[Mark Drakeford: Thank you for your answers this morning, Deputy Minister. Can you elaborate on what the Government intends to do on a practical level to ensure that care standards in Southern Cross residential homes are protected and safeguarded over the coming months, particularly until the end of September?]

Gwenda Thomas: Mae Arolygiaeth Gofal a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol Cymru ynmonitro’r sefyllfa, ac ni fydd hynny’n wahanol i’r modd y mae’n monitro pob cartref yn arferol. Yn achos Southern Cross, mae AGGCC yn gweithredu’n ddyfal i geisio sicrhau nad yw sefyllfa ariannol Southern Cross yn dylanwadu ar y safonau, a bod y safonau hynny’n cael eu cynnal.

[Gwenda Thomas: The Care and Social Services Inspectorate for Walesis monitoring the situation, and that will not be any different to how it routinely monitors every home. In the case of Southern Cross, CCSIW is working hard to try to ensure that Southern Cross’s financial situation does not affect standards, and that those standards are maintained. ]

[Mark Drakeford: Minister, will you consider making time for a statement on Southern Cross Healthcare, and the impact of the problems facing that company on the provision of residential services for the elderly in Wales? ]

Jane Hutt: I know that the Deputy Minister for Children and Social Services, Gwenda Thomas, and her officials have been keeping a close eye on the situation with regard to Southern Cross Healthcare. In fact, I met the Deputy Minister before the election because of the great concerns about what happened, and the impact on residents was at the forefront of our discussions. There is ongoing dialogue between the Welsh Government, the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru and Southern Cross Healthcare, in order to ensure that there is sound communication and an understanding of developments. Indeed, as I said, a key priority is to protect care-home residents and to ensure their wellbeing. I understand that that is under  consideration, and that there is stability and sustainability with regard to Southern Cross Healthcare at the moment. We will come back to you to inform you of any developments.

Interviews with Cardiff Guardian, Cardiff Radio, Newyddion and Wales Today

Debates: Southern Cross and Welsh Elections

Events:  School visit and University event with American academic and labor organiser, Janice Fine of Rutgers University

Friday 20th May:

Spoke this evening at the Gower Constituency Labour Party annual dinner. Over 100 people there and a constituency party which always seems at ease with itself, with people happy to be in one another’s company. In Martin Caton, of course, they have one of the most principled Labour MPs of the post 1997 period, and in Edwina Hart one of the most effective Ministers of Welsh devolution. Lots of talk about what a happy campaign it had been this year – remarkable weather, lots of help from young people, good teams on the door step etc. Altogether a fine evening.

Monday 23rd May:

Interview this morning with Hannah, from the Cardiff Guardian. Her last week in the job. Great shame, I think. The Cardiff Guardian experiment has been great for Cardiff’s public and political life. Wide ranging discussion about what it’s like to be new Assembly Member, previous life as special adviser, nature of the constituency, policy challenges of the fourth Assembly term etc. What Hannah made of it all can be found here

Later, long conversation with constituent about Cardiff Community Health Council, and its response to health service changes. I’ve always had a strong interest in the CHC, since the Assembly Government decided to retain them in Wales, while they were being abolished in England. An early sign of policy differentiation and one which has been well justified by subsequent history. I’ve a meeting with the chief officer of the Cardiff and Vale CHC this Friday, so a chance to follow it all up them.

Tuesday 24th May:

Interviews today for Newyddion and Wales Today, to be broadcast on the official opening day of the Assembly. It’s a ‘new boy at the office’ type approach, so nothing too controversial, I think!

Wednesday 25th May:

First Minister’s Questions session of the new Assembly term, and my first in the chamber. I’ve spent many, many hours preparing for these sessions, when working for Rhodri Morgan, so I’m very familiar with it all from the FM side, at least. Not so well prepared for the levels of noise in the chamber. The Tories, especially prone to treating it all as a chance to give vent to the barnyard side of their nature. Still, Carwyn seemed to deal with it all without any difficulty. While in some ways the cards on these occasions might seem to be with the opposition – they can, after all, raise almost anything they like, without any prior notice – a well briefed Minister generally has the upper hand.

After FMQs, the first business questions. I decided that it was time to get the ‘speaking for the first time’ over and done with, and managed to get called to ask Jane Hutt, as business minister, if the government would consider giving time to a statement on developments at Southern Cross, the troubled supplier of residential care services for older people, and their impact on services in Wales. Jane well on top of it all, as to be expected. Decided to ask the question in Welsh – partly because I need to get over that hurdle too, but also because (other than Carwyn who deals equally fluently in Welsh and English) no other Labour member had contributed in Welsh during the afternoon. Some new Plaid members chose to use Welsh (as might be expected), but there are new Tories who are Welsh speakers too. I hope to be part of Labour’s Welsh language voice in this Assembly, even though English comes far more easily.

Today, too, to Radio Cardiff, to do their weekly ‘news and views’ slot. I get to choose two topics, in exchange for responding to whatever the presenter, Jane Morris, wants to raise. I focus on Southern Cross, and on reforming our antiquated voting system. Southern Cross issues are covered elsewhere, for anyone wanting to find out more. On the voting system, I just vented my frustration at the way we continue to conduct elections in a manner which suited the 19th century, not the 21st. I’m in favour of radical reform here. I think the Welsh Government should seek the powers to be responsible for any election which is conducted wholly within Wales. It’s anomalous, I believe, that the Home Office ought still to be responsible for the conduct of local government and Assembly elections in Wales. If we had the powers to do so, we could throw off the innate, and deeply retained, conservatism of central government in these matters, and experiment with a whole series of different ways of making voting easier for electors: all-postal ballots; voting at weekends; mobile voting booths which come to your street; voting by telephone and internet voting. The technology exists – it’s just the political will that needs to be summoned up.

Then to the University this evening for a brilliant session with American academic and labour organiser, Janice Fine of Rutgers University. Compelling analysis of the radical right agenda in the US, and its determination to destroy public sector unions – both because they stand in the way of neo-con economics, but also because they provide the underpinning of the Democratic Party. Yet, while national politicians celebrate the Arab Spring, and the overthrow of dictators which they have so long supported, in Wisconcin American has been witnessing a democratic spring all of its own. Literally tens of thousands of Wisconcin citizens ahve taken over the state capitol, in response to the hardline extremism of anti-labor policies  pursued by Republican Governor, Scott Walker.  Watch out for the results of the  up-coming recall ballots of six State senators which a coalition of Democrats, labor unions, students and others have forced through. For more information take a look here. 

 At the same time, Janice Fine traced the development of Labor Centers, community organisations that organise and represent low-wage, casual workers in US urban labour markets. In harsh, hard times it demonstrates that reaction to injustice still has the power to animate a progressive labour movement response to an irresponsible and exploitative capitalism.

Thursday 26th May:

Final bit of filming for the fourth term opening slots. Go to Severn Primary school Open Day for brilliant morning. It’s a school I know very well. Our children all went there, and I was the chair of governors there for many years. In the more recent past the previously separate Infants and Junior schools have been brought together to form a single school under the headship of the outstanding Julie Morris. Today was a chance to see the results of the building work which came as part of the deal to create a single school. It was also Art Week at the school, with an Aladdin theme – so plenty of chances to see magic carpets under construction, magic lamps being lit, puppets getting ready for performance etc.

The work that’s now complete is a great example of what can be done, even with Victorian buildings. A fine new, light and airy hall (complete with a group of Aladdin-style belly dancers today), a computer suite, new classrooms and a terrific new kitchen and dining area – for a school which has long pioneered healthy eating. Shown round by three, year five guides who were tremendous – confident, fluent and funny. Looking forward, now, to seeing themselves on TV, when it all goes out on 7th June

Policy Issues: Southern Cross and Cardiff Housing

Media interviews: Newyddion, BBC, Radio Wales

Half term week at the Assembly and a couple ofdays in West Wales catching up with family matters. Also a chance to do some writing and thinking about topics which I want to concentrate on over the next couple of weeks. Met up in Carmarthen with Richard Edwards, Assembly Member for Presceli in the 1999 Assembly and one of my oldest friends and had a very useful discussion on Labour’s position West of Loughor and why we didn’t do better, despite excellent candidate in Christine Gwyther.

Wednesday:was meant to be a day on the allotment, but the crisis at Southern Cross has hit the headlines, and so ended up doing stuff in Welsh for Newyddion, and in discussions with the Local Health Board about contingency plans for the four Southern Cross homes in Cardiff, if the company fails in its rescure plans. Work to finish off a piece on it all and send off, on spec, to the Institute of Welsh Affairs. They later agree to publish it on ClickOnWales tomorrow.

Thursday:the Southern Cross article leads the ClickOnWales website, so more media interest, including interview slot for BBC on Good Evening Wales. Spend most of the rest of the day in the constituency office catching up on correspondence.

Opera in the evening at the Millennium Centre. Lots of Cardiff West Labour Party members in teh audience. Mozart’s opera about the infidelity of women is all a bit hard to stomach today, but the production was great, singing excellent, orchestra outstanding as ever, and the music some of Mozart’s finest.

Friday:in the morning I’m in the Assembly for a briefing on meeting on housing issues. It’s very good to see housing in a full Cabinet portfolio, with lots of common themes in Party manifestos in May’s elections – so ought to be possible to make some progress, even in a hung Assembly. Discussion, too, about housing issues in Cardiff where there will be an acute set of problems facing the local authority, after next May’s elections.

In the evening go to watch Glamorgan against Middlesex, the first 20:20 match of the season. With the Swalec Stadium in Cardiff West this is, of course, a duty as well as a pleassure. Memorable for a remarkable catch by Robert Croft, rolling back the years, sprinting, diving and one-handed catching. Lucky it all happened before the floodlight failed and we all had to go home. Cycling back through the Fields, enjoyed a rare summer evening in which it is still warm enough to be outside, and enjoying it all after 10 p.m.

Saturday:my turn for the weekly constituency surgery, held as usual in Ely Library. Plenty of people to see, with the usual wide range of issues. This is part of the job which I feel at home in straight away – a legacy of doing surgeries for years as a local councillor and from many years in social work.

Sunday: for complicated reasons end up on flying visit to Cambridge, overnight on Saturday. Take part in early morning discussion on care of older people on Radio Wales by going to a studio in Radio Cambridge. I am left on my own in a very small room, but with a microphone so large and old that it was surely last used by Marconi. In that rather surreal setting take part in debate with Baroness Finaly of Llandaf and Glyn Davies M.P., without any one of us being so impolite as to mention that we are never in the same room together.

Back to Cardiff to find that the promised rain (through which I drove back along the M4) has failed to materialise and the allotment as badly in need to watering as ever.

Policy: Southern Cross, Council Tax and the Social Fund

Monday 6th June: went today to the launch of the next phase of the Cardiff and Vale Play Project, held at the Blackwood Miners Institute in St Fagans. Great weater and lots and lts of children. Keen to keep in touch about where the new play workers will start work, as there are parts of Cardiff West where they’ll be very welcome indeed.

Later: to evening meeting in Radyr on teh Cardiff Council proposed Local Development Plan. Large audience, with lots of well informed questions and comments. Kevin Brennan and I have already responded to the consultation exercise and a copy of our letter to the Council can be found here.

Tuesday 7th June: official opening of the Fourth Assembly. I’m no fan of ceremony, but this was business, not pleasure, so I was there for the formal part of the day, bit no more.

Wednesday 8th June:spent time working on a paper on Southern Cross and the compelling case for extending the remit of Community Health Councils in Wales to cover social care, as well as health services. Had the chance to ask the Deputy Minister, Gwenda Thomas, about the need for careful inspection of services over the coming months, during an emergy question in the Assembly this afternoon. Also during Plenary I asked the First Minister about issues surrounding Council Tax and the Social Fund.

Thursday 9th June:summer concert at Coed y Cof school in Fairwater today. Packed hall and lots of excellent performances, much of it from last month’s Urdd eisteddfod. Then to the first of a new series of lectures at Cardiff University, this time from Professor Michael Burawoy of Berkeley, California, where I nearly went to study in 1976. Title of the lecture, Universities in Crisis. Professor Burawory suggests that Wales has been sheltered by the Welsh Government, from the full effects of the crisis world-wide – but still lots of anxiety in the room about what the future holds.

Friday 10th June: constituency day, with lots of meetings in the Transport House office and out in Cardiff West.

Saturday 11th June: busy day, for non-working day. Morning meeting of Team Cardiff in the Wales Institute of Sport with a good turnout. All four Cardiff Labour A.M.s there. Very lively discussion of key policy areas for next year’s local authority elections and much consensus on issues for detailed work over the summer. In the afternoon I went to the Morning Star annual conference, at Transport House, to speak in a session on law making and the Welsh Government, before heading to the allotment for an hour. Then to see Glamorgan snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against Kent. Home just after nine o’clock to phone call from out son in Carmarthen, I’ve been seen by him on TV at the cricket – making a much bigger impression than any of my other media appearances since 5th May

Tuesday 14th June: early start to the week, with my first breakfast meeting since the election. This was a briefing on the work of the Sector Skills Councils in Wales. Tuesday meetings with voluntary and campaigning groups are now beginning to pick up speed, and lunchtime today went to a meeting with Diabetes Cymru. Then long afternoon in the chamber where I had a question at FMQs, highlighting the policy of Conservative poster-council of Wandsworth in charging children for use of play areas. Not a policy we intend to copy in Wales. Late finish means I miss Tony Beddow’s inaugural lecture on health policy in Wales

Wednesday 15th June: speak for the first time in a plenary debate today. Try out some arguments on the limitations of a simple growth strategy for the future of the Welsh economy. Hope to come back to these in more detail when taking part in discussions to launch the next Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on Poverty and Social Exclusion in Wales. Plenary timings mean I miss Professor Danny Dorling’s lecture on inequality (there’s a theme emerging here), but do manage to go instead to a briefing from the Carers’ Alliance.

Thursday 16th June: launch of new Money Advice Service at the Senedd today. Lots of old friends and contacts in the financial exclusion world with useful discussions on fuel poverty and credit union development.

Friday 17th June: to Merthyr to my first meeting as chair of the European funding Programme Monitoring Committee. A very large number of people attending, and a packed agenda. My aim mostly to stay on top of the basics, to get the business through and not to look as if I’d strayed into the wrong meeting. Practically the first thing I was told, on appointment, was that the previous chair, Jeff Cuthbert, had never failed to conclude a meeting on time, in eight years in the job. Easy enough to believe – hard enough to follow. Just about passed the test this time.

Spend the afternoon working on a final piece (for now) on Southern Cross, for publication (hopefully) next week.

This evening’s dilemma is solved by the weather. I can go to St David’s Hall for the final of the Cardiff Singer of the World song competition without wondering how Glamorgan are doing against Kent, because rain prevents any play. Not many dry eyes in the hall in a wonderful set of performances, won by brilliant Russian baritone, singing a set of early Soviet era songs, full of Slavic melancholy and borrowed sounds from the Orthodox tradition.

Saturday 18th June: final day of the Ely Festival and there to set up the Labour Party stall on the main festival field. In torrential rain I shelter with Cllr Iona Gordon, the development worker for Cardiff Credit Union and others, all huddled together in the middle of the side-less Ely Library gazebo. Miraculously, the sun comes out, the grass dries off, the crowds arrive and everything goes with a swing. Tour the field with Kevin Brennan, buying beetroot, a lettuce and a fruit cake in the process. Labour’s stall is one where, this year, we’ve decided to give away second hand books, as a small mark of appreciation for the support we’ve had in Ely across the years. Lots of children’s books on offer and over the afternoon we must have found homes for, literally, hundreds of books. A great idea, and a really good afternoon.

Sunday 19th June: inspired by Ely gardeners, I go to the allotment. Where their beetroot were like tennis balls, mine would be good for golf. Where their lettuce were like footballs, mine have been turned down even by the rabbits. Still, strawberries are excellent, despite the rain, and enough blackcurrants to help explain why this is one of the few crops in which Britain is still self-sufficient. One plot neighbour offers me a bag of red gooseberries, to celebrate Labour’s victory in Cardiff West. Another asks me to explain why putting up the bank rate is said to reduce inflation. It wasn’t like this before May 5th, and I leave hoping my answer was at least more convincing than the lettuce.

Monday 20th June: constituency day, and varied as ever. Visit with Kevin Brennan in the morning to Ely, to help hand over cheques to local schools, collected at Wilson Road supermarket. Then to a meeting with chair and secretary of Machen Place mosque, an essential part of the Riverside community. Lots of plans for developing services already provided to the whole of the local area, and keen to whatever we can through our office to help make that happen.

Tuesday 21st June: my first time for sponsoring an event at the Assembly, and glad to do that for Save the Children, at a well-attended and informative session. Before that a question to the First Minister on health reform during the afternoon, and a meeting with representatives of the British Medical Association in the evening.

Wednesday 22nd June: fairly last minute appearance on a panel to discuss the Fourth Assembly at the annual meeting of the Association of Directors of Social Services in Wales. Lots of old friends in the audience and some very good questions. In the afternoon, elected chair of the Assembly’s Health and Social Services Committee, my personal best piece of news since the election and a job which I really look forward to undertaking. Evening social event　with Fairwater Labour Party where　my utterly abject performance in playing skittles demonstrates why I　would have　no chance of being elected chair of the Assembly’s sport committee, should it ever have one.　

Thursday 23rd June: lots of different meetings, including first one with staff who service the Health Committee. Lots of e-mails, too, from organisations wanting to meet on the health and social services front which, of course, I’m very happy to do. Afternoon call in to the Social Care Acolades at City Hall. Much deserved boost to a sector which does so much good work, most often in the privacy of people’s homes. Evening visit to　a chilly　SWALEC stadium to see Glamorgan. For the second time this year, I leave when the outcome is clear. Last time, Glamorgan were heading to a straight forward win, but lost by the time I go home, ten minutes later. This time, I leave with Glamorgan facing an unavoidable defeat, to hear them win when I turn on Edward Bevan as I get through the door. Cricket is always a game of the unexpected, but 20:20 is something else again.

Friday 24th June: day of constituency meetings, with individuals and organisations. Cardiff West General committee meeting this evening, very well attended, and keenly debated evening.

Saturday 25th June: morning surgery, followed by visit to Canton Community Gardens Fair in rather damp Victoria Park. Fail to purchase any courgette plants (there’d been a run on them), so my own crop failure here goes unrectified.

Sunday 26th June: a day in Pembrokeshire and on the beach. Summer has arrived, at least for a day and I manage to get my first two swims of the year – the latest I can ever remember, but then it’s not been a normal year.