Government Response: The Local Government (Standards Committees and Member Conduct) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Wales) Regulations 2025

Technical scrutiny point 1:                      The Welsh Government accepts that the link between the reference to the Local Government Act 2000 in the first paragraph of the preamble and the reference to that Act in the second paragraph of the preamble could have been made more explicit.  However, based on the context of the preamble as a whole, the Welsh Government considers that the meaning of “the Act” is sufficiently clear.

Technical scrutiny point 2:                      The Welsh Government accepts that the Local Government Act 1972 and the Local Government Act 2000 have already been defined as “the 1972 Act” and “the 2000 Act” respectively in the existing text of regulation 2 of the Standards Committees (Wales) Regulations 2001.  However, referring to these two Acts by their full names in the inserted definition of “senior, cabinet or executive post” does not create any confusion, and Welsh Government is content that the words achieve the intended effect.

Technical scrutiny point 3:                      The Welsh Government accepts that the list of definitions in paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule to the Welsh text of the Local Authorities (Model Code of Conduct) (Wales) Order 2008 is not in the correct order alphabetically (due to the incorrect position of “eich awdurdod”), and that a translation of the definition of “registered society” appears to be missing from the Welsh text in paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule to the 2008 Order as a result of an amendment made by a UK SI.

However, the definition of “nodweddion gwarchodedig” is still capable of being inserted into the list and it is not considered that the approach taken will cause issues to the reader.

Given the issues in the existing list of definitions in the Welsh language in paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule to the 2008 Order, it will be reviewed as part of the ongoing work by Welsh Government in relation to the Local Government Ethical Standards Framework in Wales.