A Federal Wales IV: How might a decentralised Wales work?

The Ceremonial Stuff

Name – As suggested in A Federal Wales III and in this piece I’d go for “province”. As for the names of the provinces individually, it ought to be decided beforehand but the provincial assemblies can change them if they want. I would stick to names based on the ancient principalities or the preserved counties (Deheubarth, Gwynedd, Clwyd, Gwent, Glamorgan, Dyfed etc.).

Symbols – Each province would have a flag, coat of arms, motto and seal. If they want any other symbols (anthem, official animal, official plant etc.) it would be entirely up to them.

The seat of government & Provincial Assembly HQ – In ideal circumstances, they would use an existing council civic office or a Welsh Government regional office as a headquarters. My fear (I’m sure shared by some of you) is that within a few years of being founded, the provincial assemblies spunk £60-70million on a new building.

There’s also the option of basing the government/executive in a single location, with the provincial assembly moving between different council chambers. Though this could end up being disruptive and the other, more practical option, is to hold most meetings virtually.

Provincial Assemblies

As a reminder from A Federal Wales III on the kind of things the provincial legislatures could be responsible for:

The aim would be to fold as many of the “unofficial tier of local government” bodies mentioned in Part II as possible into the regional assemblies.

They would almost certainly be unicameral (have a single chamber) and would be responsible for deciding their own working arrangements. Timetables are likely to resemble those of a large local authority or a body such as the London Assembly.

Plenary sessions would be held less regularly than at the Senedd – perhaps only once or twice a month – with a heavy emphasis on Q&A sessions/collective scrutiny, debating matters of urgent importance and making/approving new laws and regulations. Committee and board meetings (more on this later) would be held more regularly than plenary sessions with most of the day-to-day work taking place there.

A Presiding Officer/Chair would be appointed at the start of each term to chair plenary meetings and head the parliamentary service – as at the Senedd.

Members and elections

The next question, “How many provincial assembly members would we need?”

I’m in favour of keeping legislatures as small as is practical. To work that number out you would need to take in several factors including the population of the province, the level of responsibilities, day-to-day workload, whether they’re full-time or part-time and how many people each elected member would represent.

Using international comparisons:

The most interesting things to note are the range in the size of legislatures – some only having as few as 15 elected members – as well as the big difference in the average population per member.

Perhaps a lower number of state/regional legislators is tied to stronger local government, meaning the workload is spread out a bit more and justifying a smaller legislature. The general impression is that anything between 40-60 members per provincial legislature would be about right for Wales.

The exact number per province would be dependent on population, but something in the region of one member for every 15,000-20,000 people (about a third to a half of the population per Senedd member, and to the lower-end internationally) might be a good ballpark figure to aim for.

That would suggest Wales electing somewhere between 157-209 provincial assembly members in total. In a four-province model that works out to 39-52 members per assembly. In a five-province model, it falls to between 31-42 members – though the exact number will depend on the population in each province.

For municipal/county councillors (Part V, Part VI) the ratio would be lower – perhaps in the region of one councillor for every 4,000 people which is similar to Scotland. That suggests a total number of municipal councillors of around 785 across Wales (not counting possible municipal mayors). A minimum council size could be set at around 9 councillors and a maximum of around 35. More in Part IX.

Taken together – and assuming community councils were abolished and Wales adopted a municipality system – it’s a reduction in the number of elected local government members from around 9,254 as it stands today to between 942 and 994 (an up to 89% cut in the number of politicians). Please, save your applause.

More on whether councillors should be full-time, their pay and expenses and the cost of them etc. in Part VII.

Elections to provincial assemblies

More on electoral timetables and local democracy in Part XI.

As for how provincial assembly members would be elected, there are several options – though it would need to be proportional and involve large constituencies electing between 3-8 members each:

• Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) – Similar to how Senedd members are elected now. You elect constituency representatives and list members, with the number of constituency seats won used to calculate how many seats each party wins on the list.
• Closed-list proportional representation – The system is currently being proposed as part of electoral reforms to the Senedd, with voters voting for a party and the number of votes used to work out a proportional number of seats in each constituency, with the candidate ranked first on each party list elected first.
• Open-list proportional representation – As closed list, except voters would be able to vote for individual candidates to change the order in which they’re elected.
• Single transferable vote (STV) – Voters would rank candidates by preference, with lower-ranking candidates being gradually eliminated and their voter preferences redistributed until all members are elected.

Committees & Boards

As with local councils, members of the provincial assemblies that don’t have a government or official role would be appointed to committees.

Again similarly to local councils (Part II) the provincial assemblies committees would be responsible for both scrutinising the executive/government and making decisions.

To ensure there’s no confusion over what committee does what, it may be best to separate them into committees and boards.

Committees would be responsible for scrutiny. Boards would be responsible for making decisions on the province’s behalf (similarly to the regulatory committees, like planning committees, used by local councils).

To illustrate it further:

Taking everything together, the whole shebang could look something like this (based on 4 provinces and 53 municipalities – Part V). I recommend opening it in a new tab if you want a closer look.