Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Diolch. Bore da. How do you reflect on the commission's work over the last year? What has gone well, and what hasn't gone well? What challenges do you still see you have?

The last visit here to give evidence was in February last year, and I remember at that event talking about how we had some external factors that made it quite challenging, including having four Ministers over the course of that previous year. I'm very glad to say that we have had stability from that regard, and we have also had confirmation of budget, which has been extremely helpful. In previous years, we have had a bit of underspend, and that has been related, I think, to the fact that the Welsh Government and our programme office has been running around trying to find money down the back of the sofa, so to speak—

And how have you spent that money?

This year, we are on target to spend that money. As usual, that has gone partly on commissioner fees, partly on study tours and events, and partly on paying people to provide evidence that underpins the reports that we produce to provide the recommendations for the Welsh Government. As usual, we have carried out a whole suite of activity, including our study tours, where we went to talk to communities in Fairbourne about the effects that they have seen from being described as the first climate refugee community, which they feel was very damaging and unfair. There is some brilliant work going on up there, with a partnership between the local community and with public bodies.

We looked at the work in Barmouth on the replacement of the railway bridge, and saw what Gwynedd Council was doing for flood defences. But we have also visited Conwy and Anglesey to look at the repair of the breakwater in Holyhead following big storms, which meant that one of the berths there was out of action. We visited the former site of the aluminium plant there to see how Stena has purchased that as a huge vote of confidence in Anglesey and in the local economy. And in November, we visited Pontypridd, with the aim being to work with NRW and to understand some of the challenges they have with flooding. Ironically, that partnership with NRW was called off because there was a flood risk.

We have continued to do the usual suite of work, I would say, which is engaging with communities, businesses, and pushing the Welsh Government, continuing to push on our previous reports, as well as provide evidence and recommendations for new activity.

Thank you. One of the things that came up last time was the lack of reports and lack of data collection. Has that improved at all?

If you're talking about the Welsh Government assessment of our work, there were a number of things that came up in that. Some of them were about do we have key performance indicators, for example. So, yes, we have done work on that.

So, have you produced a report at the end of the year—like, now?

As usual, we do an annual report, so that's in the public domain, and our main report—

When was that?

The annual report was published last week, I think.

You had a copy in your papers for the committee, Janet.

That's the report you've got, Chair, is it?

No, that's the one that was circulated with the committee papers that you had last week.

Great, yes, that one, okay. Then, data collection, how are you improving on that?

There are a number of things that we're doing. One of the key things that was picked up by that assessment was on our KPIs. We're still working on how we implement those, but we have got a number that we're looking at. That would include how many of our recommendations are adopted by the Welsh Government, and we continue to push on that; some statistics on how we're engaging with communities; and how often the national infrastructure commission is mentioned in briefings or policy documents by the Welsh Government or other public bodies. So, we have got a suite of about 10 KPIs that we're going to be implementing.

Thank you. How would you reflect on your overall tenure as commissioners? Where do you believe and what examples can you prove where you've had the most influence?

I wish we had more influence, if I'm honest, because one of the things that I'll be talking about today is the fact that the Welsh Government is still rejecting a lot of our recommendations. We have some confusion, actually, sometimes about whether the Welsh Government is accepting our recommendations or rejecting them. Because when they respond to Senedd committee reports, they always say whether they've accepted in principle or rejected and so on, but when they respond to us, they just put text in there.

Actually, last year, we spent several months internally and externally trying to figure out whether they'd accepted or rejected our recommendations. That included where we felt, on the flooding report, they'd rejected most of them, but the flood and coastal erosion committee thought they'd accepted most of them. So, we're in a bit of a baffling position sometimes.

To come back to the main principles, I think that, overall, what we've done over the three years is demonstrate that the commission can deliver really effective outputs. That comes from a start where it was described to me that the Welsh Government wanted to 'kill' the infrastructure commission. I think we've gone a considerable way towards demonstrating that you should have confidence in what we carry out.

I think we've talked a lot about nature and community, because those are two things that are often overlooked in discussions about infrastructure. I can't emphasise strongly enough how important community is. That's why, when we do our study tours to places like Fairbourne and we hear from the community, we directly implement those into our reports. Helen will be able to talk at some length about what we've done this year with some brilliant work.

I think we've also demonstrated that we're actually implementing future generations ways of working, and we've been complemented by the future generations office on the way that we're implementing, for example, long-term thinking, collaborative work, working in public and transparency.

So, what we've done, I think, is created a brilliant framework for the next commission to take on. We will be pushing the new Welsh Government to invest further in this commission, because I think that we've demonstrated a big impact, and we can do more with a bit more resource.

Thank you. I'm done.

Thank you. I'll just bring Joyce in there as well.

I've read all the work you've done, especially the community work and the recommendations about the Green Book, but how do you manage expectations? You're going out to the community, you tell them that you're a commissioner, you tell them that you're the liaison body between that community and the Ministers, so I would imagine that their expectations are pretty high—that somebody's come to visit them who's important. How do you manage to explain to those communities that you can't fix everything that they'll want you to?

A great example of that was when we visited Crickhowell last year, or the year before last, and we were talking to people there who had been flooded. Of course, they saw us as another public body that had come in to fix things, or could fix things. Unfortunately, our influence isn't that strong, and we don't operate in a practical way. There was a bit of tension to start with, where we had to try and explain what we did. After that, it was brilliant, because, again, there was loads of feedback on how communities seem to be systemically overlooked from a statutory body point of view and how they would respond to flooding. I think that we brought some insights from that into the recommendations for our flooding work. I think Helen can speak to a lot of the work we've done on communities and how we break that down and, more importantly, how we continue that engagement. Do you want to mention quickly about Grangetown and how we're continuing our work there?

Yes, I can go on at length about what we're doing in Grangetown. That was a major focus of our work in 2025. We appointed the School of International Futures to do some work with three community groups there that were based in Grangetown pavilion. Those groups were the youth forum, and we have members of the youth forum here, who are 16, maybe even 14, to 25 or so. We have SEF Cymru, which is an intergenerational homeworking club that is really interested in trying to improve the educational attainment of young people in Grangetown, and an organisation called Green Soul, which is women who are interested in permaculture and eco—kind of growing things as well. People had no real engagement with climate, infrastructure, and, really, I think this is what we've been finding overall when we've been talking to people across Wales, people feel that they're just not being listened to; local knowledge isn't really being taken into account, they feel like they are being dismissed by Welsh Government and by other official bodies and so on.

So, our piece of work was really just to get underneath all of that, and do some really good listening, and consult people, in a creative way. So, people at the Love Grangetown event were telling us that consultation isn't hiring a hall, or sending us a leaflet, or having a pop-up stand, and not really listening, it's about getting into the organisations. And so, once we start doing that, with diverse groups as well, and creating different ways of consulting people, they really get into it, and they really understand what we're trying to do and what we're talking about, and the big issues that, maybe, infrastructure providers, officials, think are too difficult for the public to understand. People can really grasp them really easily when they're presented in an easy-to-understand way.

Have you made that recommendation?

We've made recommendations to make community consultation a much bigger part and a statutory part of infrastructure development. So, you know, start at the top with what we really want, because I think that we think that it's too slow, or it's too expensive, and the people are not really keen on engaging, and we're not finding that at all. And actually, infrastructure projects take ages anyway, so the idea that we haven't got enough time to consult is really because we're running on our timescales, not on those of the community.

Thank you for that. Before I come to Julie, can I just ask, then, on the confusion or ambiguity around the Welsh Government's responses to your recommendations—what does that tell you about the way the Government looks at your work, and how seriously it takes those recommendations?

I don't think that they really understand, sometimes, what we're recommending, if I'm honest. So, for example, with the first report, which was renewable energy, their initial response to us was very trivial, and it looked as though they'd literally looked at the headline recommendations, and not at the report with quite a significant body of evidence behind it, and not addressed any of the deeper underlying things that we were talking about. So, that's not helpful.

With flooding in particular, we were optimistic at the start, because we felt that we'd provided criticism in this body previously, that they would engage better. I don't think they really have and—[Interruption.]

Sorry. Janet, can you mute yourself, please?

So, we have met with the Minister and with civil servants a number of times, but we're still, for example, finding out things from random places. So, one of the recommendations we made on flooding was that we should have a Welsh flood forum, and we were told that they were investigating that, and they were talking to the UK flood forum about the feasibility of having it. Well, this week, two of us on the commission received a LinkedIn connection request from somebody who's doing that job now in the UK flood forum, which is good, but we're not informed about that. And there are a number of examples we have where things are happening where we're not told about it. So, there's a complete lack of communication, and I think, unfortunately, that demonstrates that we're not really considered to be an important stakeholder, or not important enough to be communicated with about this stuff.

Can I add to that? I think there are a couple of things that, from the outside, seem to be happening in Welsh Government. There's a major loss of technical expertise within Welsh Government, so where we make technical recommendations, where we're describing issues that are quite engineering-heavy alongside the community element, they're not fully understood. So, they're very much, as Dave said, addressed at the surface level. So, it's like, 'Oh, well, we're doing that.' And it's like, 'But if you were doing that, we wouldn't have these recommendations for you.' So, there's an element of that. And I think another good example is that we're the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales, and within Welsh Government, there's a director-level infrastructure group. We didn't know anything about that for several years. We didn't know about the Welsh Industrial Development Advisory Board for several years, and that only came about by chance of us having conversations with other people or seeing a LinkedIn post. And we were like, 'Wait a minute, how does this connect with the work we're doing?' And the answer is: it doesn't. So, we're having to try and pull all of those connections together, not just across Wales, but also into the rest of the UK as well, to actually be able to inform Welsh Government.

And then when the responses we get are, 'Well, we know all of this'—this isn't what we're hearing back from our professional advisory groups who inform all of our reports that we give to the Welsh Government with recommendations. So, there is a massive disconnect between what's happening on the ground and what the Welsh Government are perceiving as happening. So, that's a very honest answer.

Well, I mean, I'm glad that witnesses are honest with this committee, absolutely. [Laughter.] So, what does that say, then, about the best use of the £400,000-odd a year that they invest in your work? Because, clearly, if they want to get the best bang for their buck, they should take heed of your recommendations and not leave it to you to find out that other things are happening within Government.

It's a battle for us. So, we spend every day in a fight, which isn't really what we're here to try and do.

No, absolutely.

We are paid for by the Welsh Government to inform them independently, which is what our aim is. It's not to provide criticism, it's to say, 'If we want Wales to have better infrastructure, here are the things that we need to do to be a leading nation in that.' So, our view, and we can talk about it later on, is about how we develop over the next commission and what that means and how we then connect with our other groups like, for example, the future generations office and potentially what could be a future Welsh Development Agency or something similar, and what is then the relationship between these different groups and the structural frameworks for that.

Can I just add one more example? This is very briefly: we recommended years ago that all new energy projects in Wales should have a statutory obligation to offer up part of the ownership to local communities and to local businesses. We've been pushing that for years and in the latest communication we had from the Minister about it, she said, 'Well, there are—'. We pointed out Denmark's had this since 2010, roughly. She said, 'Well, you can't just pick up legislation from Denmark and implement it here.' Well, that's certainly not what we were saying. The point is that a Government, I think, that was really invested in ensuring that we got good value from these projects would have turned around and said, 'We immediately need to find out what's the best way for us to transpose that legislation into Welsh law', not saying, 'We're constantly keeping abreast of things internationally.' That doesn't mean anything. So, it's frustrating to have to keep going back.

Okay, and we'll come on to looking ahead and the future of the commission later on. So, thank you for that. Julie, thank you for your patience.

Diolch, and bore da. I was going to ask generally about the way that you work and how you decide what you're actually going to do, because you have told us before that after you've done what your remit letter tells you to do, you were setting your own work programme, and obviously we've heard a bit about that already today. So, how did you decide what your priorities were? How did you set that programme?

So, the first two years were set out in the remit letter—renewable energy and flooding, and flooding was part of the co-operation agreement, I think, with Plaid Cymru. The third-year work—we decided, seeing as this was going to be kind of a bit of a transition, hopefully to have the next commission taking on some of our work, that we would look at the five infrastructure sectors in Wales and provide a snapshot of how each of those are performing. The objective of that was directly to support for the next commission to be able to say, 'Okay, well, for example, water is the least well performing out of the five sectors. That's the area we should look at for the next year or two.' So, we've set up a foundation to enable future work to be based on evidence.

Prior to that report being published, which will happen in March, we are looking at our work for next year and we are potentially interested, I think, in looking at the idea for an economic regulator for Wales, based on the outcomes of the Cunliffe review, which said that Ofwat was going to be abolished and that we should have a very different way of regulating the water sector. So, I think that Welsh Government is looking at an overall economic regulator. So, that would be something of interest, but we haven't yet fully decided what we're going to be doing next year. We've got a meeting next week where that's going to be established.

And when you set that programme, do you discuss it with Welsh Government, or—?

Yes, we continue to engage with Welsh Government. So, for example, several times over the last years, when we've put our draft proposal to them, sometimes they say, 'Well, we're already working on that.' So, for example, with the renewable energy projects, one of the things that we found was very important was skills and training, which come up across every infrastructure sector, and they advised us not to focus on skills and training, because they were already carrying out a net-zero skills policy. So, we excluded that and then waited to see what came out of that policy. So, we're very mindful of not duplicating existing work and trying to add value.

So, you have good liaison in that respect.

Yes, and our programme officers are brilliant at finding the right people within Welsh Government to find out what's going on, because, from an external body perspective, sometimes it's quite difficult to know who's doing what. So, we do have good engagement.

Great. And you've also said that you've had very good relationships with the UK National Infrastructure Commission. And so, since the new creation of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, NISTA, how has that altered things?

Yes, so that's me. I meet with NISTA every quarter and we discuss the work that they're doing and the work that we're doing, and we've maintained that throughout the commission's life. We've gone through that transition with them, if you like, and understood how difficult it's been and what has changed for their commission, for example, what they no longer do—so, the infrastructure assessment is something that's actually disappeared—and what they are also now involved with within NISTA and being based within the Treasury as well, and that sort of relationship and understanding it more.

There are some pieces of work that they're doing that are really interesting for us in Wales. So, one is looking at pipelines. So, one of the things that comes up in all of the work that we do, both in the commission and actually my work in Industry Wales as well, is around needing to understand what the pipeline for infrastructure is, in terms of supporting our businesses to understand what skills or supply chains they may need to develop to be able to get involved with those. And they have a—. I don't know whether you know this, but there used to be a pipeline website for Wales, but it hasn't really been updated since about 2024, so there's very little understanding of what is actually upcoming in Wales. And we also know that construction is probably our largest area, particularly around homes and commercial buildings—it's one of the main areas where we've got pipeline for infrastructure, rather than in roads and rail and that kind of thing.

So, they have a pipeline tool that they have developed, which currently looks primarily at England, but it is being expanded out to look at what's happening within devolved nations as well. And it is also planning to move in the future from not just public sector-funded and commissioned projects, but into private sector. So, they're trying to build a much bigger picture of the pipeline for infrastructure across the whole of the UK. So, it's a really useful tool, and it's one on which, potentially, Wales can consider how it works with NISTA on that project.

They also have a spatial tool, and that spatial tool is quite complex and multilayered—and I won't get into too much detail on it, because I'm not the expert here—looking at everything from data around energy, to road networks, to social infrastructure, so every layer of our infrastructure in the UK, and they have started with the data build from England's information. And they're very open to the idea that we could use the work that we're doing on our local energy maps, on our corporate joint committees' work around the planning system and what their expectations for development in those regions are, to benefit from their spatial plan as well. It's a good way for Wales to think about, possibly, how we don't have to pay to develop the whole system ourselves, but that we can have full access to the information there. So, there's a lot of work across the board that NISTA are doing that we can actually benefit from, and we should be looking at how we do that.

Okay, thank you. Carolyn wanted to come in. I'm not sure if it was on this, Carolyn, but certainly I know that you want to come in with another question as well.

It's just so interesting. As the conversations are progressing, lots of questions are coming into my head. We have the national underground asset register, which is supposed to be developed by the UK Government, but also, with the Children, Young People and Education Committee, we're looking at pathways into post-16 education and what skills are needed as well for all of these developments, with lots of discussions on that and lots of reports as well on what skills are needed. So, both infrastructure physically but also infrastructure in skills as well is needed for all of this development. I just wonder how you link in with other organisations.

My question is about the nature guardian, but I just want to touch on what you mentioned about nature and community. I'm really pleased that you're focusing on that as well, and I just wonder how you work with environmental organisations and landowners, and NRW. Audit Wales did a report on biodiversity loss, and we've got the Local Places for Nature funding, the Nature Networks funding and the Wildlife Trusts deliver that. So, you could be going into communities and seeing that there are gaps and people in the community feel that they're not being listened to, but there are organisations already working there. So, how do you link it all up and make sure that there's not duplication?

That's quite a good question. We're only three days a month, or five days for myself and Jen, so there's a limit to what we can do in terms of actually going out to all of these organisations, but we do work closely at a collaborative level with Wales Environment Link and other environmental organisations. I think that a number of them are coming to our event on Nature on the Board tomorrow, which I hope as many of you Senedd Members as possible will be able to attend as well.

I wish I could. I'm chairing another committee, or I would have come to it.

We're hoping to video it, so you might be able to get something from that. Where possible, we try to engage widely with experts, and I think a very good example of that would have been where we went to Bannau Brycheiniog the year before last and we had brilliant engagement there with people who are doing astonishing things with land management. And so, again, this is a theme we keep coming back to: how can we manage our agricultural land in a way that, yes, delivers food but also delivers multiple other benefits—so, flood risk reduction, better carbon sequestration. There are some amazing examples in Wales and, again, some of our frustration with the Welsh Government's response is that, when we see this good practice and the Welsh Government agrees, 'Oh, there's some good practice going on there', they don't seem to want to immediately scale up that activity and divert funding to those projects. Natural flood management would be another good example of things where we can see multiple benefits.

Can I just interrupt there, David, a minute?

Yes.

There is funding going into seagrass, into the seagrass project—that's flood prevention—and into peatland restoration, and we're hoping, Joyce and I—. There's the release of beavers on the uplands. So, there are some projects that we know of, and I guess it's just about feeding it all in and understanding what you're doing as well, I feel.

I think the frustration is that, where there have been successful pilots, why that isn't then being strategically adopted across the whole of Wales. So, we've seen things like—. For example, one of the things that we said about renewable energy was that the Welsh Government and local authorities should consider how they can pool resources, expert resources, on renewables instead of having each local authority do their thing. Well, that's worked really well in areas of north Wales, but that's not then been adopted elsewhere. There are examples of very good work on catchment, with pilots for catchment management for flood risk and water management, which are then not widespread, or at least we don't seem to understand what the programme is for developing those at a rapid speed. So, we feel that there's a lack of urgency around implementing things that have been shown to be successful, and it's a bit difficult for us to understand why.

I think that, as a commission, we'd go one step slightly further than this and say that, in Wales, we declared both a climate and nature emergency, but the response to how to manage that is not happening. So, there's no urgency, there's no emergency, and we would say, in that case, 'Why do we continue to say that we're declaring a nature and a climate emergency if we're not actually reacting to it, because it's a performative exercise? So, where we make those recommendations—. In particular, the Usk partnership is a really good example of how farmers, the national park and others are all working together to retain water within the landscape so it doesn't flood the villages below. That's a really easy thing for us to share with our farming communities, with our national parks, and others, to ensure that we are rolling that out across Wales. It does require some funding, but it's fairly minimal. They're talking about knocking trees over and just leaving them there. We're not talking about major amounts of grey infrastructure. And what we're struggling with is the lack of urgency. It's just non-existent. So, you may as well—

I disagree with you. I believe things are being done, but more could be done as well.

Things are being done. They have been being done for 20 years. It's the scale of what we're talking about, and it's that lack of ability to see how big and how much has to be done to make a real difference. So, I think that's the point we're trying to get across.

Thank you. Okay, Carolyn, we have to move on.

It's—

Sorry, Carolyn, time is against us. We're going to have to move on, I'm afraid. Can I ask you about the review that the Welsh Government undertook in 2024? There were a number of actions coming out of that. Can you give us an update on progress on responding to some of those?

Yes.

And, as well, how is that being monitored on an ongoing basis?

So, there were, I think, about six recommendations. There were terms of reference for meetings, which we've implemented, lessons-learned approach to commission reporting, which I think was very valuable, because, as we've said a number of times, we don't feel that we've had a great response from the Welsh Government on our recommendations. So, one of the things that we're doing with this report—this year's report—as a result, is engaging much earlier with the Welsh Government, ahead of their formal response, to see whether we can influence that at an earlier stage in the process.

We've increased the amount of attention we spend on risk management and processes. So, every meeting we have a deep-dive into one of the risks, and there was a comment about providing written updates on the projects ahead of the commission meeting, so we do that now, instead of just having them as verbal updates.

So, we continue to carry out the things that we think are very good practice. It's highly transparent—all our minutes are published very soon after the meetings. There are declarations of interest in every meeting, and, between meetings, we update everybody's declarations on the website, so if anybody's interested in any of the commissioners, you just have to click on their profile and you will see all of their current declarations. And what we will be doing, and the last one for us to adopt, really, is the success factor—so, for example, the timeliness of the Welsh Government to respond to our reports, the recommendation response rate, the percentage of stakeholders rating our performance as 'useful' or 'very useful'. So, we're going to be continuing our annual survey.

So, we're mindful of all of those things, and I think we've adopted all of them.

Okay. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you. Right, Delyth.

Diolch, Cadeirydd, a bore da. Mae'n flin gen i roeddwn i ychydig o funudau'n hwyr yn cyrraedd y bore yma.

Just to start, I'm fascinated by this concept that comes up time and again not just in your work, but in what you say to us as a committee about how infrastructure is not only about buildings and pipes, it's about people as well. The irony is not lost on us that some of the connections between the work that you're doing, the recommendations that you're doing, are not always being made or implemented. So, that isn't lost on us.

Felly, diolch am y gwaith rŷch chi'n ei wneud. Dwi eisiau gofyn i chi am yr adroddiad addasu i'r hinsawdd. Allwch chi plîs siarad ni drwy rai o'ch prif ganfyddiadau, yn enwedig hefyd eich penderfyniad i weithio gyda chontractwyr allanol fel Arup a'r Ysgol Dyfodol Rhyngwladol. Mae ei henw nhw yn Saesneg, gyda llaw, dwi'n meddwl, yn un o'r enwau gorau ar unrhyw gorff yn y byd—the School of International Futures. Allwch chi siarad ni drwy rai o'r prif ganfyddiadau, a pham roeddech chi'n meddwl bod e'n bwysig i weithio gyda'r contractwyr allanol yn hyn?

Wel, rŷn ni angen gweithio efo contractwyr allanol, achos dyw e ddim yn bosib i gael pob arbenigedd yn fewnol yn y comisiwn sydd ei angen i wneud y gwaith i gyd ar y seilwaith rŷn ni eisiau'i weld dros Gymru. Felly, rŷn ni'n falch iawn, dros y blynyddoedd, ein bod ni wedi gweithio gyda sawl cwmni peirianwyr, ac yn y blaen, i'n helpu ni gyda thystiolaeth i wneud argymhellion i Lywodraeth Cymru.

Beth rŷn ni'n sôn amdano o ran addasiad i newid hinsawdd yw ei bod ni i gyd wedi gweld yn barod effaith newid hinsawdd, yn anffodus, efo llifogydd, efo mwy o wres sy'n achosi problemau yn ystod yr haf. Dŷn ni ddim yn teimlo bod yr addasiad wedi cael y pwys cyfartal efo mitigation, os ydyn ni'n sôn am bolisi cynllunio a buddsoddiad. Ac felly, rŷn ni'n gweld, ac mae'r dystiolaeth yn dangos, bod mwy o risg efo llifogydd, mwy o dymheredd uchel, mwy o straen ar y seilwaith i gyd ar draws Cymru. Felly, rŷn ni angen meddwl mwy am addasu, ac, ar hyn o bryd, rŷn ni'n teimlo nad oes fframwaith sydd yn gyfartal a does dim digon o fuddsoddiad. Felly, rŷn ni eisiau cael rhywbeth sydd fwy fel arweinydd rhyngwladol ar addasiad, a dyna pam rŷn ni wedi gofyn am y Bil am addasiad newid hinsawdd, ac i drio cael mwy o benderfyniadau sydd yn adlewyrchu'r problemau sy'n mynd i fod yng Nghymru yn yr hirdymor. Dŷn ni ddim yn teimlo bod y polisïau ar hyn o bryd yn mynd i ystyried effeithiau, efallai, 50 mlynedd yn y dyfodol. Felly, ydyn ni'n datblygu seilwaith sydd yn helpu ni i addasu ar gyfer beth sy'n mynd i ddod yn yr hirdymor? Dyw e ddim rili yn gwneud lot o synnwyr i wneud gwaith sy'n addas ar gyfer 20 mlynedd yn y dyfodol. Felly, dyna pam y gwnaethon ni lot o argymhellion am fuddsoddiadau, gweithio gyda'n gilydd, rhannu data ac ati yn yr hirdymor.

Dwi'n teimlo, os ydyn ni'n gweithio fel hyn, ein bod ni'n mynd i leihau'r costau yn y dyfodol. Roedd Janet yn gofyn y cwestiwn yn gynharach am werth £400,000 yn cael ei wario efo'r comisiwn seilwaith. Dwi'n gobeithio y bydd ein hargymhellion ni yn lleihau, yn fawr iawn, y costau sy'n mynd i fod yn y dyfodol. Ac, wrth gwrs, mae'n anodd i ni ddweud nawr y bydd pobl, efallai, sydd ddim yn mynd i gael llifogydd yn y dyfodol achos ein gwaith neu ein hargymhellion ni. Rydyn ni'n methu cyfrif hyn fel outcomes o beth ni'n wneud nawr, ond dyna beth rydyn ni'n gobeithio bydd yn dod allan o'n gwaith ni.

Mae hynny'n rili diddorol, diolch.

We saw that with RAAC, didn't we, the short-termism so often in decisions that are made and not being able to see further into the future. Do you think, in terms of exactly what you were pointing out, that too much focus, maybe, is on mitigation rather than adaptation? And you were talking about how it's not—. My question was going to be exactly what you were just talking about, in terms of the risks of the climate and nature emergencies that we can see stretching out, yes, over the next 100 years, but also the things that are happening now. We often talk about once-in-a-century floods that are happening almost yearly. I presume, from what you've already said, that you don't think the Government is doing enough, but is there anywhere in the world that you think is doing that work that we should be looking to? You've already mentioned individual examples, like what's being done in Denmark with some things, which aren't always picked up. Is there a blueprint for anywhere that has similar topography to Wales, where you think those are lots of innovative ideas and they are thinking in terms of the longer term, but also how we need to be adapting our plans for adaptation as well, because they're always being confounded by how tempestuous things are?

I can't give you a country that's very much like Wales, but I can give you one that's very different where you can still learn lessons and that's the Netherlands. So, of course, they live with a permanent risk of flooding and low-level country, and they've done extraordinary things with working with nature and with their waterways rather than concreting them up. There are clear examples of perhaps how we should be adopting a number of the ways that they work. Again, working with nature shouldn't be seen as just a distraction from the main duty of building hard infrastructure. It should be absolutely fundamental to our response. So, that's one example.

I think, to come back to the more general point, clearly, the Welsh Government understands risk and they understand systems thinking. There's a lot to cover and, in the instance of flooding, that's a very complex area. But there's always a delivery gap. The Welsh Government comes up with very good policies, often without being implementable in some way, without ownership and accountability, or distributed in a way that doesn't seem to make any sense. There's perhaps a timidity in saying, 'Are these systems fit for purpose? If not, then how do we alter them?' Jen, I don't know if you've got any additional thoughts.

Yes. I would say as well that adaptation isn't just about flooding. So, for example, in our Valleys communities, water causes landslip and tip slip, and that's a very big part of how we need to consider adaptation as well. Some of the ways in which we deliver the systems for delivery are the parts where I think we're struggling at the moment in Wales. We can see in other nations that they're very good at delivering infrastructure. We know, for example, in the Republic of Ireland, they've been delivering huge amounts of infrastructure recently. And they have probably, in some ways, I guess, similar topography in places.

So, it comes down to the system. So, one of the reports we've looked at—or we're looking at at the moment, which isn't published yet; but I can give you some brief headlines—is understanding what the enablers and barriers are to infrastructure delivery in Wales. And we've looked at five different projects. Some have been completed easily, some have been completed in difficult ways, some have never been completed. And we're trying to understand what creates a good project and why do we do that well and where have we really struggled. And I'll just give you some headlines. I can't go through all of this because there's a lot, but I'll give you some from Pen y Cymoedd windfarm. So, this is a good example. So, some of the key insights—. And the role of engagement, because we're talking about that today, is really big here. And I apologise; I forgot my glasses this morning, so I'm—

Oh, no.

Yes. I'll do my best. But—

A mystery tour.

Yes, exactly. So, some of it will be real evidence and some of it, I'll just be—. [Laughter.] No. It's all real. So, one of the main points that they came back with on the role of engagement was that personal agendas drove inefficiencies at a senior level and agreement and they were disconnected, then, at operational level. So, these are the personal agendas of those people commissioning Pen y Cymoedd. Early engagement by regulators was often declined. So, the company who want to develop Pen y Cymoedd went to the regulator and said, 'We want to engage with you early; we want to do these things,' and they said, 'No, thank you very much.' Okay. So, that causes a delay there.

A shared vision improved collaboration and direction. So, here's an enabler. And one of the things that the infrastructure commission has said in every report is that Wales doesn't give a clear vision of our expectation for our lives in 10, 15 years' time. What will it look like? Even in five years' time, what will change and how will people live their lives in Wales? So, that clear vision for Pen y Cymoedd made it, actually, much easier for the delivery, because everyone understood what they were doing. And there's something very similar about the A465 as well—the Heads of the Valleys—where that shared vision actually enabled that to happen. Different issues on that; I won't go into it.

And then strong leadership within authorities made a positive impact. So, within those three—I think it's three—local authorities that it sits across, they all gave strong leadership: 'We want this; let's do it.' And then contractors provided exemplary engagement and training within the local community. So, they worked really hard within those Valleys communities to help them understand what would happen, particularly during the construction phase. Because they're very narrow roads, they had school times, they needed to have escorts for parts of the wind turbines that were going up to that site.

So, you can see where there are really positive elements and really negative elements. And it's how we build that system for delivery for Wales that connects up not just the different organisations, but the structures within Welsh Government that allow it. So, for example, the planning group will not necessarily be with the economic development group. Even though they maybe sit under the same Cabinet Secretary, they're not actually the same department. And so it's understanding how you improve those connections and how you improve those relationships. So, there may be—. And there may be something in—. And I didn't say this out loud. You can't phone the Welsh Government very easily and you can't connect with them very easily. It's all by e-mail. So, you're very much on the back foot when trying to deliver infrastructure. So, there's a lot of different elements to it.

That's useful.

Thank you. I'm very conscious of time. Joyce, you wanted to come in.

There is a way, and it's a comprehensive development plan that incorporates all the things you've just talked about, and that would solve it. Also, a spatial development plan—which used to happen, because I used to sit on it, as well. So, there are ways, and those ways exist and they should be happening. So, there's the weaknesses. There is a system that should deliver, but somehow the system has become weakened, is what I would say. And I noticed you—. The Pembrokeshire coastal forum—. I noticed one of the recommendations in it is creating a chief participation officer role. Well, that role should already exist, is what I'm saying to you, anyway. So, it's about direction from that authority.

So, my question, then, is: in terms of the development plans and the spatial development plans, have you examined them and the way they work? Because I think that would be perhaps useful to us, and Government, if those are failing, because that's the job they were supposed to be doing.

So, some of that may come out of this report, which will be released at our infrastructure symposium at the end of March, and there will be some detail about how the systems support each other. There's a lot on the interconnectedness of different infrastructure, which is often missed out. So, for example, if you're building a windfarm and a road is happening at the same time nearby, are there ways that you can create efficiencies in that process? We don't actually have a way of understanding exactly—. And that's the pipeline issue: we don't have a really good way of understanding what's happening and how we get the best benefit and value for money for Wales through our infrastructure planning.

Thank you.

Thank you. Right. Okay. We're just over halfway through our allocated time, and we're nowhere near halfway through the areas that we wish to cover, so I'll just ask Members and our witnesses to keep that in mind. But thank you for what you are telling us; we do appreciate it, obviously. Okay. Carolyn, we'll come to you next.

Planning used to come under climate change, but now it comes under economic development. Do you think that is causing an issue now, so it's being looked at through an economic development lens, rather than a climate change lens?

I didn't hear the very first part of what you said. What's moved from climate change?

Planning.

Planning.

So, planning has moved from climate change—it was under the massive climate change umbrella—to economic development.

No. As a general principle, I think it's probably a good thing, because the developers are where the challenge is happening and where the planning system is perhaps holding developers up or—. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because you have to make sure that you do your due diligence—you wouldn't ever want to take that away—but, actually, the system is quite old fashioned, so it's a way of how you actually modernise it to meet the needs of new developers. However, they're still actually two separate departments. They're not sat next to each other in an office discussing these challenges. And I think that's lost now. We're losing that ability to bump along together and say, 'Hey, did you know about this project? We're having a planning issue here', and then for the planners to say, 'Oh, actually, did you know that if you do it this way, you can solve that problem?' Because those people are not actually together.

Can I come in with something else on that?

Very briefly.

I just want to say that it feels to me as though Wales is miles behind England when it comes to adopting new technologies in planning. So, we're very fortunate to have had several meetings with somebody from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in the UK Government, who are rolling out very, very fast an adoption of AI to help address responses to consultations and planning within local authorities in England. The outcome tends to be marginally better when AI is used, rather than the human, and the improvements in response time are astonishing—something like a couple of per cent of what it would have taken a human to do it. And I'm the one, it seems to be at the moment, who's sharing that good practice in Wales. So, I share with the Town and Country Planning Association, with the Welsh Local Government Association and with the Welsh Government. And our approach to using AI in planning is trying to find ways to enable people to submit planning applications easier, which is utterly trivial compared to the fact that people are still in Wales spending literally thousands of hours assessing responses to consultations. So, when there's good practice literally next door, and we're saying to Welsh Government and to partners in Wales, 'Why aren't you looking at this?'—. You know, it doesn't seem to be being adopted. So, I just feel like there are huge, huge benefits for planning, huge cost savings, and I would love to see those sorts of technologies being adopted.

Particularly around open data sources as well.

Okay. Thank you.

You've previously recommended the establishment of a climate adaptation and resilience fund. What would you like that to be spent on? What are you asking for that investment to be made in?

I think the key thing is, really, to ensure that adaptation avoids future damage. Part of the reason why we find it so difficult to carry out work for adaptation is that it doesn't easily fit into a Green Book-type approach, where you need to demonstrate value for money according to current metrics. We've criticised the Green Book; we've written to Rachel Reeves about that and not had a response. But we think that having a climate adaptation resilience fund would enable Welsh Government to spend on things that are seen fit for Wales, that fit with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. We could spend it across various sectors, combine with different budgets and departments. Things that are currently difficult to fund because they sit within a single department mechanism—we think that a multisector fund could be far more flexible. So, again, you might want to start that as a pilot, test its efficacy, and, if it works, adopt it and expand it rapidly. So, the whole thing against how do you determine long-term value for money against existing metrics mitigates massively against the fact that you can't prove somebody isn't going to get flooded in the future from spending this money. But, nonetheless, we know that those are the sorts of outcomes that we're trying to achieve.

I missed a question earlier about nature guardians. You've appointed a nature guardian. Will you be making a formal evaluation of the approach? Would you see a benefit in having nature guardians or nature champions, biodiversity champions, at different levels of Government?

Yes, so, we will be reporting tomorrow at our event on two reports on how we've had a nature guardian and what the implications are for other public sector bodies. I think our experiment has shown that we would probably want to continue and develop that experiment within the infrastructure commission. I think that it would be up to every public or private body to consider how it would work for them, but I think we've had a brilliant experience. It's been really interesting. We're not talking about radical changes in direction, and this is the key thing. We're talking—. Somebody did a great ship analogy: maybe it's changed our direction a couple of per cent, a couple of degrees, and on day one there's no difference, but by six months and by a year the course you're charting is considerably different to where you would have been had you not had this constant reminder and engagement with nature being in the room. So, I think I speak for the commission when we say that it's been both interesting and valuable, and we're going to continue to do work in this area.

Apologies, I can't be there tomorrow, but I'm really interested in this. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Carolyn. Thank you. Your new climate adaptation report has a number of recommendations, of course, and it's work that's making an important contribution. But we are getting to the end of a Senedd and things tend to drop off a cliff when it comes to maybe having the impact that you would like. So, how are you hoping that that work not only has an impact in the remaining time of this current Government but, certainly, moving into the next Senedd?

I have to say that I doubt there will be much impact within this Senedd on what we report, because we're still awaiting the Welsh Government's feedback to our recommendations, and, frankly, they will be out of time by the time it comes; we'll be into the pre-election period. So, I think the biggest impact that we can have from that report will be on influencing potential members of, future Ministers within, Welsh Government and with third parties, with whom we engage frequently on this kind of stuff. I think the feedback we've had, particularly from the community engagement side and from the toolkit, have been absolutely brilliant. We know, because we've talked to people from communities that we engage with in Grangetown, that the legacy impact of what we've done there has meant that children who would once have been playing out on the street at night, the parents not perhaps knowing what they're up to, are now engaged in educational groups after school. There are great benefits. I'll have to defer to Helen to talk about that in a bit more detail. But I think that one thing is to say: what are the impacts, what's Welsh Government going to do as a result? The other is what other people are doing with it. I think the toolkit has been—. It's a brilliant, brilliant piece of work, and it has been adopted elsewhere. But I am going to pass over to Helen, to see if she's got any comments on that.

Well, you've got one—.

We have indeed, yes. [Laughter.]

We haven't really printed them out, because we wanted people to download them and use them off the website. We've made available, these resources, far and wide. We haven't got any analytics from the website in terms of how many have been downloaded, sadly, but we have had word-of-mouth recommendations and people talking about it quite a lot. So, that's something that we'll want to continue to push. We didn't want this project to be extractive and sort of exploit the people in Grangetown, who were really kind and positive in giving us their time and being involved in the projects. We've got three legacy projects going on with each of those groups now, to enable them to develop what we've already started a bit further and take it on for themselves. So, with a little bit of money going to those community groups, they are able to develop their skills, build on their experience, and roll out, using this toolkit, with other members of the community. So, we're really excited to see that build as well.

Okay. We have spoken quite a bit about engagement earlier, so thank you for that. So, we'll move on then to Joyce.

To Janet. No—me, sorry.

No, no, Joyce.

Right, engagement with other bodies. We know that bodies are changing, and you will also know that the UK Climate Change Committee is going to publish its report on climate change risk assessment in May. Are you hopeful that your findings on climate adaptation will be reflected in that assessment?

Yes.

Yes. [Laughter.]

'Yes' is fine.

Yes, we met with the UK Climate Change Committee just before Christmas. Baroness Brown, who is chair of the adaptation committee, came to Grangetown to look at the work that's being done there, so we had a good conversation. And I think the previous assessment for Wales was perhaps not the most positive, so we're hoping that some of the work that we're doing in trying to push some of that agenda will help support a slightly better outcome.

And Baroness Brown spoke with us as a committee as well during that same visit, which was very, very valuable.

And you did tell us previously that you engaged with the Welsh Government when you produced the 2024 climate adaptation strategy. So, in light of the work you've now undertaken, what is your assessment of that strategy?

As I said earlier, I think Welsh Government understands the risks and takes them seriously, but we still feel as though there are big gaps in delivery, as though—. Ownership of governance with responses to climate change impacts is confused. One of the things we recommended, for example, was a water commissioner within our flooding report, because we saw huge fragmentation—just as one example of a climate change response. Welsh Government said they didn't see the need for that, and they would wait until after the Cunliffe review to respond, and, again, this is another frustration. We felt that was, 'Okay, let's wait for that', and now that's come and gone. There was one response, I think, from the Minister, saying, 'Now we're going to look at it again', and I only found out yesterday, buried within a UK Government report on water, that Welsh Government is producing a Green Paper on this.

So, again, to Jen's point, we feel there's a lack of urgency and a lack of information sharing. We have to find these things out from third parties or from UK Government. So, Welsh Government might well be doing very good things in a number of these areas, but nobody seems to know. It's like some kind of state secret. I think our expectations of what Welsh Government is doing would be much improved were we to be aware of them, which is stating the obvious, but that's not the case at the moment. So, I think—

Sorry. How could that be done practically, then? That's the question.

We know the officials, for example, who are working on flooding. We've had meetings with them, and every time there's an update of something that we've recommended, the easiest thing in the world is to send us an e-mail or pick up the phone and talk to us. At the moment, that's not happening, so it appears to be that all of the engagement is initiated by us to Welsh Government.

Yes, okay.

So, one of those recommendations that I would expect to see is about engagement of all bodies working in this space, so that you're all—. I don't know that you've actually said that in your recommendation, but, for us, taking your work and your evidence forward, it seems obvious and clear to me that that needs to happen somehow, because there are layers here. You talk about improving planning systems. Well, they probably have improved, but you don't know, it seems to me, and reviewing planning policy might have happened, but you don't know. So, that's a bit of a problem for you, and it's a problem for us when we're assessing all of these constituent parts.

Added in to that, we've talked about the high-end bodies that deal with issues, particularly in planning because we're talking about infrastructure, but then we've also got the local decision making, and very often—in fact, in every case I've ever come across—when you're trying to do some large-scale development on renewable energy, it becomes very political immediately, as it is now in mid Wales. So, there has to be some recognition about that as well, that there are lots of players apart from the Government, and maybe some recommendations in terms of how you handle those things, and also what we have devolution over and what we don't. So, it seems clear to me that there's a lack of understanding. I'm not saying it's your fault, because the information isn't at your fingertips. Do you think that's a fair assessment?

I think devolution obviously adds a bit of complexity, where some things are devolved, some not. Energy is a very good example of that. My concern, particularly on things like net zero and renewable energy, is that what we used to have was a political consensus, I think, and that's starting to break down. And part of my frustration with, for example, no movement on a mandatory offer of community investment within energy projects is that, once again, people think things are being done to them for no gain locally. So, they see projects being put up and feel that the energy is mostly being exported, which is probably true, and ‘Where's our stake in this?’ And I think unless you can demonstrate some way, some mechanism where that money stays in the local community, we are at some risk of a breakdown in agreement on the importance of net zero.

But the complexities are in every sector. Flooding was another great example, where nobody seemed to know who was responsible for what when it came down to it. That's probably a gross insult to the people who work in the sector, but for anybody else, it's very complex. And I think when we talk about catchment approaches, we still have local authority involvement, NRW involvement, things are on political boundaries and they're on other boundaries. How much simpler would it be if we had a catchment approach, which they seem to be going ahead with rapidly in England, to make responses based on the watercourses and where the water falls?

So, yes, I agree there's a lot of complexity and devolution can create additional complexity, but there's absolutely no reason why we can't respond in an appropriate way.

I would agree with that, and I'd also say I don't think devolution is that difficult. One of our case studies is the electrification of rail, which as you will know is probably one of the most complicated issues that devolution deals with. And in our report we look at the way the main line electrification was managed versus the core Valleys lines, and the difference between those and how it was approached and what the challenges are.

I would say that I completely agree that all of those elements of the structural frameworks need to somehow be pulled together more comprehensively. But I think we've been talking about that in Wales for 20 years, about how we actually remove silo working for a small nation. So, I completely agree. I think there are other elements around politics, and politics is seen as a barrier within the ability to deliver infrastructure, because sometimes it's about just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, whether it's with each other or whether it's with England. And I think that that has been identified in lots of the case studies that we've got as a real problem, and why it's so slow to deliver within Wales itself.

So, there are lots of elements, alongside, 'Do we use all of our devolved powers in the best way possible? Are we actually maximising our opportunity here in Wales by doing the difficult work that might require changing some of our laws, perhaps, to actually enable that?' And I think sometimes, when I've had those conversations with officials, that has been put in the 'too difficult' category, rather than, 'Let's do the work, let's make the change and let's make it better for Wales.' So, I think there's quite a lot to unpick in what you've just said, and I'm sure that you probably spend quite a lot of time discussing that as well.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Joyce. Right, we have three other areas that we wish to cover in about 25 minutes, and one of them obviously is looking forward as to where the commission goes next, so I want to give that the time it deserves. But, first of all, I'll call Janet. Do you want to lead us into another area of questioning, please? There we are.

I think you've been quite clear with us today, because my question was: how do you reflect on the Welsh Government's response to your 2024 flooding report? And I get it, that you're not too impressed by the responses you've received from the Welsh Government, so therein lies the problem. But the Welsh Government told you it would address some of your flooding report recommendations in response to the Cunliffe review. Given that the response has now been published, do you feel that your original recommendations have been appropriately addressed, or are we to assume now, from what you've said, that they haven't been appropriately addressed?

Not to our satisfaction. So, it's been 15 months or so since we published the recommendations, and in general, as I say, we've had to push for information and meetings with the Welsh Government, rather than finding out from them about what's happening, which is not terribly helpful.

I think the biggest issue for us is really about being strategic. So, to come back to the issue we had also with energy, where's the long-term vision and strategy for this? On strategic leadership, for example, we said there was a gap in the system-planning function, which is why we suggested a water commissioner. Welsh Government acknowledged this, and then they deferred a decision pending the Cunliffe review, and then the Cunliffe review came and went, and we still don't know anything other than what I found out yesterday about a Green Paper being published, but we don't know when. So, yes, it's great to have that acknowledgement, but let's have some action.

The long-term vision isn't there, really. There's a 2020-30 strategy and an adaptation plan, but we don't seem to see any framework that helps us understand where there might need to be a decision on whether you defend, adapt or retreat in terms of local communities, certainly not out towards a timescale of 2050, which I think would be very helpful.

Catchment delivery we've talked about. Nature-based solutions, I think, is—. Again, we talked about the nature emergency, but this is a good investment, so good rhetoric. I think the Minister spoke very well about this, and speaks very well about it, but I think that although the funding has been increased for nature-based solutions, there could be much more done and faster, which seems to be a win across all sorts of different areas.

The agency of community, again, I think is something that is understood and not properly implemented, and we would like to see formal roles for ways in which communities can have an influence upon flood management and flood adaptation.

On skills, we don't really see any action or investments, particularly for the floods and water sector. Now, I know every infrastructure sector is facing skills shortages, so there's a limit to what Welsh Government can do there. They've recognised the issue, but still not really told us what they're going to do to try and improve on the response to that.

What we were told was that there are existing work streams going on within Welsh Government and it's very hard to retool people then to work on new things, and I accept that and I understand it. Some of the things that we were talking about, though, were very low cost or almost no cost. One of those, for example, would have been to start work on the Welsh flood forum, and that apparently is now under way, but, again, 15 months after that was recommended. I don't understand what the delay was, and it would be really interesting to find out why there's been such a delay on it.

So, yes, they understand in principle a lot of the issues, and we're still waiting, really, to find out what the delivery mechanisms are going to be.

And the final one then is: can you give an overview of your current work to produce a Welsh infrastructure assessment, including governance arrangements and expected outputs and time frames?

The Welsh infrastructure assessment probably refers to the work that's currently under way across the five infrastructure sectors. That will be published in March, and we hope what it will do is set out, broadly speaking, which infrastructure sector is in the most need of our attention in future, and a snapshot of where they're performing well or less well. So, I think it's still to be decided, and we look forward to engaging with Welsh Government on the day and subsequently.

Good luck.

I know, Julie, you wanted to come in on this, so I don't know if you want to add anything.

No. Shall I go on to the infrastructure delivery?

Yes, okay.

I think you've already talked a bit about this. I think you say in your document that Wales has got a mixed record on delivering major projects, and some of them don't materialise. So, could you provide an overview of your research on infrastructure delivery?

So, the work isn't completely finished yet. Arup are undertaking the work, and actually one of the benefits of Arup doing this is that they've been involved in several reviews around different infrastructure projects that have been successful or unsuccessful. So, a good example is the M4 relief road, for example.

On what they're looking at and what they've been doing, they initially did a literature review to generate some hypotheses around what was happening in infrastructure development in Wales, which they did. They then put out some surveys to infrastructure developers to find out a little bit more, and to strengthen those hypotheses, and then they held some round-tables with experts who had worked on all of the projects. So, the projects, for information, are Pen y Cymoedd windfarm, as I said, the south Wales electrification, so that's on both the core Valleys lines and the main line, the M4 relief road, the Stephenson Street flood scheme, and the A465 Heads of the Valleys. We've got one project there that was never delivered. For the A465, different sections were really successful and other sections were considerably less successful.

There are challenges within that, which are really interesting, particularly about consistent data within the project itself. That's really fascinating, that they didn't have consistent data management. There are lots of things that we can do in commissioning infrastructure that can actually control some of that. They held the round-tables, and then what they've been doing in the last week or so is bringing out some of the headlines around what they're finding out. In each one of these different infrastructure projects, there are between five and six different elements that come out.

Using Pen y Cymoedd—there are seven, actually, within this one—statutory planning came out as a major area where there were challenges; skills planning and capacity came out as one; the role of engagement; the interdependencies with wider infrastructure, which I mentioned, which in that area was very much about how do we get the equipment from the bottom of the valleys to the top, and I don't know if you've been to Pen y Cymoedd but it kind of runs along the top of the valleys; the governance, so actually how was the project itself managed, who was responsible for it, where did those responsibilities lie; the political environment, was everybody in favour, were there people getting in the way, were some of those personal agendas actually being used to influence the local authorities who were providing support; and then the funding and the economics around the project itself. Pen y Cymoedd is generally seen as fairly successful, but when you actually get into the detail and start investigating, there are elements within it that, if you'd just changed some of the structures, would have made it flow much more easily and it would have been even more successful.

What we're trying to do is unpick that so that we can present a really good framework that tries to cover as many different infrastructure types as possible. But we are fundamentally looking at our grey infrastructure here and not looking at our blue and green or our social infrastructure, because they have very different elements to them. So, those are the seven sectors that they looked at, but the project is not completely finished. We've got headline outcomes, but we won't have a final deliverable for you for about another month.

With the one that wasn't delivered, didn't happen, it'd be interesting to hear something about that.

I'll give you a couple of headlines from that one, because the M4 relief road is obviously slightly controversial. Let's talk about the political environment, because I think this was seen as a real barrier. They talk about the fact that political and personal priorities changed throughout the process of trying to deliver on that project. There was no consistency in the political ideas or ideology around whether or not the M4 relief road was something that they wanted. Then, there was an ideological divide, and I think probably, as we go through this, this will come out more around the environment and how the environment was used to determine the outcome of the M4 relief road.

It's that issue with how people and data and fact interact with each other, and whether or not the impact on people's lives was considered at the same level as the impact on the local environment. There are some interesting elements within that. And then there's a lack of broader political consensus. There were people arguing ideologically about it, but there wasn't a wider group of political support. People either sat on the fence or they were going head to head with each other about whether they agreed or disagreed, which made it very difficult for the development to move forward.

The other sectors in here are statutory planning and permitting. Again, due diligence is very important. I want to emphasise that, when we say about changing the planning system, we're not saying don't take care of our local environment; what we're saying is let's make it easier to actually use the planning system, and ensure we have enough planners to be able to deliver technical excellence to the developers around what they're trying to achieve. That comes under the skills, planning and capacity. Then, the role of engagement. There was a lack of compelling or shared narrative around the M4 relief road.

Again, we talk about the vision and how that shared vision across local authorities, across different regulators, across different groups, actually reduces that ideological divide, because everybody's moving in the same direction for the benefit of different individuals. I'm not saying here whether the M4 relief road was the right or wrong thing to do, it's just that this is the evidence from the people who worked on the project. We could go on—

Of course, we will be able to see the report when it's concluded, so I think that's really useful. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you. I just want to give time for a look ahead, if you like. Joyce, I know you're going to lead us in that.

That rests with me. It is really about the future of the commission. What measures are being put in place to aid the transition to a new commission next year? Do you think the Welsh Government should decide to continue with it? A loaded question.

Maybe you can answer the first bit first.

I'm stepping down in the summer and we've already informed Public Appointments Wales about that. We've got a commission meeting next week where we're going to hear from existing commissioners to find out who wants to step down, and my feeling at the moment is that probably in the order of half will step down and half will stay on, which, for me, is ideal. We want to see continuity and we want to see fresh people in there.

That process will kick off shortly and it'll be after the election, I guess, when we have the adverts out and job descriptions for new commissioners. So, that's under way, and there will be a handover process. We've got extensive documentation now. The website, actually, has got most of the information that we've got internally as well. So, anybody who's interested in joining as a commissioner can find out tonnes about what we do from the website. I think that's a great asset in that regard.

I hope that the new Welsh Government not only continues but considers carefully what we've put out in our document describing how NICW could evolve, because I think that we've justified the current spend that we have and I think we could do more with more. Jen and I co-authored that paper to try and set out a pathway, perhaps, to some sort of statutory footing. The reason I say that really is because, what we've demonstrated—. We're coming up, I think, against the limit of the resource that we have. For the first four years since I was appointed, I was working effectively as my own consultant, so I had time to be able to flex around the requirements of this role as chair.

Since October, I've joined Cardiff Met as the head of climate change there, with three and a half days a week there, one and a half days for this, and it has proven to be a little bit of a squeeze. I think my role has partly been chief operating officer as well as chair, which is somewhat unusual but reflects the fact that we don't have any operational staff. We've got a great programme office, with nearly two full-time equivalents, but they're very busy doing all of the stuff that we would normally do. I think that we can make a persuasive case for a little bit of an increased budget to try and pay for some of that additional staff, but perhaps I'll let Jen talk in a bit more detail about that.

We have had our funding approved, if I'm correct in saying, for going into next year, so we know that we have the opportunity to spend some time thinking during the pre-election period and when the new Government comes in about what the potential is for the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales. Has everyone had the White Paper? I'm assuming everyone's got a copy of it.

Yes, we have. Yes, we're aware.

So, it's not all new to you. One of the things that comes up—and I think it probably does for everybody—is I think across the four years, we've been very fortunate that we've had our budget approved in advance, but we had one year when it was quite last minute and that just made it slightly trickier. Looking forward, there needs to be an expansion of what we do and the resource that is available to us, because it allows us to look into more detail at some of the real challenging questions about how to do things within the structures that already exist.

That is a bit of a struggle for us at the moment, because even with using external contractors, you still only have a limited amount of time and it's quite costly to do that. Actually having people who could be expert in different areas of infrastructure would be a really important part of it. An enhanced advisory role with multi-year funding—. I know that the 12-month challenge around Government funding affects everybody and it is one where I believe that we should be doing a lot of work to try and see if we can change that where there are long-term planning issues that are relating to it.

We're looking at how we'd develop over a period of five to 10 years. You'd start with just an expansion and actually allowing us to look at how we connect with the different organisations—so, those system structures that you talked about, Joyce, about where does the national infrastructure sit within the frameworks that deliver infrastructure for Wales and where do the other organisation sit. We need to understand that a bit better and what is possible.

Just to throw ideas out there, it's things like what does the future generations office do in the future and what would potentially be a development agency, and how does everything fit together. We need to have an opportunity to understand that a bit better, and you can't do that in a pre-election period, so all we can plan for over the course of the next three months is to present scenarios and risk-based options to the Welsh Government as to how the national infrastructure can look in the following years. That's the intention for the next piece of work that we do prior to Dave's departure.

Then as we go on, we talk about starting to develop a statutory commission. That work will feed into what does that look like, what are its statutory requirements, what are the elements within that. And then, finally, it moves into the infrastructure strategy and delivery oversight authority. That's a high-level opportunity to have oversight of the delivery and making sure that all of these enablers and barriers are happening for our different infrastructure delivery organisations. It's having people whose primary focus is making sure that people can deliver infrastructure that we actually really need. I think that that's what's missing. I don't know if you want to add to that.

Just one final thing to say is that I met with the chair of the Western Australia infrastructure commission last year. This is a pipe dream for Wales, but she has a budget that enables her to have a live tool that has every piece of infrastructure in Western Australia so that anybody from any infrastructure sector is able to go in and look at what's there. So, instead of it being, 'Surprise, surprise, there's a gas main we didn't know was there', or there's eighteenth century water infrastructure, they've got it all there, updated in real time. Whenever anybody works on any piece of infrastructure, it's updated in real time. I'm not saying that we want to go there, because, certainly, the costs are quite high for something like that, but there's no reason why we shouldn't have a really good standard from an international perspective as our ambition in Wales.

I think Scottish Futures Trust also provide some really interesting live information about projects that are existing, ongoing, and even just thought-about projects, they're sort of proposed projects. That information is actually available to everybody online. So, there's a pick-and-mix option for Wales. What does Wales need, and how do we take best practice from different places and fit it with our existing structures, or how do we change our existing structures to actually deliver much better for the people of Wales? I think that, for us, has been the key: how do we take what we've learned from four years and apply it to that problem.

You've already mentioned that you haven't got enough resource to do what you were perhaps expected to do. Do you think that, overall, that would be your final statement, that you have lacked resource to match the expectation of your remit?

I would disagree slightly with that premise. I think we have delivered on our expectations and probably exceeded to a significant degree in some areas. I think what our experience shows is that we feel we can do more. Feedback from stakeholders has been very positive. I think our stakeholders appreciate what we're doing, and we see an opportunity there.

We're very aware that it's a very constrained financial environment, and we are aware that every pound that comes to an infrastructure commission is, in principle, something that comes from education or health, in particular. But, nonetheless, I think, because we're uniquely positioned with an 80-year time frame and think consistently about the long term and about avoiding future costs, we're one of the few organisations that are not firefighting on the front line every day. I think the more organisations that can be persuaded to sit back just for a second, look up and make decisions thinking about those long-term issues, the less likely we will be constantly in firefighting mode. That's my feeling about the public estate at the moment.

We can help and support other organisations to do that, to take a bit of time, and then, hopefully, in 20 years' time when people come into this Chamber, they will say, 'Things are a bit better now because we were able to look into the future and make our policies appropriate for that.'

Thank you.

Thank you. In developing the options paper—you may have mentioned it, I didn't catch it—what role did the Government play in it, if at all? I know maybe this is primarily for the next Government to consider, but you'd expect that maybe there'd be an engagement with the current Government to give its input.

We don't want to do anything in isolation. We're very much about ensuring that anything that is developed is developed with the new Government. What I would say is that we do see it as an independent organisation so that we can give fully independent advice. I think that one of the challenges, as we've mentioned several times, is that that has felt hard. And so we would want to make sure that that support is there from the outset, that what the aspirations are for a new national infrastructure commission are actually what the Government wants to deliver so that we're all moving in the same direction.

Yes, okay. Well, I think that's probably a nice note upon which we can conclude our session.

Felly, gaf i ddiolch o galon i chi am fod gyda ni bore yma? Mi fyddwch chi'n cael copi o'r transgript i wneud yn siŵr ei fod e'n gywir. Gan mai hwn yw'r tro olaf y byddwch chi'n ymddangos o flaen y pwyllgor, dwi eisiau diolch yn fawr yn enwedig i'r cadeirydd am y cyfraniad, ond i'r tîm i gyd hefyd. Mi edrychwn ni ymlaen i weld pwy fydd yn awyddus i barhau yn eu rolau, ac, wrth gwrs, mi edrychwn ni ymlaen i weld beth fydd ymagwedd y Llywodraeth nesaf tuag at ddyfodol y comisiwn. David.

Dwi jest eisiau dweud 'diolch yn fawr' i'r pwyllgor am eu holl waith dros y pedair blynedd diwethaf. Does yna ddim lot o bobl efallai sy'n dod yma yn edrych ymlaen at y sesiwn, ond dwi yn—dwi rili yn. Dwi'n ei hoffi, dwi'n ei mwynhau, dwi'n hoffi'r her. Hefyd, mae'n rili bwysig i ni gael sesiwn craffu. Mae'n cadw ni ar ein bysedd traed, ac mae'n helpu ni i ddylanwadu ar Lywodraeth Cymru hefyd. Felly, diolch yn fawr iawn i bawb sy'n eistedd ar y pwyllgor, a phob lwc yn y dyfodol.

Wel, diolch yn fawr iawn. Ac fel dwi'n dweud, ŷn ni fel pwyllgor yn gweld ein rôl yn sicr fel herio, gwthio, cefnogi hefyd. Ac mi fyddwn ni, wrth gwrs, ddim o reidrwydd yn cynhyrchu adroddiad yn sgil y sesiwn yma fel ŷn ni'n arfer ei wneud, oherwydd does dim llawer o amser ar ddiwedd y Senedd i ni gael yr ymateb ffurfiol a wedyn dadl yn y Siambr, ond mi fyddwn ni'n sicr yn creu ryw fath o ohebiaeth fydd yn rhoi barn ac awgrymiadau ac argymhellion i chi ac i'r Llywodraeth ac o bosib i eraill. Felly, diolch yn fawr iawn. Diolch. Iawn. Wel, mi wnaiff y pwyllgor gario ymlaen gyda'n cyfarfod, felly tra'ch bod chi yn ein gadael ni.