The final piece in this mini-series examining decentralisation within Wales after independence looks at perhaps the thing you’ve been waiting for – how many federal states, how many elected members etc.
In A Federal Wales III, I’d settled on the name “province/talaith” for the name of the devolved/federated regions – though that’s just a name for the sake of having one.
It’s not the easiest question to answer, though we can learn other nations around the world and how they have been decentralised.
To start, it’s worth working out what a realistic maximum number of provinces for Wales might be based on the smallest federal sub-units in other countries.
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There are outliers because in some countries – like Switzerland – federal sub-units have a big population range; some are tiny, some are massive.
Based on the above, the median number of sub-units is around 10 (in Wales, this would mean each province having a population of around 314,000).
The median population is around 420,000 – which suggests Wales ought to have, at most, 7 provinces.
A minimum of 4 provinces and a maximum of 7 sounds about right. If you want to go down the Swiss route – where the mean average population of the cantons is around 330,000 – then that might increase to as many as 10.
The next question is, “What would that look like on a map?”
There are a few things to keep in mind when establishing Welsh provinces:
- Ensuring each province has a similar population (within reason).
- Ensuring the boundaries match a lower tier of local government (counties/municipalities).
- Keep the number of provinces low to create true economies of scale (addressing issues raised by the Williams Commission).
- Try to keep the four major urban areas (Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Wrexham) apart to avoid tribal arguments over favouritism and dominance.
- Use templates that people identify with already be they cultural (traditional counties) or in terms of public services (i.e. police force and health board areas).
The maps below are just examples and there are other ways you can mix and match:
For the sake of it, here are some of the options if Welsh provinces had a similar population to Swiss cantons:
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Based on the criteria set out above, the best options in my opinion are probably:
- “Combi Option” (Option Six, Map 1) for four provinces – this would be my preferred option overall.
- Deheubarth & Small Central Wales (Option Two, Map 2) for six provinces.
- East & West Glamorgan (Option 5, Map 2) for seven provinces.
- NUTS2 (Option 1, Map 3) for ten Swiss Canton-sized provinces.
Creating new provinces
Responsibility for creating new administrative sub-units almost always rests with the national legislature. In our case, that would mean the Senedd.
It could work something like this:
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