Regional council service plan tricky, Sir Paul Williams says

In 2014 Sir Paul Williams had called for the number of councils to be reduced significantly

The man who led a Welsh Government commission recommending council mergers in 2014 has said he is disappointed so little has changed.

Ministers have shelved merger plans and now want councils to work together to deliver services regionally.

But Sir Paul Williams said it could be "very tricky" because councils will have to give up some authority.

Local Government Secretary Mark Drakeford has said efforts were made to take forward the recommendations.

Sir Paul's commission had said the number of councils should be cut from the existing 22 to as few as 10.

The Williams Commission presented its report to First Minister Carwyn Jones in 2014

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday Politics Wales programme, Sir Paul said Mr Drakeford wanted to see councils co-operate rather than merge "because clearly with minority government that's probably the only option".

Labour leads the Welsh Government but needs AMs from other parties to help it get decisions through the assembly.

Asked if he was disappointed at a lack of progress, Sir Paul said: "I think I am personally.

"Probably my commission members were disappointed given the depth of the evidence we took and, at the time, virtually everyone we spoke to expressed a view that something had to be done.

"But unless there is the political will to see it through, then no I'm not surprised.

"I think what Mark is trying to do now is form that consensus, but he's quite clear that partnership working as it has operated previously... is not workable. It's too complicated and complex."

The former NHS Wales chief executive said that increased collaboration between authorities could make the system more complicated.

Mr Drakeford said: "The last Welsh Government here in the last assembly term made a valiant effort to take forward Sir Paul's recommendations in terms of the number of local authorities.

"I think that debate was important. I think that debate has changed some of the nature of what we will do.

"But in the end it failed to obtain a consensus within the assembly and without the assembly on that particular aspect of his report."

'Cede some authority'

The Williams Commission report, published in January 2014, criticised the complexity and number of public sector bodies in Wales.

"The danger [is] you just develop an overly bureaucratic landscape, where those operating within it are spending more time working on process than on outcomes," Sir Paul said.

"I think that's where Mark has been quite clear, that he wishes to mandate both on the new arrangements and reducing existing partnerships and rationalising them.

"More importantly to mandate on the governance arrangements, I think that's going to be very tricky", he said.

"Because if we are going to keep the 22 authorities - and they are democratically elected - how are the governance arrangements going to work where they are going to have to cede some of their authority to a new regional partnership or another partnership which might be based on the health boards?"

Sunday Politics Wales, Sunday, BBC One Wales, 11:00BST