched on that, but it's still nevertheless increasing over and above that one-off cost. So, are we saying, actually, the efficiencies that we'd hoped to gain from that investment in the case management system, the demand is such that it's not giving us the efficiencies we wanted?

I think the issue for us—. Thanks for the question. I think that part of that increase in IT costs last year was driven just by inflationary or cost uplifts in licences and IT. That was beyond where we projected them to be. So, about £10,000 of that was in that category. We've got a case management system, which is absolutely critical, it sits at the heart of our organisation; it's how we manage all our case load. What we're continually doing—and we referred to it earlier—is looking at how we work. We can't stand still, so how can we be more efficient? How can we change ways of working to try and get through the case load that we've got and make it easier for staff to deal with it? And when we do that work, particularly if we change how we handle complaints, then we have to change, the case management system has to change, to accommodate that. It drives our ways of working. So, a lot of the money we invested last year, this increase here, was around those sorts of changes: how we deal with that, how we communicate with our professional advisers.

We've created dashboards coming out of our Workpro, which is our case management system. That's for our team managers, so they get a better overview of what's happening in the organisation, where we are with our targets and whether things are going in the wrong direction. So, a lot of that was about changing how we work. We're continually changing. We'll change again this year. So, I think a lot of the investment in our case management system was around that, and I think that's just going to continue. Because it's the norm, really, that we can't stand still and we are changing how we do things.

In terms of next year, there are some very specific investments that we want to make. I think we're in a better position now; we've got an agreed digital, data and technology strategy and an investment plan. So, we know, sitting alongside our medium-term financial plan, this year and the next couple of years, what we want to invest in technology and what we want to try and achieve. Some of that is about technology, about improving how we operate and our productivity. A lot of it's around cyber protection for the organisation. As you will know, that is continual year on year. We carry a lot of data and a lot of very sensitive data. We're very alive to that cyber risk, and Sarah's already talked to you about how we want to invest that money.

And then, just looking at the budget in the round, you've mentioned the reduction in pension contributions, which is obviously favourable. Without that change, obviously the percentage increase in your budget would be greater. I just wonder whether you recognise the tension—I'm sure you do, given your previous role, Michelle—in that, in effect, the ombudsman asked for a budget to meet the growth, but you're obviously dealing with complaints with organisations that cannot increase their budgets effectively to meet the growth. So, you've mentioned the NJC pay issue—councils are often not funded to cover those increased costs, and we know about demand in health and local government, and yet it is those organisations that are still trying to maintain and deliver services, and, when they fail to do so, there are complaints. And your organisation fields those complaints, but you are funded fully to deal with those complaints. Because you mentioned early on: why hasn't an organisation responded to a complaint effectively? Well, it may be that they had to make difficult choices between funding front-line services and funding the complaints department.

I accept that. The reality is that complaints aren't always a bad thing. What do I mean by that? Public bodies receive more complaints, but, if they're dealt with, they never get to us, so that's fine. They don't all automatically have to come to us. I recognise what you're saying. I will say, in previous years, we've sat here and had lower increases in our budget than other parts of the public sector in Wales. So, you know—.

Exemplars?

There are swings and roundabouts there. We're very mindful of the pressure on public sector funding. We don't come here without really strong consideration to ask for any uplifts. I think we have got a bit of a windfall this year, to be honest, from that pension contribution. Others will have that as well in certain parts of the public sector. What we're saying is that we want to use that to invest in things that will help us in the future, and, hopefully, keep our uplifts in the future that we're coming to committee to talk about more modest.

Thank you. And that, I guess, brings me back to your role, the ombudsman's role, in supporting improvement within the different organisations that you work with, so that, in a different financial context, you're supporting them to actually save some time and effort themselves.

Yes. We spend very little of our budget on the proactive work, to be honest. As I said in my response to you earlier, we do a lot with a little there. We have good working relationships with public bodies. Generally, I think, we are there to support, and we'll support wherever we can. But, on the face of the complaint, we have to undertake the independent role and make sure we do the right thing.

Okay. Diolch, Huw. Sera.

You have spoken about investing in information technology, and you have also spoken about challenges associated with using artificial intelligence. In terms of your increasing workload, do you imagine that you will want to use, or are you planning to use, artificial intelligence yourselves, and what impact, if any, would that have on the efficiency of workloads, in order to understand the impact of that?

Sarah's going to pick that one up.

Thank you, Chair. So, responsible use of AI and automation features is one of the pillars in our digital, data and technology strategy. The approach of the organisation so far has been to put the right foundations in place before expanding the use of AI any further. Over the last year, the organisation has developed an AI policy, and that was agreed by unions. It established an AI governance group for strategic oversight and accountability.

The organisation sees AI, obviously, as a tool that can help improve accessibility, efficiency and service delivery, but not replace the human judgment in cases. As I said, the focus on it has been to use it responsibly, supporting both staff and complainants, ensuring that fairness, accountability and public trust remain in what we do. I think, as has been said previously, we do recognise that there's an increasing number of people using AI to help prepare and present their complaints in a more structured way. That's important as an accessibility tool that can help people engage with our service.

At the same time, again, I think, as we've mentioned previously, any information submitted to us, sometimes the AI-assisted content may not always be complete. So, there are some issues raised around that. That, I think, is why we're continuing to assess the substance and evidence of every complaint, as Katrin said, on its merits, regardless of how it's received or how it's written.

As AI becomes more widely used, we'll continue to adapt our services and digital tools to ensure that they remain accessible and responsive to the needs of complainants, but also trying to help our staff be more efficient. An example is we are already using approved tools such as Microsoft Copilot to support tasks like research, summarising information and administrative work, again trying to help our staff be more efficient while keeping that human judgment at the centre of everything that we try and do. It does not make complaint decisions and cannot determine any complaint outcomes. I don't know whether anyone wants to add to that.

Supporting that policy work is staff training that we're doing at the moment, so everyone will have that training, and then access to tools that they can use in a secure environment.

Thank you. A couple more bits from me briefly, and then we can perhaps wrap up soon, unless Members have any burning questions at all. Just understanding the role of the audit and risk assurance committee, obviously it's a non-statutory role there. Have they seen this estimate and are they supportive of this?

Yes, absolutely. We work with both our advisory panel and our audit and risk assurance committee on everything that we do. But, yes, the estimate we took to them and they've seen it and supported it.

Thank you. You also note in your report the intent to bring primary healthcare bodies under your complaints standards policy, starting with general practitioners, and you noted it would require, in your words, 'significant work'. I wonder how you're planning to use your resources to incorporate this.

Chair, if I take that. Just to be clear, obviously, the complaints standards authority, in terms of new complaints that we receive, represents 85 per cent of them about public services across Wales. At the moment, the following relevant bodies are working under the standards: we've got all local authorities, all health boards, we've got the Welsh ambulance service, Natural Resources Wales and, as of 23 September, all housing associations across Wales. That was a very significant milestone. I would like to thank our teams and the teams and officers in housing associations who worked with us to achieve that. What we should see in that particular area, if it's successful, is tenants experiencing fairer, more timely resolution of their complaints where organisations use complaints as a driver for service improvement.

Just to confirm, in terms of the work to bring on primary healthcare, the decision to go into that area was based on available data, Chair. Complaints about clinical treatment in hospitals and GP services currently account for 60 per cent of all of the health-related complaints that we currently receive. However, Members are right to recognise the significant investment of resources that will be needed to progress this substantial programme of work. We understand at the moment there are 370 GP practices across Wales. It's a large, diverse sector, and we recognise the approach that we've used previously can't just be a carbon copy of that in primary healthcare. But we have got established standards, we've got self-assessment tools, guidance, training materials, so we're not starting from scratch.

Given the resources that we've got and the existing capacity pressures that we've already talked about across the organisation, what we're recommending is a phased, scalable programme that can adapt as recruitment progresses, more people come on board and intelligence from early engagement emerges. We have already undertaken some initial engagement with the sector, and our intention would be to run a pilot via one health board area, beginning with GP practices within that particular health board area. And again, we'd be working closely with sector representatives and others to support the implementation. We will endeavour to make best use of our current resources, systems and tools, and, as the work develops, we'll continually assess those resource requirements and keep them under review.

Thanks. Have you decided which health board you're going to pilot it in yet?

It's still under discussion.

Sure. Thank you very much. Are there any more questions from anybody else around the table? No. Thank you for your time this morning and afternoon. We appreciate that. We will continue with our agenda today. Thank you.

Diolch. Thank you. Thank you, Members.