Powers, Process and Participation: A week-long series of events aims to get more people involved in the Assembly’s work
28 March 2011
Wales voted ‘yes’ on 3 March for the National Assembly for Wales to have enhanced law-making powers.That means there will be a wider scope to make Welsh laws in the next Assembly but how does the National Assembly make sure those laws reflect the needs of the people of Wales?
To answer this question the National Assembly has organised a series of events next week (week beginning 28 March) to kick-start the campaign to inform organisations and individuals how they can have a say in the law-making process.
The three key events are:
Powers, Process and Participation on 28 March: a day of sessions with Third Sector stakeholders to see how they can best utilise the new system of Assembly Standing Orders in order to feed into the law-making and scrutiny process;
The launch of the Petitions Committee legacy report on 29 March: an appraisal of how the Assembly’s petitions system has worked so far and what can be done to improve it for the Fourth Assembly;
An e-democracy event, #Senedd 2011; Democracy in our networked age, in the Pierhead on 30 March: a series of seminars with bloggers and online campaigners about how best to use digital engagement tools in order to affect the law-making process in Cardiff Bay.
“It was a significant vote in favour of enhanced law-making powers in the National Assembly referendum on 3 March,” said Presiding Officer, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM.
“But there was a recognition from all quarters, when the result came in, that we shouldn’t just start making laws for the sake of it, that that the laws we do make have to be based on rigorous analysis.
“That’s why the National Assembly has reviewed its own system of doing business, known as Standing Orders, in order to make business, and the law-making process, more responsive to and reflective of the needs of Wales.
“We also need to widen participation, particularly among young people, which is why we’ve organised a series of seminars with bloggers, online campaigners and journalists to see how we increase engagement through these new communication platforms.”
Powers, Process and Participation: A week-long series of events aims to get more people involved in the Assembly’s work from Assembly Wales / Cynulliad Cymru on Vimeo.The first event will be held in the Pierhead on 28 March and the aim is to arm the Assembly’s key stakeholders with the most effective route to participation.
It will involve a series of discussion seminars about the new powers post referendum, how they can make the best use out of Standing Orders in terms of feeding into scrutiny and law-making process and how to engage more with the Assembly.
The agenda for the Powers, Process and Particpation event on 28 March is as follows:
09:30 – 09:45 Welcome
PO-Confirmed
09:45 – 10:15 Powers: the powers and the ‘exceptions’ post- referendum
Keith Bush / Adrian Crompton
10:15 – 10:30 Questions
10:50 – 11:15 Process: The Standing Orders and how they can work for you.
Adrian Crompton / Anna Daniel / Llinos Madeley
11:15 – 11:30 Questions
11:30 – 12:30 Participation: How to engage? Lessons
from the Third Assembly, looking forward to the next Presentation, breakout groups, audience discussion.
Non Gwilym
What can the Assembly do to help you and your stakeholders engage with the powers and the process.
12:30 Feedback
The Petitions Committee legacy report will be launched in the Senedd at 10am on 29 March (details of content and event to follow)
The e democracy conference on 30 March will start in the Pierhead at 10.30am and the format is as follows:
Presentation 1 Andy Williamson, Hansard
Hansard will be giving a presentation discussing and comparing Parliaments around the world and how they are embracing technology in different ways to engage their electorates.
Presentation 2 Alison Preston, Ofcom's Senior Research Manager for Media Literacy / Iwan Williams, Head of Media, Brand and e-Democracy
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Alison Preston from Ofcom's Consumer Research team will present findings from its recent research into media literacy and digital engagement-
A representative from the Assembly will discuss the Vote 2011 online campaign, and show other ways the public can engage in the democratic process at the moment (e-petitions, Twitter) but then ask the question – what do bloggers/online communities want?Presentation 3 – Marc Webber
Multimedia journalist Marc Webber will be discussing the use of technology by representatives in our communities – AMs, MPs, MEPs, councillors – this is such a new area of communication, are any of them using technology to its greatest ability?
Presentation 4 – David Babbs, 38 Degrees’ David Babbs heads up the online campaigning organisation 38 Degrees. It is driven by the belief that people should have the power in society, and the online campaigns run by 38 Degrees have helped save BBC 6Music, stopped Trident being renewed for at least 5 more years.
12 midday – Seminar groups
People attending the conference will split into four groups, and each group will go with each speaker to attend a seminar talking through aspects of their presentation, raising more points, discussing different aspects of their work in detail.
2pm Panel feedback – the speaker from each group will give a short (2 minute) presentation of the different themes raised in their seminar.
2.15pm Panel discussion – led by compere Matt Withers ( Senedd correspondent for Western Mail) , the panel discussion will open up to questions from the floor (and possibly from Twitter) for the speakers. 30 minutes is set aside for questions. Event is scheduled to end at 2.45.