COMMISSION ON THE POWERS AND ELECTORAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES

 MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS

of the

 EVIDENCE OF:

Trade Union Side at the National Assembly for Wales

 held at

Caradog House, Cardiff

On

FRIDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2003

In Attendance

Lord Richard

Eira Davies

Vivienne Sugar

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Tom Jones

Huw Thomas

Ted Rowlands

Dr Laura McAllister

Peter Price

Paul Valerio

Eira Davies

Howie Oliver

Huw Price

Kevin Davies

Proceedings

Lord Richard

Thank you all for coming. What we usually ask witnesses to do is to ask you to identify yourself, then if you would be kind enough to open up the discussion, then we can then pursue issues.

Howie Oliver

I will kick off then. My name is Howie Oliver. I am the Chair of the Trade Union Side, which is the umbrella body that represents the three trade unions that we have within the Assembly. I'm also an officer of the biggest of the three unions, which is the PCS, the Public and Commercial Services Union.

Kevin Davies

Kevin Davies, full-time officer of the Trade Union Side secretariat. I am an officer of the PCS.

Beverley Bambrough

I’m Bev Bambrough, I’m the Trade Union Side Vice-Chair, also the Public and Commercial Services Union Group President at the moment.

Laurie Pavelin

I’m Laurie Pavelin. I’m not a full-time trade union officer, but I'm the Chair of the FDA in the Assembly.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

How many people are there in the FDA?

Laurie Pavelin

There are about 175 at the present time.

Howie Oliver

If I can start by saying that we're pleased to have this opportunity. It’s taken us a little while to get here; we have had various appointments with you which for one reason or another we haven't managed to keep. But now we're here, we want to provide our perspective on matters affecting the National Assembly and its staff. We will endeavour to provide you with full and frank responses. We certainly hope that our evidence will provide you with a useful insight in to how any future changes to the Assembly that you might propose will impact on what we believe is its greatest asset – its staff. I don't want to say much more than that at this point. We want to use the time we have to allow you to question us and gain as great an insight as you can into our views on many of the issues. We have an indication of the sort of questions you may want to ask but feel free to ask us anything you wish.

Lord Richard

We’d like to have your views on how you see the main benefits and challenges that have come from the process. I suppose it follows from that given what we have got now, what are the main pressures which you see as affecting staff of the Assembly?

Howie Oliver

I will take the issue of benefits second. Certainly workload is a major issue, as you might expect. Also the change that the Assembly has undergone , in a comparatively short period of time. There is a new regime that staff have had to get to grips with, and new ways of working to adjust to. We have seen a significant integration of new staff in the Assembly, and the overall number of staff has substantially increased. There have been many challenges during this period. To a certain extent there is still a degree of instability as a consequence of what we regard as "churn", where staff move around between posts. Perhaps there is a lack of stability in certain areas.

Lord Richard

Could you specify?

Howie Oliver

I think it’s as a consequence of the general philosophy from the days of the Welsh Office when staff were encouraged to be generalist. To progress within the organisation they were encouraged to move around, rather than perhaps specialise in a particular field. To a certain extent that thinking still prevails, although we are moving away from that more towards an organisation that seeks to specialise and encourage its staff to specialise.

Lord Richard

Can you expand?

Howie Oliver

A generalist approach has advantages but it also has disadvantages. We are developing a new recruitment and selection policy at the moment. That's addressing some of these issues together with others that are associated with a move to a more specialist type of workforce. Concerns will be brought out during discussions that we're having with management now about that policy. Can I move on to the benefits?

Lord Richard

Do you have anything more to say about pressure? Is that going up too much?

Beverley Bambrough

Workloads have gone up dramatically they have to have done as the organisation has changed and grown. But it is all approximates increased responsibility to staff and accountability of those staff directly to the Ministers. I think that obviously has a bearing. Staff are very committed to delivering and ensuring that deadlines are met. Sometimes a lack of understanding on behalf of staff and the people they are answerable to about the new organisation and how it’s accountable and how they effect your development. I think it is quite complicated because we have staff who don't understand in some aspects the organisation they work within. Especially people who came from what was the Welsh Office and now have moved to a new organisation.

Lord Richard

Can we take this in stages? On the staff you represent, they where do they actually come from?

Laurie Pavelin

The figures the Permanent Secretary gave you on this show that something like 60% of the staff in the Assembly now have come from the Welsh Office or from predecessor organisations. Something like 25% have been completely new recruits into the Assembly and some others have come in from other public sector organisations. So we've got a bank of staff who have the old Civil Service background and in some senses the old Civil Service ethos that had come into the Assembly. Yet there has been a quite a large cadre of new people coming from different background and experiences who have come into an organisation that has been in the process of change.

Lord Richard

Which lot has found it easier to adapt to the new structure? The old Welsh Office people?

Laurie Pavelin

It’s been a bit of both because there has been the need for the old Civil Service approach to adapt to the Assembly coming into being.

Lord Richard

What are the main changes? What are the main differences? I obviously know, but in terms of the ethos of the job.

Laurie Pavelin

Whereas in the past there were three Ministers who were fairly remote and staff didn't see them very often, now they are very much more in close in touch with Ministers. There is an expectation that what Ministers want will be delivered in their time scale. Civil Service time scale used to be, if I can say it this way, an agreement as to what time things would be delivered in, and that was certainly a slower speed, more time for measured thinking. I think that has been the biggest change.

Lord Richard

They want your opinions. It must be more fun than the old system?

Howie Oliver

I wouldn’t describe it in that way.

Dr Laura McAllister

What about exposure in terms of accountability? Surely there is a new role there?

Laurie Pavelin

You have identified there the fact that officials are now appearing before Committees. I mean if I take myself I had appeared three or four times over a period of about 20 years before the Committees at Westminster in one or form or another. Now I have been exposed to two or three times that amount over a period of three years. So there is that element of change. Meetings with Assembly Members now occur quite frequently. Officials are meeting Assembly Members. Talking to them on the phone. That didn't happen before.

Lord Richard

Don't you feel more involved in the process now?

Laurie Pavelin

I think you do. You are certainly far more involved in the process. The concern is if you go back, and if you imagine people coming from a situation as Civil Servants having time to think and prepare and be ready. Now they have to be ready to react, to think on their feet, to give far more immediate responses. That has been a culture change. People are adapting to that. People are enjoying that in some senses, but there is still the continuing pressure on staff to prepare papers. So there has been an increase in staff, the Permanent Secretary identified an increase in staff, but a lot of that was related to new functions. The increase in numbers of staff dealing with the main policy areas has not been that significant, but now there is the need to react to Committees, to prepare papers, to develop new policies, new partnerships groups, new ways of working and all of those groups require supporting in one way or another. Hence, that in reality is the pressure.

Eira Davies

The move from fortnightly Committee meetings to three weekly will reduce that workload ever so slightly, I would imagine?

Laurie Pavelin

Yes.

Eira Davies

Is it going to improve rather than get worse.

Laurie Pavelin

Yes.

Huw Thomas

I was going to try to put in different words and saying what I understand is the picture you are painting. You talk about being involved, more involved with Committees. You could talk about being more exposed to Committees. You talked about not having measured thinking time to not having any thinking time. Therefore, instead of accurate read inaccurate. All of that leading to a feeling of pressure on staff from instability and from the churn of movement of people not being long enough in post to pick up all the threads. Am I painting too black a picture?

Laurie Pavelin

I think you are. If I can correct that. You are saying that people don't have time to think – people do have time to think because they make the time to think because they have to make the time to think because they are committed to doing a very good job. I think, as Howie indicated, the approach to work is now changing. Whereas people were moving every two years, the speed of movement has slowed down. There is an expectation that individual officers will have a greater knowledge and understanding of their subject area. They are becoming more expert and more professional. There is a much greater level now of people undertaking further training and obtaining further professional qualifications within the Assembly. That process has continued to be encouraged. People are becoming far more expert in their areas.

Lord Richard

This will create a better Civil Service than there used to be?

Beverley Bambrough

It offers better opportunities for people who are currently Civil Servants in the Assembly.

Ted Rowlands

Would you prefer, in the light of all these changes to become a Welsh Civil Service.

Laurie Pavelin

Without knowing what's on offer I am careful about saying I would love to change.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

I thought you said you had abandoned caution?!

Howie Oliver

Not entirely!

Laurie Pavelin

Some old good habits don't die too easily. There has been talk of a Welsh Civil Service. There has been a talk of a Welsh Public Service. It’s very difficult to react, to know whether we think that's going to be a good thing, or a bad thing. In terms of staff, the first concern of staff would be to want to know what is the environment within which they are working, what are the opportunities for them for the future and what are their terms and conditions going to be. I don't think we are saying we wouldn’t want a Welsh Civil Service. We are saying until we have got somethingto consider it is difficult to give a view.

Ted Rowlands

You want to see the colour of it?

Laurie Pavelin

Want to see the colour of it.

Lord Richard

Is this an issue in the Civil Service? Do you think people are concerned about it?

Laurie Pavelin

I don't think they are.

Ted Rowlands

Do most of the 60% of all Welsh Office staff see their career structure entirely within the Assembly as opposed to within the UK?

Howie Oliver

I don't think there has ever been a huge movement of staff between the Welsh Office and other UK departments.

Laurie Pavelin

There is an expectation, and the Permanent Secretary has expressed this, that staff at the more senior level will have had a fairly wide experience before being able to reach a senior level. That does not seem to be unreasonable; that people will have had experience probably with more than one employer, probably a number of employers. That may be in a number of Government departments. It might be in other parts of the public sector. It might be experience in working in the private sector. In reality if you do look at the senior staff in the Assembly I do not think I can identify anybody who has spent the whole of their career here in the Welsh Office and now in the Assembly.

Beverley Bambrough

I think with the influx of new staff as well some of those have been from other Government departments that are national departments but have worked within Wales. I myself transferred in three years ago from the Foreign Office, so there is the interchangeability but it’s not as evident as the more junior grades.

Peter Price

The workload point. Where are the pinch points? Surely this is not general across the whole of the Civil Service in Cardiff, but there must be some particular points. Is it related to grade? Those who interact more directly with Ministers? Particularly departments? Or is it, indeed, general right down to the lowest levels in the organisation? Secondly, to what extent has it been possible to remedy these pinch points by just reorganising within?

Vivienne Sugar

Can I add to that? Much has been made of the Assembly's having family friendly working hours. Do you have family friendly working hours?

Beverley Bambrough

We ourselves?

Howie Oliver

There are certainly flexible working hours within the Assembly that staff certainly below the Senior Civil Service level have access to. Whether staff below the Senior Civil Service can take full advantage of those flexibilities is a different matter. Certainly in relation to workload, I'm not sure that we have sufficient data to be able to answer the point as to where the pinch points are precisely. I'm not sure whether you have access to the latest staff attitude survey, but that indicates that a majority of the staff, and that covers all grades, cannot get their work done within the average working day. This gives sufficient feel of the sorts of pressures that people are under. Of course, there is also a long working hours culture that has built up in the organisation where you have substantial numbers of staff working far longer hours than they should.

Tom Jones

What about the dotted line between the Presiding Office and staff working there and the staff who work in the Welsh side of Government? Do you see divisions there? Is it easy or less easy to transfer in terms of career progression? Where do those officers who now work in Committees come from?

Howie Oliver

There has been a freedom of movement from one to the other and vice versa. I think staff have certainly welcomed the opportunity to work on both sides. But as to whether there have been any particular problems associated with that I don't think there have been. If we were to move more towards a situation where the Presiding Office was to become separated, then certainly we would look to retain the current freedom of movement so staff don't become isolated in one part of the organisation. I think within the evidence that he gave, the Permanent Secretary indicated that he saw Presiding Office people as Civil Servants and didn't necessarily accept that they wouldn't be able to transfer in future between the two distinct parts of the organisation.

Tom Jones

Just to finish the point on the Committees. Those who service the Committees, are they Civil Servants within the Assembly's code as well?

Beverley Bambrough

Yes. We have to be aware with the Presiding Office, Howie is quite right, there is interchangeability, but there is considerable shift from the Presiding Office to the Assembly because obviously it’s a much bigger part of the organisation with minimal opportunities. What we need to remember is the Presiding Office has very specific requirements as in translation and editorial skills, table office. Which means that if it’s in translation you must be bilingual. There are certain requirements there. But in order for those people to progress in the organisation it’s quite a flat structure. We have 12 EOs in the translation service, 26 HEOs and only two SBAs and one grade 7. This is a bottleneck when you get to HEO. The only option is to move sideways or remain in that section, so they have to make a choice whether to move to a more general post in the wider organisation or stay where they are.

Kevin Davies

Evidence to support the workload. We're starting to see in certain parts of the organisations staff with significant numbers of flexy carry-overs and additional hours. Also not being able to use the agreed annual leave.

Lord Richard

What's a flexi carry-over?

Kevin Davies

Hours that you are due, there is a flexible working system, there are limits that you can carry credits over within each month. Seeing significant amounts of hours where people are not being able to take that and attempts, therefore, to buy those hours out, which is something we are concerned about in terms of people having to work longer hours.

Peter Price

The picture that you have painted of this being a general problem of overload, what is the remedy that the unions see as being the most practical remedy that you would seek to this problem?

Howie Oliver

I think it would be too easy just to say resources. Additional resources will help, but I think there are working practices at the moment that could be more efficient. I think it’s also about the management of the organisation, about leadership, about perhaps the expectation (and maybe the unreasonable expectation) that Civil Servants can accommodate any work that is required of them, instead of somebody being prepared to say, well, if you want that done, something else has to drop off the end of the list. We are seeing a greater move towards delegation of responsibility to line management level, whereas traditionally we have had a central personnel division, taking care of the majority of human resource type issues. We're now seeing an organisation that is looking to line managers at the basic level to fulfil a lot of the roles and responsibilities that were previously held at the centre and that's placing an additional burden on line managers. The say to us, how can we cope with this when we are already overloaded? We’ve already got more work than we can cope with and this is adding additional pressures.

There is sufficient evidence to suggest that we have a significant problem in the Assembly in relation to stress and work-related stress. Of the 40,000 working days that were lost in the year to March 2003, approximately 21% of those were recorded as being due to stress or stress related problems. So there is clearly an issue there in relation to the pressures that staff are under. We're not talking peaks and troughs here. We're talking about fairly constant pressure which many staff have to endure on a day-to-day basis.

Lord Richard

Are you negotiating to get more staff?

Kevin Davies

One of the benefits that has come about is the increase in welfare and occupational health areas which at least give staff the opportunity of identifying problems and perhaps getting good advice on dealing with issues surrounding that.

Lord Richard

Recruitment of extra staff is not a big sort of argument point with the Assembly authorities?

Howie Oliver

We have an appreciable number of posts at the moment that are filled by either casual or agency staff, I think it’s about 11%. I don't think that helps. There is certain instability and inefficiency there. It comes back to the point about there being a need for more efficient use of the resources before perhaps we start saying that additional resources are required. .

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

You referred to a change in management styles that might make things better. What have you in mind?

Laurie Pavelin

Perhaps this illustrates why there are some pressures there. I think Civil Servants traditionally do adopt the ‘can do’ approach and therefore will always seek to deliver. With the Welsh Office the prime focus, and people might not necessarily accept this, was looking for individuals who had intellectual capacity. What's required now in the Assembly alongside that intellectual capacity is ability for leadership and management. I think that was what we were actually short of when the Assembly came along. That is what is being developed now. A lot more effort is being put into management training and developing leadership skills. Certainly at the most senior levels and that’s slowly being extended down towards middle manager level. As that comes through there is the expectation that that will help people to manage workloads a bit better without just looking straightaway for additional resources and that people will actually be much better in using their personal skills and thus able to deal with issues as they arise.

But I think there is, certainly I know among senior managers, a wish to get more resources in terms of greater budgets to employ more members of staff, but, again, it would also be a wish of managers to have more staff when they are suffering from pressure points. There is pressure, a general pressure right the way across the Assembly but it does tend to be pressure points at particular points in time depending on the circumstances. So if I take, for example, the Wales European Funding Office, the objective one area, that's an area that had to be got together, had to be developed. Started from new. It was a new organisation. There were tremendous political and public expectations in respect of delivery. That organisation started off with an expected staff number of about 100. It’s somewhere near 200 now. That demonstrates how matters have grown and the staff are actually affected by the public perceptions our there, what is said in the press about them, what is said by Assembly Members about what is being delivered. That does bring pressures on individuals and some people can ride with that, other people don't find it too easy to take the comments and the criticisms that come to them. That's where the leadership needs to come in from the more senior staff in the Assembly to cope with those issues.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

One of the earlier areas we were told about was there was very little toing and froing between the National Assembly staff and central departments, or indeed Scotland or Northern Ireland; very little indeed. In Whitehall if you get somebody who is getting up but not terribly good there are certain departments, well known where they can be sent. I won't be particular. But you can imagine. If you have a much, much smaller staff, without toing and froing with Whitehall, the possibility of weeding people out is much more difficult. What's the answer?

Laurie Pavelin

Inevitably in any organisation there are a limited number of jobs where individuals can go and be put into a job where they can be nursed along. I also think that actually across the Assembly many divisions do have staff who are perhaps performing at a lower level, who we do recognise do need help and we do help them with training, with development and we do our utmost to bring them up to par. There are procedures if staff are not completely efficient. I think if you look at the numbers of staff who have been off sick for a long period of time, a number of staff who were finding it very difficult to cope with their job are represented in that group and are off with stress. From my own knowledge I have names in mind.

Lord Richard

Are the stress levels in the Assembly greater than they are, say, in London?

Howie Oliver

We don't have any data on which to base any comment. There are also less obvious pressures that staff have to endure. For example, pressures on accommodation space - the administrative centre at Cathays Park is full to bursting at the moment. There are also pressures as a consequence of uncertainty as to what the future holds. One such area is the location strategy that the Assembly is currently developing. Obviously all that encompasses in relation to new offices and where jobs may be located in the future has an impact on those people currently in those posts which are currently based in Cardiff.

Ted Rowlands

Enhanced when they come to Merthyr. Has the PCS taken an official position of two of the key issues facing the commission: namely, the acquisition of primary legislative powers and other additional functions? Has the union a position on these particular issues?

Beverley Bambrough

I can answer that from a national union perspective because I sit on the National Executive of the PCS Union. It is something that we are about to debate in the next NC. It was not possible to take it through the last NC meeting. So it’s something they we are now aware of that we need a take a line on. At this moment in time---

Ted Rowlands

When will it come out? In time in order for us to use it?

Beverley Bambrough

We can ensure that.

Vivienne Sugar

I wanted to say that you sound to me as though you have been painting a picture of an organisation that's not actually very good at planning and responding to change; that the current workload has come as a surprise and has not been resourced and the training didn't do enough. Is that because the creation of the Assembly was done very quickly and you had this massive change in establishing the Assembly in its first term and you now think that it will stabilise? Or is it a case of permanent revolution? That all you can see on the horizon is more work, more moving about, whether to Merthyr or anywhere else, and a management that is not putting in the support or the resources that you feel that you need? Are you actually involved formally in work force planning and job finding? Give me an idea of whether this is an organisation that is going to come out of this patch feeling more able to cope with the future, or whether, if this Commission were to recommend changes of powers, the reaction of most of your 4000 colleagues would be, ‘Oh, no!’

Howie Oliver

I don't think we would have used the word surprised. The difficulty has been is that we have been treading new ground here and it’s been difficult to plan accurately as to what the various challenges would be. But I think it’s acknowledged at senior management levelthat the organisation has to improve its planning so that it can adapt more readily to the changes that are before it. To a large extent I think staff have managed to do that. But they have had an awful lot of change to contend with in a comparatively short period of time. I suspect that many staff would welcome a period of relative stability, rather than have to embrace further change. Certainly the biggest change, and in many ways the most difficult, is the culture change the organisation has gone through, again in a very short period of time.

Lord Richard

Still going through it?

Howie Oliver

We are going through it still, I think.

Lord Richard

If, for example, the Assembly had powers of primary legislation, the culture journey would be exactly the same? When the Permanent Secretary came he said that the acquisition of further legislative powers by the Assembly, I think the phrase he used was something like ‘a manageable progression.’ Do you think that's right? Or are you saying it would be difficult to cope with?

Howie Oliver

We're saying it depends on what that means in relation to the workload that it may generate. I believe the Permanent Secretary qualified that by saying he felt that if it meant we were trying to push through a limited amount of primary legislation in any given year that it was something that could be accommodated. Anything more than that would start to become far more difficult. So I'm not sure I can answer that accurately.

Beverley Bambrough

I think as well if that was to be the case and we moved forward to being able to put in place primary legislation, then really that the National Assembly and its current staff would need to start thinking about that sooner rather than later and ensuring that staff are developed so that when it came into being those staff are developed to such a level that they have the competency to be able to fulfil that function and deliver for Wales – for the Assembly. It can't simply be do we get that function or do we not get that function. We need to think about the implications for the staff. That means going back to the one of our original points – it’s about planning, about priority setting. It is about ensuring the staff that we are currently have are developed in such a way to undertake that role.

Tom Jones

Probably more than your colleagues in London, Belfast and Edinburgh.

Laurie Pavelin

If I speak from my own experience within my own work area, we are preparing to take a Bill through Parliament at the present time. The implications is that we have put a team together to take that Bill through which is, with the partners we are working with outside, about five or six people strong. We have got people who have been used to taking Bills through Parliament in the past and we are building that up, so we have got knowledge and experience there. So taking on the function, yes, it can be taken on, but it needs to be talked about, needs to be planned. We need to bring together the cadre of people who have got knowledge or experience, or bring people in to add to that cadre so that we are equipped to deal with it. But we put together a tem of five to take that Bill through. That is taking us, overall about you 18 months. So we can start to identify what the resource terms are for dealing with those issues.

Ted Rowlands

Which Bill is this?

Laurie Pavelin

The Bill to do with the establishment of the new Wales Audit Office.

Ted Rowlands

Five or six additional staff or is that staff you have taken away from---

Laurie Pavelin

Staff taken away from other tasks to deal with this.

Lord Richard

The next session? Not this session?

Laurie Pavelin

Yes, next session.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

The Bill is being drafted at the moment?

Laurie Pavelin

The Bill has been drafted. It has been out to consultation, Welsh Affairs has taken it. The Assembly have had in Plenary and Committee. So a lot of the groundwork comes well before it gets anywhere near the actual legislation.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

When it going through Parliament it should be a doddle.

Laurie Pavelin

I have worked on Bill teams before, nothing is ever a doddle. It depends what hour of the day or night and what questions are asked.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

An earlier answer to a question from a Senior Civil Servant, early on, he answered something to the effect that, very much in line with what you have seen been saying, huge increase in work, huge increase of demand and stimuli and also been more fun. He actually used -- I may have used word ‘fun’ but he accepted it. Is that a fair picture?

Howie Oliver

There have certainly been new challenges. Some find new challenges exciting and are prepared to pitch in because it gives them a buzz. We witnessed that during the Assembly's creation.

Laurie Pavelin

The fun bit comes with success at the end. I think the Assembly has actually achieved an awful lot We don't want to paint a completely black picture. An awful lot is being achieved. An awful lot of the initial change has passed by. It has moved on. We are becoming far better at project planning. That was the one thing that was our key weakness. But we are remedying that. I’m not saying we don't get things wrong. But we are getting that right now.

Dr Laura McAllister

Doesn't the fun come from the fact that for the first time there is a distinctive policy environment in the sense that everything is coming from the bottom up and some of your representatives are involved in that? That's surely where the joy is?

Laurie Pavelin

Yes, I think it is. Made in Wales, for Wales.

Lord Richard

Access to Ministers, you are much more involved in the whole process. What about the relationship between yourselves and Whitehall colleagues? Do they remember that you are there; that you sometimes have distinctive policies? Do they sometimes consult with you? Do you find that they have not grasped that they have to go through a different process of consultation in Wales?

Howie Oliver

You mean within the union structures?

Tom Jones

Within the staff, health-to-health or education-to-education?

Beverley Bambrough

My first job was within agriculture. There was interchangeability. We did get invited to meetings and we were extensively involved in working closely with our Whitehall colleagues. On a general note I would say that possibly from the union’s point of view and sitting at a different level in the union that sometimes the Welsh angle can be forgotten.

Laurie Pavelin

The answer to your question is it depends which department you are dealing with. Some departments are well in touch with the Assembly. The other departments forget and it’s on the morning that the announcement is being made that Wales is told of what’s happening in England. The ability of both Civil Servants and Ministers to react can sometimes be slightly strained, particularly if we don't know what's coming along and/or what the financial consequences are. Ministers are sometimes wrong footed.

Tom Jones

How would you rectify that? More formal agreements?

Laurie Pavelin

There are formal agreements in place. One of the structures for devolution was to set up concordats between Government departments. Like all agreements they are fine but have to be worked out. At the end of the day trying to rely wholly upon formal agreements is not necessarily the whole answer. It’s down to personal contact.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

We had evidence from the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He showed signs of very close contacts with his opposite number in Edinburgh and, indeed, here. How close have your contacts been with those in Edinburgh and Belfast who have been subject to very much the same kind of pressures? We were told about very graphically the huge increase of work, huge demands and so on. Would it better to have such contacts and learn from each other?

Howie Oliver

I think that's true across the range of subjects the Assembly is involved with.

Lord Richard

At the union level there must be contact.

Howie Oliver

To some extent but we don’t make specific arrangements to visit one another or exchange information on a regular basis. One area where we did was on pay - we developed a particular pay system in 2001 that set a trend within the Civil Service and that's something that our colleagues in Scotland have done in a similar way. So it's been something of a dividend for us to have that freedom and to develop policies that we feel are right for this organisation.

Peter Price

It sounded from an answer you gave earlier that the staff surveys that are conducted are entirely separate in Cardiff, in Whitehall and in Edinburgh. If there were standard questions you would then have considerable data to be able to see to what extent perceptions were similar and how trends were moving. At the moment I gathered from your earlier answers that there are no standard questions, therefore no comparable data of any kind. Has this been an idea that has come forward? Is my interpretation of what you have said earlier correct?

Howie Oliver

As far as I'm aware the attitudes survey that has been conducted on a regular basis within the Assembly is solely within the Assembly. It’s quite likely that other bodies conduct a similar sort of survey. There may be an attempt to use the information that is generated for an informed discussion between certain organisations at a senior level. But to answer your question, no, I don't think there is a uniform approach on this.

Peter Price

Would that be helpful?

Howie Oliver

To some extent.

Peter Price

Is that something you are pressing for?

Howie Oliver

No, it’s not. It could be helpful. I guess our focus tends to be here, but, of course, if we had access to other data there would be lessons for us, as there would be for management.

Lord Richard

Thank you very much indeed for coming. It was extremely useful and very helpful. I have learned a lot. Thank you.