National Assembly for Wales

Tanni Grey-Thompson, chair of Sport Wales.

In your evidence paper, you said that,

'participation in sport is already significantly skewed against inequality and people on low incomes'.

So, that was in the evidence that you've given us. How will that inequality gap be affected by these further cuts, both those that are being seen by central Government and local authorities, as well?

Time will tell, I guess, but the initial cut we received this year of 10.5 per cent does mean that we've impacted on our funding to partners, and partners are key in delivering to those communities and those groups that are proportionately disaffected in terms of participation in sport. So, it's inevitable that, if our partners can do less in those areas, then there will be an impact. How much of an impact is always difficult to quantify. We minimised as much as possible that impact by passing on only 3.5 per cent of that 10.5 per cent cut to partners, but it's still an impact, and in some cases, we were already changing the investment into some of those partners in line with our strategy and the Vision for Sport and so, a further cut was going to exacerbate some of their issues. The whole investment approach that we adopt is predicated, in the main, on trying to address those inequalities. The Vision for Sport talks about everybody having a lifelong enjoyment of sport and the key being 'everybody'. So, what the actual impact will be is difficult to say, but there will be an impact, for sure.

And I think the group of people who find it hardest to get involved in sport, that's quite a difficult thing to change. So, the partner approach, in terms of where our funding is going, everyone is absolutely understanding that those are the people who we need to get to, but it's difficult to keep engaging those people. So, we might not see the impact of it for a couple of years, actually, in terms of when we get to see people who come through sport and through the data we collect and the data that the partners collect. But there will be an impact in terms of what people are able to deliver.

Thank you. I know Lee wants to come in.

Yes. I just want to explore this issue a bit, because obviously nobody wants your funding to go down, least of all you, and there's going to be an adverse impact somewhere, clearly. But in terms of this argument that you're advancing that it's going to particularly disadvantage those who you've failed to really engage with in the first place very well, you said that the cut for partner bodies is 3.5 per cent, but how does that compare with other pots of activity? Your elite sport programme, for example, how much has that been cut?

That was across the board; it wasn't just community sport.

Okay. 

So, it is ultimately up to partners what they prioritise, but they know, they are in full knowledge that our next set of investment decisions is predicated on improvements in these areas that we are prioritising, such as inequalities in provision. So, it was across the board, so they could change their elite provision if they wanted to. 

So, you could have chosen to protect participation funding in this round.

We don't work like that any more. We leave it to our partners to decide what their priorities are, as I said, in the full knowledge that they know what our priorities are. So, we're not prescriptive, as such. We do identify that—. The full budget that we give them is broken into two, one being revenue from Welsh Government and the other one being lottery, which also comes through Welsh Government but is a separate funding stream, in effect. And lottery tends to be used for performance purposes rather than community by our partners. But we also run a community access scheme—Be Active Wales is lottery funded—and that is open to communities and clubs to apply for short-term grants.

I just want to test the arguments, really. Obviously, you’re having a reduction in funding, which you don’t want, and I understand that, and the group you’re choosing to illustrate the impact of this most on is disadvantaged groups, when actually you could have done more yourself to protect them.

I was actually responding to a question about what the impact on that part of the community was, so I wasn’t saying it was our priority to cut that area.

Sure, it's in your evidence. Yes, that's in your evidence.

We did a significant amount of in-house modelling, when we had what the indicative figures may look like, to work out what that impact would be on sport, and then did a lot of work with the partners to brief them and prepare them for what cuts might look like. Then, when we had the actual figure, we did further work on that. We’re moving away from a process of—. I’ve sat on various sports councils for probably the last 30 years and seen quite a big evolution in the models, in terms of, 25 years ago, Sport Wales and the other home country sport councils would have been very, very prescriptive as to what they wanted from the partners. But, actually, the partners are the experts in that particular sport in the areas, they know the coaches, they know the clubs, so I think the model where we are now is quite a grown-up model. And Brian’s absolutely right, it’s up to the partners to decide, with our priorities, how best to use the money that they have available.

But I would assume their instinct is going to be to protect elite sport first.

No, I don’t think that’s fair. In fact, I know that’s not correct.

Okay.

The governing bodies, in the main—. We have several types of partners, but, in the main, governing bodies have such a broad range of responsibilities for their sport in the sector. Elite sport is only one. There’s an awful lot of work that goes on with safeguarding, community coaching. You know, pick a subject that sport doesn’t touch, and governing bodies tend to be doing some work in that area. In terms of elite sport, it’s only a part of what governing bodies do, for sure. It gets a lot of attention though. Understandably, in a year of the Olympics and Paralympics, it gets heightened attention, and I can see why people think governing bodies prioritise, in the main, elite sport, but they do an awful lot of work across the board.

And we’ve moved away from demanding medal targets from the sports, because that drives a culture and a set of behaviours that aren’t positive in terms of how they impact the grass roots and the pathway and the development. We believe that if you produce well-rounded athletes then the medals look after themselves. Actually, if you ask the public, most of the public don’t remember the numbers; they might remember special moments or they might remember a gold medal. Actually, gold, silver, bronze, at whatever level, is not what connects. The focus especially is on seeing these amazing moments, but I think the partners understand that if they don’t develop that broad base, you’re not going to get the medallists. So, it’s a long-term view. The Vision for Sport as well, which is not time limited, which I think is important, is about developing that culture change.

Okay, thank you.

Just on that point—diolch, Robin—in terms of how you're able to support secondary tier governing bodies to cope with the effect of reduced incomes, is that going to create more of an issue, do you think, if this is repeated next year?

It would definitely have an impact, if it was to be repeated, because some of the options we had this year, to absorb some of that cut internally, won't be available to us. There were things like, with our pension deficit, we were able to manipulate some of the issues to do with that pension deficit. We've done that; we won't be able to do that twice. There were other things like underspends on certain projects, or delays in internal projects, that we could instigate, but we've done that; we won't be able to do it twice. So, a further cut of any nature would be difficult to absorb to the level we did last time, and, therefore, passing it on will cause problems to the sector.

We are working with the sector, mainly with the governing bodies of sport, to look at their resilience. There's a project going on at the minute where we can try and encourage efficiencies, or help with efficiencies across the board, in terms of collaborative working, looking at a future model of governance for governing bodies, especially maybe the smaller ones. So, there are some things that are being undertaken to try and futureproof the whole situation, but a substantive cut would be very problematic, because we wouldn't be able to absorb the same level as we did last time.

[Inaudible.]—events in the Senedd were about the importance of sport with health—the connection with mental and physical health. Would you just explain or talk about the impact, perhaps on the NHS, that these cuts might have, and people not being able to participate in sport, and the impact of that?

Thank you. Physical activity is such an important part of keeping people out of the NHS, and, obviously, that goes with being able to have a good diet—it's, you know, you need places or programmes to be able to participate. We know, at a UK level, that type 2 diabetes costs the UK £10 billion a year, and that's set to rise in the next couple of years. I think they're looking at it going up to £15 billion in the next three years. That is largely preventable by having access to physical activity. We know the mental health benefits of being physically active. I think, at the Senedd event, we talked about impact on young people in terms of building resilience and developing relationships and connections. So, physical activity across every part of Wales is incredibly important. But if you like sport and you like physical activity, that's one thing. The groups of people we're talking to who are the hardest to reach or the easiest to ignore, if we can't connect with them, then the detriment to their long-term health is significant. So, now we know that people are hitting frailty in their 40s and taking a long time to die. It sounds really harsh when you say it, but living with frailty for 40 years costs a huge amount of money, and a lot of that can be prevented by physical activity.

So, a lot of the work that Sport Wales does then with the partners is about that lifelong love. And we also know people drop in and out. It's not as easy to say that, if you have a brilliant experience as a child, you will definitely keep going. We know that mums have different experiences with physical activity, families do. There's not one lever to pull to bring about the change. So, physical activity is such an important part, and the vast majority of people I know want to keep the NHS free at the point of delivery, but we also know it's an incredibly difficult place right now. So, physical activity is a really important part of changing that pattern of behaviour. But people tend to worry about physical activity when they've hit issues with their health, and some of it's reversible, but actually that's why we need to do so much more with young people and the harder to reach, easy to ignore groups to get them to develop good patterns of behaviour now.

[Inaudible.]—any cuts to the NHS. They see the NHS as the NHS and the hospitals and the health boards. And when they might distribute funding to sports facilities through local authorities or whatever, or social health care, then it's criticised because it's taking away from the NHS. But would you say that prevention at this early stage is important, really, and should be included as part of that measure, maybe, going forward?

Yes, I would. I’d fully agree with that. It was a great event last week. It was fantastic to see some unfamiliar faces in the room, which is good news for us because that means we're reaching new audiences in terms of potential partners. We’ve talked a lot so far about governing bodies of sport and those kinds of partners, but, in terms of this issue and the preventative health agenda, it's the other partners that we're currently not entwined with the way we should be—so, the health boards, Public Health Wales, education even. So, I think that the words I'd use in terms of the priorities of Government spending is that cutting sport, which is a fantastic tool for the preventative health agenda, is a false economy. We've got fantastic stats that show, for every £1 of public money spent on sport and physical activity, there's a £4.44 return in terms of social investment for Wales. That's a great return for public investment, and it should be celebrated. So, if you cut sport, you're cutting that return as well.

I think this is a focus—I know this is a focus for us. It's hugely important in our strategy and our business plan. The priority we've put on establishing sport partnerships across Wales is vital here. Their links with the local health boards are going to be crucial. The Cardiff and Vale health board were at the Senedd event last week, Claire Beynon, and just to have her insight, knowledge and support for the physical activity and sport agenda is crucial. Repeat that across all the other health boards and we've got a very powerful method of trying to make sport the greatest preventative health tool in Wales.

Before you carry on, I think Lee might have wanted to come in. No. Okay.

I think in the past we've talked about the importance of access to sports and facilities for disadvantaged communities, and the findings were that having local access was really important—in community centres, village halls and local sports centres was really important. And we've heard also that the health boards use community centres and local leisure centres as well for preventative, for physiotherapy more nowadays, moving towards community provision. So, how concerned are you regarding cuts to local authorities' budgets? We're hearing this year of further cuts, they're having to look at the core funding for education, social healthcare, and looking to close more leisure centres, community facilities, which they don't see as statutory—you know, they're not in legislation. So, do you talk to local authorities? Have you got connections with them? Is there any way you can help connect? 

Yes, we do. We have regular contact with local authorities, but it tends to be at the leisure provision, so the sport development or a department like that within a local authority. One of the purposes of the sport partnerships is to be more strategic with local authorities and have education, health, police and crime, housing around the table as well—so, more strategic input and discussion about how local authorities and sport can work together to gain much better synergies. So, the relationships with local authorities are good but they're at a level that has been a traditional level, and we want to try and change that relationship. 

The facility issue is crucial—obviously, it's critical—and there are some particular facilities that are facing heightened issues. Those with high energy usage costs are particularly vulnerable. So, the obvious ones would be swimming pools. We're not aware of any immediate or imminent closures; however, we are aware of the pressures on local authorities when it comes to that kind of facility stock. It's a bit more complicated because the facility landscape in Wales is complicated—it's private, it's community clubs, it's leisure trusts, it's local authorities, and, in some cases, a complete mix of all that.

So, there's no one-size-fits-all solution to the facility issue here, but we are aware of it. We have introduced a couple of direct schemes to try and help. So, the energy savings grant scheme is there for community clubs to apply for solar panels, insulation—things that will help reduce not only their running costs, but also help their sustainability and their environmental credentials as well. But that is a limited pot, and some community clubs can't apply because they don't have a long enough lease on the facilities that they're operating out of. 

Can I just ask one final question? 

Yes, certainly. 

Since COVID, we've heard about a decline in volunteers coming forward. Have you seen a return of volunteers coming to help with various—? 

I think that's variable. There's a couple of good schemes out there, though; the Welsh Sports Association and a few other organisations are running surveys and some awareness opportunities for volunteering, but it has been difficult. It's probably no different to a lot of other things that were negatively impacted during COVID. There's been a gradual change back to normal, but volunteering is not back to the levels that we once saw. But the study that is being conducted will be quite insightful to see what, if anything, we need to do specifically.  

Great, thank you. 

Sorry, just to add that volunteers are a really important part of the landscape, not just in terms of what they give to people who are participating, but actually, by being a volunteer, they're doing a lot of physical activity themselves and making connections. I think sometimes when we talk about sport we just think about the participants, not about everybody else who's involved. 

We learned at committee that, to encourage people in communities to take part in sport, if they had just somebody they knew, they could connect with, to actually lead them into it, that made such a difference. 

Yes. Just one thing to add, sorry. I talked about the social return earlier—for every £1, it's £4.44. Part of that is volunteering and there's a benefit to the Welsh economy of £430 million from sports volunteering. So, it's a significant sum. It would have been higher, probably, pre COVID, so it's worth noting. 

Could you circulate those statistics? I love statistics. [Laughter.]  

Yes, sure. 

She loves a stat. [Laughter.] 

Our insight department will be delighted to know, I'm sure. [Laughter.] 

Thank you. Sorry, for being late, No. 1. I'm just wondering, I do—. Of course, I share my colleagues' concerns that sport and culture are the first things to always be cut, yet, as you've just outlined—and I've always been a big advocate for it so there's no point hiding it—as a preventative agenda, sport is such an important tool in bringing up the health of our nation to a good standard, especially with childhood obesity, that sort of thing. There is evidence of it in the cross-party group on sport; I don't know if you're aware of that, that we did a big report into that. What became very apparent was that things shut down in the winter as well—that was one of the major concerns. We're used to a lot of rain in Wales. So, what happens in those times? As my colleague just said, leisure centres are closing down; obviously, that's something we're all concerned about, and you've answered that already. But what about outside sports—football, rugby, hockey, whatever it might be, junior particularly—that rely on pitches? You can only rotate the pitches so many times and then you have to cancel training, you have to cancel matches, and, basically, there's nothing for those young people to do—and adults as well. A lot of the clubs haven't had the investment at the lower level that they should have had, so that's a concern. There's maybe a priority on the top clubs, but those middle tiers particularly, community sports are getting a lot, but middle tiers particularly are not getting the funding to be able to train or for things outside. So, it's not fair, it's a bit slapdash, especially in Wales, as I said, with the lack of all-weather facilities. And also what we've recognised—sorry, Chair—is that those all-weather facilities have not been done very strategically, in terms of they're heavy in some cities and towns, but what about the rural areas? There's not that spread, there's not that accessibility for all that we all want to see. So, I just wonder if you could comment on that. Thanks.

There's quite a lot there—

Sorry—going off on one. [Laughter.]

—but they're all valid points, for sure. In terms of the facility stock for pitches or outdoor facilities, there is some good work going on with some of the bigger governing bodies, especially—so, football and rugby, we have a joint programme with football, rugby and hockey for replacement artificial pitches. But it's a small amount of money, really, in terms of the scale of the issue. So, we set aside £1 million of our capital funding to work with those three governing bodies on a programme of replacement, or enhancement, or even new. But £1 million doesn't go far. The scale of an artificial turf pitch cost is upwards of £700,000. That's for a replacement; brand new, you're talking £2.5 million, potentially, depending on the location. So, it's a contribution, but it will only achieve so much. But the FAW, the WRU and Hockey Wales do try and be strategic about where those facilities ought to be, and, if there's a proposal to replace a hockey pitch in a particular area, there ought to be provision for hockey somewhere else in that locality, otherwise they don't get some of the financial support from us. But with only a pot of £1 million, you're scratching at the surface, really. But it does help, and there are some excellent examples out there of artificial pitches that have been put into communities and making big improvements and having a positive impact.

In terms of rurality, it's an interesting subject. It's come up quite a bit in the conversations we have with our partners—they're called 'What matters' conversations. Rurality has come up as one of the top items. Again, it is one of the aspects of the sport partnerships. We're hoping that they will have a much better handle on those issues in their areas and give them due attention. We also use our investment approach for those sport partnerships to consider rurality as part of the weighting mechanism. So, it does get taken into account in terms of the money we give to the sport partnerships once they're established. But, again—maybe I haven't mentioned this enough—the nearly £21 million we get in terms of revenue is 0.2 per cent of the health budget. And yet all we're talking about here are the issues that sport can help alleviate. Well, if you're only given 0.2 per cent of a budget, your impact is going to be a lot less than it could be.

It would be amazing if we could do more for facilities, in terms of—. I think that, if you're sporty, or considered sporty, you don't necessarily mind training in cold, rain, whatever, but there's a group who, actually, are the ones that you want to keep involved, and it comes back to that facilities make a huge difference. This was way before my time. The first athletics club I joined was Bridgend Athletics club. We had a grass track, and we used to train in the multistorey car park in the winter. It was fine. But, actually, something that Bridgend's done, when they had funding to build a track, they built a 300m track, which is really unusual in athletics, but, actually, it's about space, it's about use, it's about what you need that facility for. It was really controversial at the time; I'd never heard of a 300m—. I don't think anyone had heard of a 300m track. But, actually, in terms of being able to get people participating, it's really good. So, actually, do we need an Olympic, Paralympic-standard athletics facility? No. It's about what we need for the community to involve people. A lot of work has been done on that in terms of being quite realistic, but it would be nice to be able to do more. 

Just to add a bit as well, we're talking quite a bit about increasing participation, and the evidence seems to show that trying to change people's motivation is not that successful; what you really need to do is make it welcoming and something they see themselves as wanting to do. That does hit onto the facilities agenda quite a bit. You know, if it's a muddy old pitch with ramshackle changing rooms with no facilities for women or young people, then it's not creating that environment to try and encourage more people to participate in sport and physical activity. So, the facilities agenda is very much interrelated to everything to do with what we're trying to achieve through the Vision for Sport.

Is it my questions now? Great. Good, that follows on. My next question is to what extent Sport Wales collaborated with other institutions to mitigate the impact of declining public funding. On this—I just have a supp before I give you that question—I used to be shadow education Minister, and we were talking about opening up twenty-first century schools to use their facilities, and that was a way of dealing with the non-facilities available in rural areas. That's a great idea. If there are more twenty-first century schools being built, that's great, with great facilities, but not all of them—and old schools as well—are being opened to the public, due to safety reasons or lack of staff. So, it's a lovely idea, but it's not actually happening on the ground. Have you had conversations around that, as well as other institutions, to try and mitigate that? Thanks.

Yes, we have. Again, if I'm going to be frank, I'd say there have been shards of light on that kind of progress. We did a pilot; we reported to the last inquiry on sport in disadvantaged areas that we were running a pilot on exactly that, so the beyond the school day pilot, the results of which have been published, and we've rolled it into a proposal called Daily Active, so making children active from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, and that includes the facilities stock at these community-focused schools. There has been some improvement in terms of relationships with the relevant areas of Government on the community-focused schools side, but, as I said, they are shards of light, really. What we want to do is focus the glare of attention on the potential here, and so it is something we are attempting to improve. But it is proving difficult, for all sorts of obvious reasons, in terms of the pressures other areas of Government are under in terms of their own budgets and what they're trying to achieve. But I'll come back to a comment I used earlier about the false economy: if you want more out of your children in terms of educational return and potential, then keeping them active is a really good way of doing that. It improves their attention and the way they can cognitively act at school. So, it is a priority for us, but there's not enough happening.

I agree with you there. As you were saying earlier, not enough of the health budget is coming in, so not enough of the—. The staff to man those out-of-hours to enable those facilities to be used I'm assuming iwould come from the school budget, so that's cutting into that, so how do we get around that? Are you having conversations to try and ask the Welsh Government to try and give more money to local authorities, to set that aside for schools specifically, so they can have those out-of-hours facilities? Because otherwise, it's not going to happen, is it? How are you going to get round that, and the safety issue as well?

I think one of the keys to success in this area is not to focus on one particular area of Government; I think it is collaborative across several. The Daily Active programme is designed to be collaborative between public health, maybe local health boards, education, and ourselves. It is an area that we think could have a huge impact, but we've hit a bit of a brick wall. We're still trying to climb that wall. We haven't given up. We're pretty sure that we can make some progress, but it's going to take a lot of effort, and it's a little bit slow. But, yes, I don't think we will be successful if we just focus on education or, 'The local school needs to—'.  It needs to be collaborative across several agencies. 

It does, but those are the sticking points. 

They tend to be in the end, yes. But, as I say, sometimes, you can convince more locally once you point out the benefits to them of their agenda, because they might think it's a sport agenda that's being pushed, whereas, really, it's an educational agenda and a health agenda, as much as a sport participation agenda.

I think that's where the sports partnerships can also be really helpful in terms of knowing the local area, because it could be—obviously, with appropriate safeguarding—teachers, it might be volunteers, it might be clubs, depending what's in the area, depending what sports facilities are there. But that daily activity is so important. What I've seen in other areas, in terms of what happens in the summer holidays, six weeks—. Okay, the weather might be nice, but, in terms of how parents want to protect their children's safety—. I'm not sure this sort of misnomer that when we were all young we all went out from dawn till dusk with half a packet of sandwiches, 2p in our sock for a phone call—. I'm not sure that ever existed for a lot of people.

It did for me.

In your sock? That's very specific. [Laughter.] 

But parents now want to know where their children are. The world has changed. So, actually, in terms of opening school sites, it's not just before school and after school. There are lots of options. And, actually, again, in terms of families and how they participate, there are programmes mums and daughters participate in together. It's really important. We know that if a woman has had a poor experience of physical activity, and this is a bit of a generalisation—. They recognise boys, slightly like puppies, need to be fed and exercised, but girls are quite often protected. Some of those inequalities that exist are really hard to change. So, there are lots of ways that, not just thinking about young people being active in their local community—. It's about families, about mums, about grandparents, and if there's an opportunity to unlock that school site, that could have a really big impact.

I think Tanni has just hit on something I should have mentioned, which is that there is some optimism in that there are a couple of example schemes that we can point to when we're talking to partners or potential partners about where they can gain success. There's the 60 plus scheme that we've done with Welsh Government funding, and the PIPYN scheme, which is the children and families scheme. There are pilots in three areas. And then there's our 'beyond the school day' pilots as well. There are some interesting outcomes from each of those schemes that we can point partners to, but it does require resourcing if we're going to roll anything out wider, or enhance even those schemes. But I think, yes, I've got to give some credit to areas of Government that have seen the benefits and want to help. But it's about whether we can, as I said, turn those shards of light into some sort of glare and massive sunshine.

Just really quickly, Chair—. Thank you for that. Just to say that it's great, as you said, for opening up the school facilities after hours for the families and the children, but it's also for the adults, it's also for those sports clubs that can't train on their muddy pitches if they've done their crop rotation—not crop rotation, sorry, I'm a farmer’s daughter; I mean field rotation—and they can't do any more. So, it's for adults as well, isn't it, bringing them into the clubs. So, it would solve quite a few problems in one, not just, obviously, wanting our young people—

And that's where the 60 plus scheme could demonstrate benefits, for sure. Most local authorities have got a scheme, and I'm sure they'd want to do more in that area than the funding currently allows for, and so opening up school facilities beyond the school day might be a method of enhancing that scheme at very little cost. But we do need to address some of the issues that it presents the people who run the school.

Thanks.

Diolch. Just to alert Members and witnesses, we've got 20 minutes left. Would you have time to stay with us an extra five minutes at the end? Would that be all right? Diolch. But if Members could be as concise as possible so that we can get to as many questions as possible, that would be fantastic. Carolyn.

Have you tried to access additional funding from trusts or foundations—you know, private funding? Is that something you've looked at?

Sorry, can you say that again?

Excuse me. Have you tried to access funding from trusts or foundations?

No. Back in 2015, we managed to change the royal charter to allow us to set up a subsidiary, or subsidiaries, if necessary. We haven’t enacted that. We’d still need Welsh Government permission, and the Privy Council, were we to establish a subsidiary. We think that’s probably the only way we could access funds of that nature, or commercial sponsorship, even. The reality, though, is that our remit letter does allow for clawback if we generate our own income in terms of value for the public purse. So, it is a very—. It's not a difficult area, but it’s an interesting area that we haven’t progressed, and I don’t believe any other sports council has either.

Sport England do have a subsidiary called Caversham Lakes Ltd, and that was set up for London 2012 to build the rowing facility, and they’ve used it to fund the This Girl Can programme, which is an advertising programme on terrestrial television, plus support for local authorities. But that’s the only thing they’ve ever done, and they used lottery funding for that, I believe, rather than commercial funding. We’re not allowed to spend lottery funding on ourselves, or any schemes that we run.

There is work ongoing at UK level in terms of how to bring sponsorship into the governing bodies of sport. At the UK level, there’s quite a lot of value in kind, but in terms of cold, hard cash, it’s actually considerably lower than you might imagine. Around 2012, there was a lot of sponsorship, but at the end of the Olympics and Paralympics, a lot of those big sponsors went to other places. So, definitely, at UK level, it’s a governing body issue.

I think the arts council have also mentioned that it’s difficult to balance attracting, say, commercial sponsors away from your partners. You could be treading on their toes, really, if you’re out in the market looking for commercial sponsors as they are. They may see it as being not supportive. But in answer to the question, it’s not an area we’ve—

Maybe it’s something at UK level or—

Carolyn, forgive me, would you be happy if we moved on to other Members? Is that all right? Forgive me, because I'm very aware that Lee and Siân haven't asked as many questions. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thanks, Carolyn. 

Diolch.

Tanni.

I think that collaboration is incredibly important. Trying to spin all the plates that Government has to, I don’t envy anyone trying to do that. At Sport Wales, we do have conversations with lots of other bodies, but collaboration is really important. And any way that you could take a helicopter view of that from the Welsh Government would make a difference. It’s really easy to sit here and say, ‘Just give us more money’, and I won’t turn it down, but that’s not necessarily the answer to what we’re trying to do to change that pattern of physical activity, physical literacy. It’s education, it’s health, it’s Public Health Wales—it’s all those bodies having to work together, being able to work together.

Wales’s size is often used as a negative in terms of, certainly, resource availability et cetera, but it’s also a superpower in terms of being able to get people together—everyone knows someone who knows someone. The idea of six degrees of separation is down to about four in Wales, I think, if not less—

Fewer, definitely fewer.

Two, yes, in certain areas of Wales for sure. But, in seriousness, I think that ought to be our superpower—being able to bring bodies and key personnel together more quickly, like we did in COVID, as an example, to address some of the issues instantly. I think we're not doing a very good job of that at the moment. Lots of public bodies are facing different pressures that mean that they stay isolated. We know we need to do more work with some of those public bodies and it is something we need to focus on.

And we've got some internal work going on at the moment in terms of what that collaboration could be like—connections, how to make it happen. It's about getting the right people in the room.

Okay. Fantastic. If you could send us some more information about that, that would be really useful, please.

Members, please forgive me, I'm afraid that, because we're so tight on time, I'll have to go to Lee's questions. I'm sorry, but there'll be other things that we can pick up on in writing. Forgive me, I'm sorry about the time. Over to Lee.

Yes, just some snappy ones really, just to pick up on some of the things you've said. So, on your point about the clawback of any privately funded money that you had raised being prohibited by the remit letter, would you welcome that being removed from the remit letter, just to be clear?

Yes, sure. I mean, it's pretty vague in the remit letter, it's pretty flexible, but the chances are, were we to secure a multimillion-pound deal from a suitable commercial company, I'm pretty sure that the Treasury would look at that and go, 'Well, hang on, we used to give you £21 million. You've now secured, £x million. Why do you need our £21 million?'

Okay. Then, in a separate point, you mentioned that you found Derek Walker's argument of some preventative spend superficially attractive but would need to think it through. I guess the same argument could apply to you as an organisation. How practical would it be for you to identify some of your internal funding for preventative spend?

The way we currently invest, not very useful, because we don't prescribe, whereas the Welsh Government prescribe to us in fairly lengthy detail, in 10-, 12-page remit letters, so it's pretty prescriptive. It's very difficult then for us to do something with our partners in a similar vein, when we're not being that prescriptive. The investment approach is different now—we calculate the amount of investment a partner gets on the basis of an approach that allocates scores for what they are doing, so they are in control of changing that when we rerun the investment approach.

So, it might not be practical for you, but you still think it might be practical for the Welsh Government to do it themselves?

It's certainly worth looking at.

Yes, to look at it.

Okay. And then, just one other quick question, as you mentioned earlier the impact on your partner bodies of the funding squeeze. I'm aware there's some concern in the sector that the stand-alone Welsh bodies may find it increasingly hard to sustain an operation in Wales, and there's some concern that some of them might revert to the mothership, if you like, to go back to GB bodies or England-and-Wales bodies, which would have other adverse consequences on the Welsh civil society ecosystem, I guess. I just wonder if you have any reflections on that.

Yes, we could spend quite a long time on that.

Let's not, but if you could just give us the headline.

Well, the headline would be that there are various models out there already in terms of Welsh, British, English-Welsh, no British. It's very complicated, and each sport is different. So, we are doing a current piece of work about the resilience of the sector, which does cover that, and what is right for the Welsh body. Again, it is going to be different depending on the sport, but we are supportive of Welsh bodies. In terms of their current existence, it doesn't necessarily need to change and be absorbed by a British body. But it might be—

Do you think it might because of the funding situation?

I'm sure it would have an impact, but there's an impact in the British situation at the minute as well, and they're doing the same piece of work, really.

They're going through system master planning, which is looking at that, so it's important that we do what's right for Wales, but with a lens of the UK as well.

So, you see it as separate from the funding considerations, do you?

I don't see them being inherently linked, because we do fund some very small governing bodies that have always existed separate to a British body, and it's not related to the level of investment we give them. So, in one or two instances, a change in our level of investment might impact on that, but it doesn't necessarily impact on it, but it might.

Okay. And just to close, I'm going to pivot onto a different subject, which is just a progress report on the way the WRU are getting on in implementing the recommendations made to it, and if you have a view on how they're doing with that.

Yes. We have constant dialogue with the Welsh Rugby Union, as we do with all the other governing bodies. They've made significant change and progress against the governance report that was part of the changes that were required to reinstate our funding. What they've done on the board level is substantial. That change is significant, as I said.

The other conditions that necessitated our withdrawal of funding back two years ago, they have now met them, so funding has been reinstated to the Welsh Rugby Union. But they go through the normal processes of accountability and capability review. So, they, for example, have developed a strategy, which was one of the conditions, but I know there are further stages to that strategy that are required. They've established an oversight group to see how progress is being made against the Rafferty review. Dame Anne Rafferty herself chairs that oversight group. We have Dame Katherine Grainger on it, from UK Sport. So, they've made significant progress.

On the Rafferty oversight board, do you have any sense of how often that's been used, of cases referred to it?

It's not about cases being referred to it; they look at the Rafferty recommendations and the progress being made. So, I think there is a set schedule for that oversight group to meet to check on progress.

Okay. That's active, is it?

That is active, yes. There are three members on that group—it's Anne Rafferty herself, Kath Grainger from UK Sport, and the director of HR from the Football Association of Wales, Hannah—. I've forgotten her surname.

And she's the only one who's not a dame.

Yes, she's an outlier.

Okay. Very good. It's good to see that there's balance. Just in terms of the learning from that whole WRU experience for the rest of the sector, how have you sought to apply those lessons to the organisations that you fund?

Initially, I think the main learning is that our partners have recognised that bodies, no matter how big they are, need to be following principles of good governance. So, the guidance that was in existence then still exists now—the governance and leadership framework for Wales and the capability framework that we operate. It's basically given that some weight, so that the WRU experience has helped others realise why that's there and why it's important. So, in a sense, nothing else has changed, because that guidance is still valid. We are currently reviewing that to try and simplify it and bring in the behavioural aspect, because you can have all the policies in the world and have all the documentation that says you're a good organisation, but if your behaviours aren't right, then it's pointless. So, we are trying to change those documents to include an element of the behavioural aspect, and that's the bit we've learned from the WRU—

And are you considering an oversight board, then, for the rest of the sector?

No.

No.

Well, logically, what you just said to me was that—

No, the oversight group for the WRU is there to check on everything that came out of the recommendations for the things that had gone wrong—

Yes, but the principle of having oversight to make sure those cultures and procedures are followed through—

Well, there's a current process. So, we would just implement the current process for checking on partners' progress—

So, what would be the oversight process for that?

So, every governing body has a full review once every four years, which is consultants going in, a bit like an internal audit. Currently, there's a self-assessment process that we ask everyone to do annually, but we're changing that in the capability framework to more of an adult relationship, if you like. But there are five principles in the new capability framework, and so they'll be monitoring regularly against those principles with partners.

Would that include spot checks?

I think that's what they are, really, without using that term—

Well, every four years is not a spot check.

No, that's a full governance review. 

Okay.

The checks against the principles ought to be regular. I mean, spot checks—. If we're told of an issue, then we can do within our regulatory powers what we can do. Our regulatory powers are limited though.

Yes, that gets us into a whole other discussion about whether we should be a regulator or an ombudsman or—

Yes, we are reliant on a very healthy relationship, a mature relationship with partners, but when things go wrong, there's a limit to what we can do. Ultimately, our only course of action is to withdraw funding, but sometimes that can have worse effects than—

That's not always the answer. I think the issue with WRU brought it very close to home to Wales. So, I think when there had been breakdowns in governance and other issues in the past, they'd been UK bodies, and it might have felt sort of distant, or a lot of the things that are public have been at senior performance level, whereas I think what happened with WRU just made Welsh governing bodies realise that it can happen anywhere. I think it's really important that governing bodies take that—. They do take the responsibility through the framework, but it can happen at any time. Any body can have things that go wrong, and it's how quickly they recognise it and fix it. That's really important, that they don't just ignore what is going on, but they bring about change.

In terms of the spot-check issue, there are examples at the minute where there are some partners that we're withholding funding from while we await some changes that we've recognised need to be made. So, it is a bit of a constant dialogue. We have a relationship manager for each of the governing bodies. There's a team of five that have a cohort of governing bodies allocated to them. So, that relationship is important; it's about attending board meetings, and partners achieving what we've put in their offer letters. 'Spot checks' is just a different term, I think, for what we do.

That's really helpful—

Being alert is the important thing. Thank you.

I'm so sorry, we're out of time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much again.

Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch. Thanks.

Christopher, would you like to introduce yourself?

Yes, of course. Bore da, bawb. I'm Christopher Catling, I'm the chief executive or secretary of the royal commission. I am coming up to my tenth year; I joined on St David's Day in 2015.

That's a very good question. We have two governing documents, if you like, at the royal commission. One is the royal warrant itself, which, if I could summarise in a sentence, requires us to make an inventory of the buildings and monuments of Wales that illustrate the life of the people of Wales at all times in the past. So, that's our core duty: to create an inventory. Back in 1908, that meant published books; these days, it's a digital inventory, it's our Coflein, our digital platform. At the same time, we have a remit letter from Welsh Government and a set of key performance indicators that, I'm afraid, don’t really address that core warrant duty. They are social objectives. They are objectives to do with young people, older people, community cohesion, apprenticeships, social prescribing, promotion of the Welsh language—I could go on, there are many others. All of which are extremely worthy objectives, but I think the assumption is that we can just deliver those as a by-product of the core duty, but of course that’s not the case. You can’t send somebody out with very specialist skills to record a listed building that’s due to be demolished and bring with you a lot of volunteers and other people to help. Simply, the burden of health and safety and safeguarding legislation and guidance and so on just prohibits that. It also adds to the time and capacity involved.

So, the way that we have addressed those objectives, which we embrace—I’m not for a moment objecting to them—is by seeking external funding. We have been very successful in that. Perhaps the most recent example is our Pendinas community engagement project, which has been hugely successful. I’m hoping and praying that it will win an archaeological achievement award—the shortlist is going to be announced tomorrow. It has enabled us to do all sorts of wonderful things with the local community in Penparcau, which is a suburb of—sorry, they would hate me to call it a suburb—which is the community south of Aberystwyth. [Laughter.]

Good save. Good save. Yes, you're fine. [Laughter.]

I’m really pleased to say that, when we brought in specialists to do a social audit of whether we’d achieved the objectives of creating the community well-being that we’d set out to achieve, we discovered that all the volunteers who’d taken part—and we’re talking about people with mental health issues like grieving, loneliness, anxiety; we’re talking about people whose lifestyles meant that they were not as healthy as they should be—they had all taken part in the project and they said they valued it because (a) they were out in the open air doing wonderful exercise, (b) they were learning things, (c) they got the sense of belonging to a community, but most important of all they said, 'We felt we were contributing to a very worthwhile project. We felt we were making a personal contribution.'

So, we do try to do both objectives as hard as we can. But, as I say, the social objectives are not funded by Welsh Government to the same degree. Quite honestly, our funding from Welsh Government pays for the salaries of our staff and the things that we have to do, like computing, cyber security—that comes at a big cost, £110,000 a year just for our computers, before we even sit at our desks. So, we’ve had to work very, very hard to win external funding for the KPIs.

develop international cultural partnerships, opportunities for learning exchange programmes, work with partners to develop school holiday enrichment programmes.

A lot of public bodies have faced inflationary pressures for the last 10 years, or more. So, how are the pressures faced by the royal commission compared to that, do you think—to everybody else, other public bodies?

You're absolutely right. Our costs have gone on rising at as astonishing rate. Cyber security certification, which is a requirement, used to cost us £700 and now costs £10,000. It's a reflection not just of inflation, it's the lack of people with the skills to do the work, so their salaries have risen, and also the companies that provide those services have recognised that they enjoy a degree of monopoly and that they can charge that much. Other costs that have risen are pay rises. We also have seen increases in the costs of employers' pension contributions. And there are many, many other costs that you're probably well aware of, like the cost of petrol, the cost of overnight stays when our staff go out to work in the field and have to stay in a hotel and so on. So, the way we've coped, I'm afraid, is simply by freezing posts. As people have left the commission, we have not replaced them, unless their role is so absolutely fundamental to our delivery that we have to. And this has been much regretted by the sector. For example, we do a lot less now with going out and giving pre-planning advice to local authorities and applicants for listed building consent, because we no longer have the specialist who used to do that work.

With pre planning, wasn't that a chargeable service before, or—?

Local authorities can charge for the service, but we don't. Our principle is that our services are already paid for by Welsh Government, so, therefore, we provide them as a free service to the people of Wales.

Okay. If you have a similar budget next year, and looking forward to the budgets, going forward, what would the impact be, do you think?

Well, the major impact is that quite a number of our staff are now doubling up and doing two jobs. Our governance officer is now our human resources manager, even though she has none of the qualifications or skills to do that job. Our procurement manager and operations manager is doubling up as our finance manager. We have two members of staff running the library and inquiries service, which is a room within the National Library of Wales that is remote from where the archives are. Now, if you can imagine, there's got to be one person there all the time, invigilating visitors, and somebody else has got to go and get stuff from the archive store. If one of those two members of staff is ill, having lunch, on holiday, whatever, we have to close the service. So, the impact is that we continue to operate at high levels of stress for staff, providing a service that's off and on, and without the capacity to deliver the sorts of things that we should be.

Can I just go back to having a charging model? So, local authorities charge for pre-planning advice to developers. Is that something that you might be able to take forward in the future?

We've thought very long and hard about this, and we've looked at other models. English Heritage—no, Historic England, sorry, pioneered a premium service of this kind, and it completely failed. They hired staff to deliver these services—nobody wanted to pay for them. We've done calculations that suggest that the income from such services, paid-for premium services, would not cover the cost of delivering them, and certainly wouldn't sustain the entirety of the commission.

Maybe something that could be valid—

Lee wanted to come in.

Could I just follow that up? In your evidence, you mentioned that you're struggling to meet the demand for windfarm developments and other renewables, because you're not able to give Natural Resources Wales the information they need as quickly as they do it. When you speak to the sector, they often say they'd be happy to pay to speed up the process, because that would give them certainty. So, it may be that pre-planning has proven to be not viable, but specifically around renewables, have you considered whether—?

Yes, we have. Every time we are asked to deliver this sort of data to underpin master planning, we always say, 'We don't have the capacity, will you pay us?', and the answer is 'no'. And often what happens is, then, that the person who's requesting the service goes to a consultant, and, ironically, the consultant charges more than we would have done.

And it's the applicants who are saying 'no', is it, or NRW?

No, no, it's the agencies. So, one of the things that we have identified as a major task facing the commission is to make better known the services that we can provide to the master planners and agents like Natural Resources Wales. But as I say, the level of income from that sort of work is never going to pay for extra staff or sustain the commission.

Sure, but I'm also thinking not just of the impact on you, I'm thinking of the impact on the speed of getting through planning applications for developers.

Yes, yes, speeding up the process. Absolutely, yes. 

Maybe, Chair, that's something we could think about in terms of follow-up action. Thank you.

How do funding restrictions impact on the ability to contribute across different policy areas, for example health?

I think there are two answers to that. One is the pure capacity issue, that it actually is a very time-consuming and people-heavy project to deliver some of these services, and I think we saw that. I sat in front of this committee several years ago to discuss the Fusion project and the same sort of problems. You can help a small number of people, but you can't help tens of thousands. It's a one-to-one relationship, very often.

But the other thing is—I hope my sponsor division don't mind my saying this, but they like to give the same objectives to all the arm's-length bodies that they manage, so that they get what they call read-across between the different organisations. I personally think it would be far better to identify one organisation to lead on a particular delivery objective, and make it quite clear who is responsible for the delivery of, let us say, social prescribing. And then I think we'll get more results if you do that.

I visited the national library recently in recess, and the royal commission was part of that building, and I am sorry, I’m very naive—I hadn't understood all that, and really fully understood what you did. So, it was very useful for me to attend as a member of the committee. Is there more that could be done, do you think, working across between the national library and the royal commission?

We already work very closely with the library, the museum and Cadw. And we try very, very hard. There is a danger that co-operation actually doesn't mean what it says. It often means just parallel; you're doing things, but not actually doing them together. We are increasingly trying to do things together. I don't know whether it has yet been announced officially in the Senedd, but we are engaged in talks with Cadw at the moment, and we are holding workshops—Cadw and commission staff coming together to discuss how we can do that better. If you remember, a previous Cabinet Secretary for culture announced that, as a result of the Cadw governance review, she was asking us to engage in these talks. Well, we've begun the talks, we've got a working group, we've got terms of reference and we're running staff workshops. And we're considering the options of remaining as independent institutions, merging together or some middle way whereby we have formal project agreements to work together.

Okay, thank you.

No, it won't help with the financial situation. What it will do is focus on the core irremediable tasks, the things that—you know, the minimum that the commission and Cadw have to do in terms of statute, in terms of international treaties like world heritage site management. It will mean change, and it will mean probably doing less than we currently do, but doing it differently. And one example of that is that, currently, I think there's an expectation that the royal commission will be the body that goes out and records every building that is going to be demolished or substantially altered—partial or total demolition. We have one and a half people to do that. Wales is going to lose 500 places of worship in the next 10 years—just do the maths. We can't record all those buildings. So, we are thinking hard about how we delegate that work to other people, and what we're trying to do is encourage local conservation officers to place a recording condition on listed building consent, and then use the private sector to do the recording work and then we get the results into the national monuments record, where they're available for everybody to consult. So, that's an example of creative and different thinking. It's not going to solve the financial problem, but it is going to enable us to try and mitigate the problem; that's what I'm trying to say.

For the last 10 years, we have been continuously encouraged to look at efficiency savings, particularly by combining back-office functions. We have worked really hard at that and we've never identified a single saving. Our organisation—all of us—are working to the bone, and I mentioned that two of our staff are now wearing two hats—human resources and finance manager, key functions for any organisation. When those two posts became vacant, we tried really hard—we asked the library, we asked the museum, we asked Welsh Government, we asked Cadw: could we share the resources? And they said, 'We'll provide the service to you but we'll need to hire somebody to do the job.' So, there's no saving there, and you would lose the direct connection with your HR manager.

I think the picture that I should paint is of a number of organisations working in historic environment who are very lean and don't have any fat at all. It has no low-hanging fruit, to mix my metaphors.

Yes, but in terms of the example you've chosen there in terms of sharing HR, it makes sense that the HR services of the other bodies involved—the human resources, the HR element, could be restructured in order to facilitate bringing you into that as well.

Structurally, there is no question that that could happen, and we do get a huge amount of advice and help from the HR manager at the library, in particular. But it won't save any money—that's the key point. 

Just on that theme, you gave us an example earlier that you're spending £110,000 a year on computers. Is there not room for collaboration there? 

It's not computers per se, it's the running of our Coflein system, the means by which everybody gets their access to our collections. It's the cyber security, it's the back-ups, it's the total package, it's our—

There's an additional £10,000 for cyber security, or is that within the—? 

That's within the £110,000, yes.

Okay. Have you engaged with the Centre for Digital Public Services, for example? 

Yes, we do talk to them all the time. I would say that the royal commission is a very sophisticated user of computer systems, often ones that are not supported by Welsh Government, or even understood or known about by the Welsh Government. The nature of our work means that we use an awful lot of either bespoke software or high-tech software, CAD systems. When we go out, we use laser recording backpacks, which collect data, point data, and then they have to be—

I'm sure that some of these are specific to you—

Yes, exactly.

—but I find it hard to believe that CAD, for example, is not used across the public sector.

No, it isn't, no—not by any of our partners. We are the only users, and—

The other example you gave is procurement capacity.

But, anyway, even if they are used by other sectors, you pay a licence per user, so there's no benefit to—. We drive our licence fees down by registering as an educational organisation, or under the Welsh Government licence.

I just struggle, from a commonsense point of view, to understand that there are no savings across those organisations. Because I remember an inquiry by this committee eight years ago, when Ken Skates, as Cabinet Secretary, looked for back-office functions, and we heard the same story then. I remember David Anderson coming here, complaining about the awful procedures they'd had to go through and how it wasn't possible to find any savings. And that is a very hard argument to sustain.

I'm afraid we have the evidence to the contrary. I would be very, very—

You also have declining funding, so something's got to give at some point, doesn't it?

Ah, yes. Well, that's a different question. There's a different question between efficiency savings, and I would argue that we are—. As chief execs, we work all the time very hard to keep efficient and to find the best possible savings. Structural changes, and doing things differently, that's a different issue.

Right. And is that captured by the work you're doing with Cadw, structural changes?

That is what the purpose of the working group review is, yes.

Okay. And is there a working group looking specifically at digital, procurement and HR?

Yes.

Okay. And who exactly—remind, me sorry—is in that cluster, that work?

Right. The chief execs of Cadw and the royal commission, the chairs of Cadw and the royal commission, an external heritage expert—

So, just Cadw and the royal commission?

And the unions and staff representatives—

But other bodies aren't? You're not looking to—

They are all going to be consulted. They are key stakeholders, and we've grouped our stakeholders according to those that we will have detailed conversations with, which are the library, the museum and Heneb—the Trust for Welsh Archaeology—and then those who will be consulted by means of a workshop.

I'm just wondering, in terms of specifically how you might restructure to share functions, limiting yourself to just one other body is probably not the most optimum of search criteria.

Well, Cadw doesn't have its own functions; Cadw uses the Welsh Government. So, we would—

So, you're unlikely to find much ground to share functions, in that case.

I'm afraid not.

Okay. So, you're asking the wrong question, then, with respect, aren't you? So, why aren't you looking at other bodies that you might be able to share functions with?

Because we don't—. The work of the royal commission and Cadw is very complementary.

Sure, but some of these are generic skills, aren't they?

No, no.

Well, with respect, cyber protection is not something specific to Cadw and the royal commission. That's a skill that can be shared across other bodies. But, if you're only looking to collaborate with one body, you're unlikely to come up with much room for improvement, are you? So, why are you narrowing your search criteria to just that?

Okay. Well, there are two answers to that. One is because that's what the Minister has asked us to do, and the other one is because, as I say, we don't have—. There are no other organisations that have similar needs and delivery objectives to ours. What I—

With respect, there are other bodies—

Lee, who would you suggest we talk to? Come on, be specific.

I beg your pardon.

I said, 'Be specific'. Who would you suggest we talk to?

Okay. Maybe we need to calm down a little.

No, I'm not not calm. I'm asking you a serious question. You—

Okay, okay.

And I'm making the point, you're special pleading—

Okay, okay.

Excuse me, can I just finish this? You're special pleading the whole time that—. I don't doubt that you're very efficient and you're doing a tough job with limited resources and that's frustrating. I completely understand that; I'm not questioning the value of your work. I'm simply challenging some of your evidence that there aren't functions you couldn't share with other bodies. There are generic HR skills, there are generic cyber skills, there are procurement skills that could be found beyond simply looking just at Cadw, is my point.

And when I addressed that question earlier, I said that we had worked really hard to find people to share it with. They had said, 'Yes, we can offer you the service, but we will need to hire staff to deliver it.' So, you haven't saved any money.

All right. Thank you very much. 

Can I—

We do need to move—

Can I just finish specifically on that? Because you've mentioned, I think, the national museum and the Welsh Government—the national library, sorry, and the Welsh Government. Have you looked beyond those for sharing those?

We have not, no, because I would not be able to identify another organisation that would be able to offer those skills to us, which is why I asked the question, 'Have you got a suggestion?'

All right. Okay. Thank you.

external funding for the KPIs in the remit letter.

The table that I submitted as part of the written evidence to this committee gives you some details of the external funding that we have received in the last 10 years. We've been conspicuously successful. But, as I said, when I gave evidence to another culture committee inquiry into the impacts of leaving the European Union, that most important source of funding has now been cut off for us. That funded a major six-year climate change project, which has been very well received.

Our main sources of funding now are the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The sorts of moneys that we can get from the AHRC are quite small, and we're not allowed ourselves to lead projects, so we're very dependent upon being brought in as partners to universities or analogue research organisations like the National Museum. But, nevertheless, we have a number of small projects that bring in about £10,000 a year. We've developed some quite innovative deep-mapping proposals as a result of that—award winning.

The National Lottery, we are doing quite a bit to help them strategically. I mentioned the loss of places of worship just now. The National Lottery is very concerned about places of worship and their future, and we're trying to undertake an audit to find out what the different denominations are planning in terms of church and chapel closure over the next 10 years, and what their needs are. So, we work really hard and we're quite successful.

Yes.

Yes. Yes, we are involved in that, but often as a very, very small partner in the projects. So, the sorts of sums we're talking about are £4,000 to £10,000.

Sorry, were you referring to the Pendinas project?

Yes.

Ah. That was a much more generous funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Cadw put in £10,000, we put in an equivalent amount, and the lottery put in about £0.25 million [Correction: £143,243]. I need to check that fact, but I think that's roughly what they contributed.

Yes, we took legal advice on this and were told that we'd have to dissolve the royal commission, that it would be incompatible to be a royal commission and a charity, and we decided that, on balance, being a royal commission was the stronger governance for us.

I just remembered something that I think is really important to stress about external funding. We're not using that—. When we win external funding, we set up a separate project team, and we hire people to work on it. And if any of our staff work on the project, they're paid for from the project funding and we backfill their posts. We're not using Welsh Government money for any of these external projects at all. They are absolutely additional to what we do.

As far as charitable status is concerned, there is a special status that some organisations enjoy without actually registering as a charity if their work is deemed to be charitable. Some church organisations, for example, benefit from that. We are trying very, very hard to see if we can benefit from that, because some of the philanthropic bodies that give money to projects only give to charities. Some of the most wealthy philanthropic trusts only give to charities.

Absolutely, yes. The commissioners have that on their agenda at every meeting.

Thank you. What is the impact of the royal commission receiving additional funding from the Welsh Government midway through the financial year? In September, the royal commission received an extra £90,000 revenue—

Yes, correct.

—from the Welsh Government. A previous witness from the arts council called it a 'sticking plaster'.

Well, yes, it is a sticking plaster in that it is time limited. It's for use this year. This is the mitigation fund. We're really grateful for it. What we've done is that we've hired six additional staff for a period of six months to work on absolutely vital projects. Two of them will support the library and enquiry service, two of them are going to undertake scanning of our most used archive collections, and two of them are doing an audit of the data that we deliver to the public via our Coflein digital platform. If we'd had a decision on that earlier in the year, we would have—. The impact of having that decision halfway through the year is that we've hired twice as many people for half the time.

Okay, thank you for that. And to what extent do you think that the Welsh Government’s draft culture priorities, which were discussed in the summer, should help cultural bodies mitigate the impact of the reduced funding?

I understand from Catrin Hughes that about 400 responses were received to that consultation. So, she's working her way through them. But I think there's a common thread through all the responses, which is, 'These are admiral objectives, but we need the tools to do the job.' We would be very happy to have that culture strategy as the framework for our future delivery.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Chair.

Okay. Diolch. And, finally then, what else do you think that the Welsh Government could do, aside from additional funding, that would mitigate the effect that's being seen?

As I say, we're working hard on thinking of mitigations. Sometimes I think the culture sector, the heritage sector, the historic environment sector is seen as a 'nice to have'. But, actually, we're more than a 'nice to have'—we're actually fundamental to the delivery of Welsh Government's statutory responsibilities in certain areas and to the planning system and master planning and infrastructure planning and so on. So, Lee has mentioned windfarms, afforestation, offshore aggregates extraction, and various other things like that where we are the source of the information that Government agencies use to make sure they're not harming the historic environment, which is excellent.

The major mitigation is for us to say, 'Right, what is absolutely core?' and we will focus on that. And that is what the workshops that we're having with Cadw are designed to do at the moment. Rather than aspiration, what would we love to do with all the funding in the world, we're actually saying, 'What is the irremediable core of what we have to do? And is that going to be best delivered on our own, together, or through merger?'

Oh, Hayley wants to add.

Oh, Hayley, forgive me, sorry. 

Thank you so much. Thank you very much indeed.