We'll move on now to item 9, the  Partnership Arrangements (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, and I call on the Minister for Children and Social Care to move the motion—Dawn Bowden.

Motion NDM8861 Jane Hutt

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5, approves that the draft The Partnership Arrangements (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 is made in accordance with the draft laid in the Table Office on 4 March 2025.

Motion moved.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

Diolch, Llywydd, and I move the motion. The regulations before you today are made under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 and they amend the Partnership Arrangements (Wales) Regulations 2015. The amendments make changes to regulation 19 of the principal regulations concerning the establishment and maintenance of pooled funds to enable partnership bodies to exercise greater flexibility in the way that they pool funds in the exercise of their functions in relation to care home accommodation for older people. The aim of these amendments is to strengthen regional partnership arrangements and, in particular, the role of regional partnership boards. Diolch, Llywydd.

Thank you for those words of introduction. I am slightly concerned about these proposed changes before us today, because, once again, I want to express my concern about this process of legislating, and legislating by regulation without a fuller scrutiny process and without more public input into that process.

To get to the detail of the regulations before us, this proposal, which has been put forward, provides flexibility to regional partnership bodies as they look at their budgets. And it appears, therefore, as a retrograde step, as I see it. All of the work that I have done in recent years has shown that the failure of regional boards to pool budgets leads to difficulties in the provision of services. Because health boards and local authorities are measured according to their work and successes within the boundaries that they work within, there is no incentive, therefore, for them to collaborate. This can lead to more people falling into those cracks that we have seen as boards fail to work together. This can also be a retrograde step in our hope to unite health and social care. Those are my concerns. I look forward to hearing the response to those concerns.

I am concerned that there will be unintended consequences, therefore, to these regulations today. So, would the Deputy Minister recognise this? And do you have any plans in place to prevent this from happening, and to ensure that bodies will collaborate together in order to ensure consistency of provision across Wales? Thank you.

The Minister to respond to the debate.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Well, I think it's important to say that what this is about is actually giving more flexibility to regional partnership boards. They are not legal entities, and therefore they rely on relationship building and partnership working for the partners to deliver for our communities, and that's what these amended regulations are working towards, to help them to increase their pooled budgeting arrangements. The regulations actually are intended to help achieve a more consistent approach to the delivery of joint commissioning across all our communities. So, what the regulations are intending to do is exactly what you've just set out in your contribution, to help partners to work more collaboratively together, but within the flexibility that allows them to pool their resources in a way that meets the demands of their local community. So, the consultation process did provide an opportunity for all partners to provide their views, and Welsh Government did take their views into account when undertaking the post-consultative review of the regulations, which has led to the amended regulations brought before you today. And it's the refreshed Part 9 guidance that supports the regulations that will provide further consideration of the wider partners' views and feedback, to ensure effective change.

It's also important to say that these regulations and the wider rebalancing care and support programme have undergone a very robust impact assessment, and the wider regulations have also been impact assessed, and there have been no adverse impacts that have been identified in the areas attested by the assessment.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object. [Objection.] There is objection, therefore I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.