Professor Dan Bristow examines the new Welsh Government’s approach
The new Welsh Government has already been accused of dragging its feet and being slow to take decisions. Is it guilty as charged?
Dafydd Trystan Davies, the Cabinet Minister for Government Effectiveness and the Constitution, recently gave a statement on his priorities to the Senedd, prompting accusations from opposition parties that echo criticism voiced during the election campaign that Plaid had a ‘plan to have plans’.
Political parties are expected to campaign for public office by setting out the ‘actions’ that they would take to address the issues they want to tackle. Instead, in many places, rather than setting out concrete actions, Plaid made a commitment to consider the best course of action.
Prioritisation is not simply about identifying what matters most; it is also about recognising what matters less. Every commitment carries an opportunity cost.
Given the pressures in health, education, housing or the economy, calls for rapid decisions are understandable, and promises of reviews, strategies and evidence gathering can sound like delay rather than progress.
Yet there is an important distinction between postponing decisions and preparing to make better ones. Governments that move quickly without a clear understanding of causes, constraints and implementation requirements can find themselves expending significant political capital on policies that do not deliver the intended results.
Public policy is littered with examples of election promises that failed to deliver meaningful change. Policies that sound good in a hustings, or in a media interview, or that have ‘cut through’ in an election campaign, will rarely (if ever) turn out to be the hoped-for silver bullet. Even ideas that aren’t forged in the white heat of an election campaign can fail to bring about change, if implementation isn’t woven into their design.
What does a focus on implementation look like in practice?
At the Wales Centre for Public Policy, we have some sympathy for the approach the new Welsh Government is taking. Our vision is for a Wales where decisions are based on the best available evidence, and our own report on effective policy making, ‘Implementation-minded policy making’, points to the need to carefully balance evidence, priorities and practical constraints. This takes time, but it is what turns ambition into successful policy.
In our work with policy makers at national and local levels in Wales, we try to support them as they navigate that triangulation of values, evidence and context. In practical terms, that means asking:
What problems do the political leaders want to focus on?
You can’t prioritise everything. To do so is to fail to prioritise, so what are the most important objectives? To its credit, the new Plaid Cymru Government has clearly articulated a set of priorities. But as we’ve seen at a UK Government level over the last couple of years, articulating priorities is not enough. These need to be followed through on, with ongoing investment of focus and effort across the machinery of government, including sustained investment of political capital.
Prioritisation is not simply about identifying what matters most; it is also about recognising what matters less. Every commitment carries an opportunity cost. Time devoted by ministers, civil servants and public bodies to one priority is time unavailable for another.
Effective governments therefore need mechanisms for resisting the accumulation of initiatives. New objectives are often added to existing workloads, creating a gap between political ambition and delivery capacity.
Syniadau uchelgeisiol, awdurdodol a mentrus.
Ymunwch â ni i gyfrannu at wneud Cymru gwell.
What does the evidence say about the scale and nature of the problem, and the range of options for addressing the problem?
It is vital that decision makers take the time to properly understand what the evidence tells us about what is driving the outcomes we’re seeing, but also to understand how evidence about effective approaches might be adapted to the Welsh context.
The real test of the new Welsh Government will not be whether it produced plans quickly, but whether those plans lead to measurable improvements in people’s lives.
The challenges facing Wales do not have simple solutions. They cut across health, care, education, housing, skills and economic development, with complex interactions between them. Many are systemic, requiring coordinated action on multiple fronts and at multiple levels.
And yet relevant evidence is often dispersed across different disciplines, organisations and sectors, and rarely points to a single, clear course of action. Making sense of that evidence requires time and expertise: bringing together insights from different sources, weighing their strengths and limitations, and translating them into practical choices for policy makers operating in a Welsh context.
What, given where we are now, is the right place to start?
In part this is a question about what is politically viable. It is also a question of available resources, especially given the current fiscal environment. But what gets less focus than it needs to is the question of what is feasible given the people, institutions, infrastructure, and environment in which the Welsh Government is operating.
A policy’s success depends not only on ministerial decisions but also on the organisations charged with delivering it. Schools, health boards, local authorities and other public bodies all operate under constraints of staffing, expertise and funding.
Understanding these realities does not mean lowering ambitions. Rather, it means designing change in a way that institutions can realistically absorb and sustain.
The real test of the new Welsh Government will not be whether it produced plans quickly, but whether those plans lead to measurable improvements in people’s lives. Speed matters, particularly when challenges are urgent, but outcomes matter more.
Gofod i drafod, dadlau, ac ymchwilio.
Cefnogwch brif felin drafod annibynnol Cymru.
Effective government requires both ambition and discipline: the ambition to pursue meaningful change and the discipline to understand how that change can be delivered. If a period of planning helps create policies that are more realistic, more evidence-informed and more likely to succeed, then it may prove to be time well spent.
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