National Assembly for Wales

Bore da, bawb. Welcome to the very first formal meeting of the Llywydd's Committee. In welcoming you all to this formal meeting, in accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I've determined that the public are excluded from attending this committee meeting in order to protect public health. The meeting is, however, broadcast live on Senedd.tv, and all participants are joining us by video-conferencing. The meeting is bilingual and translation is available, and a Record of Proceedings will be published. Aside from the procedural adaptations related to conducting business remotely, all of the Standing Orders apply to this committee, and they are in place and will be enforced, if necessary.

So, we move to item 1 on our agenda, which is, again, just apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. No apologies have been received and I just want to ask the Members: does any Member wish to declare an interest? No, that's fine. Thank you.

So, we're delighted to have representatives on behalf of the Electoral Commission at the meeting. It's quite an important historic day, I think, in Welsh politics, and so thank you all for joining us. Before we turn to the main item on the agenda, which is to scrutinise your financial estimates for 2021-22 and your five-year plan, I wonder whether, perhaps, I'd ask you all to introduce yourselves—perhaps starting with you, Elan.

I'm the electoral commissioner for Wales, and my name is Elan Closs Stephens.

Thank you. Rhydian.

Okay. Bob.

Good morning. I'm Bob Posner. I'm the commission's chief executive.

Thank you. And Kieran. No, we can't hear you, Kieran.

Good morning. I'm Kieran Rix. I'm the commission's director of finance and corporate services.

Thank you. You just gave me a heart attack then, because I thought it was my internet that was going to go down again.

Apologies.

No, that's fine. So, thank you very much for that. Because this is the first time that you've appeared before our Llywydd's Committee, Elan, would you like to say just a few words in opening, just to put it in context? And then we'll move to questions, if that's okay.

I'll do a brief historical context, and I'll say a few sentences in Welsh and a few sentences in English. And perhaps I could then just pass over briefly to Bob Posner, our chief executive as well, with your consent.

Yes, as long as we don't go—because we have quite a substantial amount of questions that we want to ask, so, if we can keep this brief, that would be good. Thank you.

Thank you. Understood.

The year ahead is an extremely important one to all of us at the commission, as indeed to all the people of Wales. It's the year of the Welsh general election, the police and crime commissioner's election, and several local government by-elections. It's also a year, sadly, when we all have a real challenge to hold safe elections during a pandemic. We've already submitted to you our corporate plan, which sets our goals and objectives for a period that includes this financial year. Over the next few months, we will be preparing and consulting with you on our corporate plan for the period up to 2025-26, and we look forward to presenting it to you. As I turn briefly to Bob Posner, the chief executive, I just want to assure you, is-Lywydd, that the commission will do everything in its power to support the delivery and effective regulation of Welsh elections. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch. Bob, then, briefly.

Thank you. I'll be very short. We're delighted to be here before you today. For the commission staff, it's a really welcome milestone, and one we've been looking forward to, to work in this way with you in Wales. As chief executive, for me personally, one of my key roles is to make sure that the commission works and works well to the policies and priorities of Wales as much as any other part of the UK; we will certainly continue to do that and make sure that that happens.

I would just also mention, before closing, that I'm the commission's statutory accounting officer, and working closely with Kieran, our director of finance, it's my job to make sure that the commission delivers value for money and sound accounting and accountability, and I'll make sure that we do that. We're here today to answer your questions. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for that. As I say, I think it is quite a historic moment, and I hope that we can move on from that.

So, you mentioned in your interim corporate plan that you feel that the devolution of electoral reform powers offers opportunities to enable and support policy diversity between elections for those different bodies. Can you elaborate on what you think the opportunities are and how they will then benefit Wales? I don't know who wants to take that one. Elan?

Do I lead on that and then colleagues can add to it?

That's fine.

Okay, thank you. I was just saying that our job is to deliver a real good service to voters across the UK, and, in the context of Wales, to work with and through the elected body of the Senedd. As an organisation, we've been, for quite a while, very much committed and on the devolution journey. So, this next step, this financial accountability, adds to that, and we see it as further enabling us to help in Wales and to contribute to how you develop elections in Wales.

The context of policies and devolution: in our corporate plan, we put it right up front in the introduction—the corporate plan that was approved earlier this year—and that's because devolution does offer opportunities. It offers us opportunities, as we see it, in the context of a framework of, it has to be said, a lot of electoral law is dated, and it's complex and it's difficult, and we see that. So, we think it's really important that there is diversity, but we also want to see that the legislation is sufficiently consistent at a technical and administrative detail level that elections can work well across the UK. I was almost tempted to comment on the USA elections, but I won't. [Laughter.]

No, it's still a sort of mash in my head, that, so please don't. I think we have enough to do to cope with elections here in Wales.

But that's why the framework—. The foundations we have in UK law, in electoral law are good, and it's that strong framework and keeping it strong, while allowing diversity of policy. Just to exemplify—I think it's good to exemplify—you have made changes to the franchise in Wales for these coming elections. That's a real, significant change in diversity of policy. It's one that you've made, it's one we've worked with you on, that we are working with you on. It's not requiring other politicians, other legislatures in the other parts of the UK, if I put it this way, to interfere or cut across that. That's the difference, as it should be.

The addition, for us, of financial accountability to you as well enables us to focus even more on how we do our work for you, be it on campaigns, be it how we deliver the elections. My colleagues may want to add some more to this, but it also occurs to me that the other thing that's happened recently in Wales, and Elan and Rhydian may want to add to this, is the creation of the all-Wales electoral co-ordination board, for the returning officers and administrators, working with us, which, actually, I think is a really good example of policy going down to operational delivery. But I'll stop there and just give an opportunity if my colleagues want to add to that.

Okay.

I think some further detail may be coming from Rhydian, but I just wanted to say that your Senedd and elections Act of 2020 also offered us possibilities about modernising the electoral system. So, it's always good to see a country taking a lead role and perhaps showing that some modernisation should not be feared as much as it is feared in some quarters, and that we can, perhaps, make our law rather more straightforward and more fit for the twenty-first century. But, as Bob has also said, we've taken some great strides forward on a voluntary basis as a commission, and perhaps Rhydian might like just to add to that.

Okay, Rhydian.

Very briefly, Chair. This isn't a new thing, as Bob and Elan alluded to. We've been working for a number of years on delivering on areas that are specific and of interest to the Senedd and the Government in Wales. We've had various statutory reports in Wales for a number of years, and in the 2016 statutory report on the then Assembly elections, we recommended the establishment of a permanent Wales electoral co-ordination board, which is a board that co-ordinates the management and planning of elections in Wales. So, we've been doing this for a number of years. What I think, at this stage, we're looking at is formalising that work and approach.

Okay, thank you very much. Suzy, can we turn to your set of questions?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Welcome, everybody. I'm just wondering, bearing in mind that Welsh Government has already said that they're happy with what you're doing, what consideration you've actually given to a Senedd committee's view on this and the Finance Committee's principles for preparing the rest of it. I mean, presumably—well, I don't know. Are you aware of the Finance Committee's statement of principles?

I think this is Kieran.

Right, Kieran.

We are well aware of the principles, and we did have regard to them in preparing our budget. Bob, as statutory accounting officer, has to apply a set of rules called managing public money, which are a UK-wide set of rules. Most principles cascade through the whole of the UK public sector. They require, for example, that the budget be taut and realistic—[Inaudible.]—the same as your Government—[Inaudible.]—and prudent. We've always had regard to the wider public sector spending pressures and budget pressures in our budget, although we would—[Inaudible.]—the electoral cycle rather than direct running—[Inaudible.] And we always have regard to the—[Inaudible.] We had regard to the principles and rules that we normally apply—[Inaudible.]

Okay, well I'm afraid I missed a fair bit of that because of Wi-Fi problems, I suspect. But I think I got the gist of it. Do you think you can give us an example or two of how you've demonstrated that in the accounts—in the estimates, sorry?

Yes, sure. So, Bob might want to contribute as well, but, for example, in considering our budgets, we always have regard to what public spending's doing generally. We don't treat that as an absolute ceiling because our budgets go up and down depending on the electoral cycle, but we always have regard to matters of spend. We always set an efficiency target every year, and a savings target for every budget manager to apply. We have processes in place, which Bob put in place, to improve our processes to make ourselves more efficient and high-quality service, so we're always seeking to do things to become more efficient and make the most of the money we do have.

Okay. Suzy.

I think Bob wanted to add something there.

Oh, sorry, Bob.

Just if it helps you, I was just thinking as Kieran was speaking that, in a very topical, current way, one of the things we're doing currently is working really hard to subsume the additional costs of COVID within our own budgets, so we don't—. And we think we can do that through efficiencies and actually being taut on things. We think we can broadly do that and we hope not to ask for additional money. We just want to be efficient with public money on that whilst not cutting any corners.

Okay. I'm tempted at this point to say: can you tell us what savings you've made due to COVID, and what additional expenditure you've incurred as a result of it? But I'll leave that for another day.

Yes, I think that Dai Lloyd's got some questions on that.

Exactly. I'm just wondering as well, in your estimates you provide some very broad detail on the range of costs for your activities. How difficult would it be to break that down even further when submitting estimates for costs to this committee in the future? Is there anything you can do as well to perhaps add something to the narrative that goes alongside some of these estimates? We're a new committee, so the more we know, the better.

Absolutely. We gave a commitment at the beginning of this process to provide information in whatever form the various Parliaments require, so we will continue to work with your officials to do that. We provided some more detail as well since we submitted the estimates to officials. At a certain level of detail, you start to run into issues about where we've had pro rata expenditure and it becomes unrealistic to provide the pro rata-ing down to multiple levels of detail. But other than that, we can provide as much detail as you need and I'm more than happy to explain any items that need explaining, although often that might be easiest done in writing. So, as you say, I'm more than happy to provide additional narratives if there are areas that we know you're interested in.

That's great, thank you very much. I suspect we'll take you up on that offer at some point. With the processes for identifying the costs of your work related to devolved Welsh elections, how difficult have you found having to try to do that when separating out costs?

Sure. The costs that are directly related to Welsh functions, what we do is we start to build the budget up by activity, so where it's a specifically Welsh activity, we will be able to identify that very early in the budgeting process. It's been quite easy to identify some items of expenditure: things that we're purchasing, in particular, that relate to it directly, we can identify comparatively simply. Pay is a bit more difficult—that's where we experience more difficulties. We have to estimate what individual members of staff will be doing more than a year in advance, and naturally that involves an element of judgment. So, our finance team work very closely with budget managers to try and estimate what people will be spending their time on, and we keep that under review during the year, so that if it does change wildly, we can always make some adjustments if we need to. That is inevitably subjective when you're looking forward, and that's the biggest challenge. That is something that we need to continue to work on, but I think we did a reasonable job this year and as we pick up more experience, we'll obviously be able to refine our methodologies in doing that. That's challenging, but it's not impossible.

So, just to finish this question, can you give us some sort of sense of what assumptions, working assumptions, your team uses to calculate some of these costs? Do you follow some sort of Treasury handbook, or is this something that's evolving?

We don't directly follow the Treasury handbook, but we do take, for example, their estimates of what inflation might be. It's hard to get a—[Inaudible.]—estimate. We don't automatically apply inflation to budgets; we only apply it where we know it to be unavoidable. So, if you have a contractual commitment, you might get your inflation allowance in that contract, but otherwise we expect people to manage within whatever the decision we take about budgets. The biggest assumption that underlies each year's budget is always the timing of elections. That makes a very big difference. Generally, of course, that's relatively straightforward, but not always. And then, as I said, the next big assumption that's particularly of relevance to you is the amount of time that staff in particular teams and individuals are spending on specifically Welsh activity. And that's really—[Inaudible.]

Thank you. Diolch. 

The Chair has lost her connection. Llyr, can I ask you to lead the discussion?

Yes, I'll do my best. Those indirect costs are largely the corporate overheads for the commission. That includes the—[Inaudible.]—all of our IT and rent and rates, and that sort of thing. Obviously, IT is absolutely essential to how we work, both internally and our website is very important for parties and electoral administrators. So, the infrastructure that supports that is in there. It includes finance and HR and—[Inaudible.]—salaries, and, of course—[Inaudible.]. So, it's the stuff that goes to support work of the commission generally, but I'd particularly highlight IT as the thing without which—[Inaudible.]

Yes, I'm here. I am here, so, Llyr, you can ask your additional question because you jumped in as the technical—. I should have explained at the beginning, if we are having internet problems, which I clearly am having this morning, Llyr is taking over just purely to keep the meeting going. We don't have a deputy Chair, but Llyr is the real technical guy that's stepping in. So, thanks for that, Llyr, and you can ask your additional question. 

I can answer that. Of course, we follow UK-wide procurement law, and you wouldn't expect anything else. We have just introduced a new e-procurement system, and that will have been translated into Welsh, and we also use frameworks that are specifically aimed at Welsh companies, to invite Welsh companies to bid. So, we make particular efforts to make sure that that is something that is available. We don't have at the moment any major suppliers from Wales, but we will continue to make sure that that opportunity is open to people, and—[Inaudible.]—in the modern world—[Inaudible.]—location really isn't that important, so hopefully people will start—[Inaudible.]

Diolch.

Okay. So, Dai, are we still on your questioning?

Thank you. So, I'll turn to Llyr for his set of questions. Llyr.

Thank you. I think it probably is worth starting by saying that that is quite unusual. We would—[Inaudible.]—that. It's probably less of a non-cash item in future than you might expect. Changes to the way leases are accounted for will bring depreciation charges more in line with cash and—[Inaudible.]—payments. So, I think, moving on, that's not why we chose to do that.

We had, I think, originally expected that we would—[Inaudible.]

I'm sorry, you're breaking up slightly. I missed that last bit. 

Sorry, I will try again. So, we had originally, in discussion with Welsh officials, assumed that we would be including capital expenditure. One thing that was very important to Welsh officials was that the way the commission was funded matched very closely to the way the transfer of funding from Westminster was paid into the Welsh devolved block. Discussions with the Treasury highlighted that by far the best way to do that and to include some sort of funding for capital was to line the expenditure up with depreciation so that the amount received by the Welsh devolved block will be the current—[Inaudible.]—and that then you would be—[Inaudible.]—so that makes it a lot easier for everybody to make the thing work. We were perfectly content to go along with that, as it met the law that was—[Inaudible.]—underlying the devolved block and funding up directly, and that's why we've ended up being in the position—[Inaudible.]—all around of managing—[Inaudible.]

Okay. Again, we're struggling slightly, I think, with the audio, but maybe you could just send us a little note on that as a committee, maybe, just to outline the rationale and how we got to that position, really. 

Well, apologies for my broadband, and we will, yes.

It's one of those things that we can't do anything about really, isn't it, I think.

Okay, thank you. Can we turn to the set of questions now from Rhianon Passmore? Rhianon.

Thank you, deputy Chair. Can you update the committee, then, on when you intend to submit your new five-year plan and how detailed will the content be in terms of your activities related to devolved elections, as you've outlined the range previously, and what input will the committee have in the development and co-construction of that five-year plan?

I'll lead off with that, if I may, thanks. So, the current five-year plan of the commission, as you may appreciate, was approved right at the beginning of 2020. An awful lot has happened since then, to state the obvious, and therefore what's really important is that we develop the next version of the plan. We always intended to very quickly develop the next version in the timing that makes sense for everyone. So, we're very conscious of the impact of things like COVID on everything—the ways of working; we're conscious of the impacts on the economy that flow from that—but we're also very mindful of the elections here in Wales to the Parliament and in Scotland too, so we don't want to go too far with approval, obviously, of a new five-year plan before then. It's very important, we think, that those elections should happen, and then the new Governments in Wales should influence, obviously, our five-year plan, and the same in Scotland. And the other factor that's taken place also, which you may have picked up, is the commission—. There's a process to appoint the new chair of the commission, which is taking place at the moment, and should make an appointment sometime early next year. So, we have slightly slowed down the pace of our work to make sure that our timing in coming back to you, for example, fits in with that agenda, and I think when you will see us come back to you will be the second half of 2021, rather than, as was originally intended, the first half of 2021. So, we will roll forward the current plan for the moment, and then we'll come back in due course, once all those things are much more certain and settled, and, actually, we can actually understand what the drivers for us are from the political world, what's wanted.

I was going to pass to Kieran at this stage to explain a bit about the process, but perhaps I will lead off, as his internet connection isn't very good. And then he can add to it, just to help you. So, I'm not sure what Kieran would have said, but this is what I'll say. So, in developing the plan, we take a pretty standard public sector methodology approach, which you're probably familiar with, about asking the questions, developing internally the goals of the commission, how they roll forward, the drivers of things—the external drivers, the internal drivers—the resources of the commission, and certainly looking for an impact-based plan. So, we want to develop quite demanding performance indicators to show we make an impact and a difference in communities and elections.

We then test that externally, we get the input from external stakeholders—it's a range of external stakeholders from the public through to political parties, through to legislatures and so forth. So, that's the process, and what's important for us, obviously, is to make sure we come back to those bodies, particularly yourself, the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, because it is you as bodies who will be approving the plan. So, we need to come back to you with a process that gets that right, and we certainly will make sure that we will do that. So, that's the process that takes place. I don't know if—. Sorry, Kieran, do you want to add anything to that? No. Okay. I hope that's helpful. I can expand, if you think that helps. 

Thank you, no. I'm going to go straight to my next line of questioning around the National Audit Office's report. Obviously, we note the timing around the second half of 2021 in regard to what you've just talked to us about. So, the National Audit Office's report noted the commission should incorporate performance measures to cover a range of activities to better measure the commission's value for money. What consideration, then, have you given to how you measure your performance in respect to your activities across Wales?

Again, I can lead off on that. And I think it's a really good challenge, and it's one that the commission board, the board of commissioners—and Elan's obviously part of that—are thinking hard with us and challenging us—the staff, the executive—on as well. I think the difference is, really, that we want our measures to be, as I was just saying, really impact based. We don't want it to be outputs—you know, 'We produced x number of widgets and we responded y times to people,' and so forth, the more sort of traditional ones. They have a value; we'll measure all those sorts of things, but the top-level measures we want to be, really, about impact and difference. And we want to be able to measure confidence in elections: are the public happy and so forth? Are the political parties happy? How have elections felt? We want to be able to measure on regulation work to what extent compliance is actually taking place or not. So, we are looking for much more qualitative measures that show impact. That is challenging, and we'll see where we get there, and I think we'll get better the more we do it, inevitably. It does also go back to something we've not discussed in detail today, which is—we have touched upon it—the commission's investment programmes, because we need to continue investing in systems and processes, so we can provide that sort of data and information. Actually, the earlier questions today about financial information to you—we're enhancing our financial systems to be able to do that, but we're also enhancing our performance management systems so that we can measure things better and we can be more impactful in how we demonstrate that. I don't know whether anyone wants to add to that. Elan, I think, does.

Elan.

Thank you. Thank you, is-Lywydd. Just to add a little bit of flesh to what's been said by Bob, the commissioners take this very seriously, so that their role as challengers—as kind of non-exec, if you like—is done properly. For example, I have a meeting in the diary for the tenth of this month, which is next Tuesday, where I will have a personal one-to-one with the senior officers, including Bob and people, on the development of that plan, and the KPIs and so on that we expect from it. That will be an ongoing process; it's not a matter of officers bringing something ready made or ready baked. And the same thing will apply to the relationship with the Senedd, where input will be of vital importance, so that we know that we are satisfying you in the work we're doing over the next five years. 

Diolch. Thank you for that. And, as stated, it is going to be somewhat an iterative process. We've mentioned earlier, obviously, that election law is dated and complex, but the corporate plan, the report says, would be enhanced by providing more granular detail, as we've referenced earlier, for example, around costs and timetables, milestones, for major projects during the planned period. So, how are you implementing this recommendation to ensure that your strategic activities can be linked to your estimates? 

So, the answer to that is we are doing that. We do have, internally, quite detailed information. All our projects are managed in a way where they're tracked with milestones and timetables and targets and so forth. So, we have increasingly, over the last few years, been moving to a much more project-based approach to work, with up-to-date systems. So, we do have that data. I think it's going to be pretty straightforward for us to actually transfer that in a meaningful way in the plan. That's one part of it, actually, we feel quite on top of, and we hope now to satisfy that fairly easily. But, it will, quite rightly, hold us to account and scrutiny on not just timing of projects, but the costs that relate to those projects as well—things like IT projects, classically, and things like that, we'll be able to demonstrate how we're doing against that. 

Okay. Are there any further comments around that? No.

Okay. Are Members satisfied, or have Members got any other quick questions that they'd like to ask before we bring—? No. No, everybody's happy, then. Elan, can I just ask you: is there anything you feel that you want to add to the record now, or are you happy?

I'm very happy, is-Lywydd. I would like to add to the record that I would like to reiterate our absolute commitment to making this committee something valuable for the Senedd, and, more than that, that the work of the commission is of value to the people of Wales. I think we can make that commitment today, and we will work with you, in detail, over the next few years, to make that happen. 

Well, thank you very much for that. Just to say, then, we'll bring this part of the agenda to a close. And I should have said at the beginning to thank you for submitting your papers, which, obviously, you know we've all read, because we've been through them, and also to thank the auditor general for their papers, and also the Welsh Government, who provided us a paper as well. So, thank you all very much. I do apologise I dipped out in the middle of that, but I can assure you I didn't go and make a cup of tea; my internet connection did drop out. And to say that we'll send you a copy of the transcript, so that you can check it for factual accuracy. And we'll look forward to, as I say, moving this on very rapidly. So, thank you all very much for being here. 

Can I just ask, while we're still in public session, can committee note a paper from the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, which has been provided, and if we're happy to note that? Okay, thank you.

So, now, if committee members are agreeable, I'll move the motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting, and we go into a private session. Is everybody agreed with that? Okay. Thank you, therefore we will go into private session. Diolch yn fawr.