In the ninth episode of our series Wales: A Work in Progress, the IWA's Co-Director Joe Rossiter speaks to David Melding and Glyndwr Cennydd Jones about their new booklet: The Federal-Confederal Letters. You can read the booklet at: https://simplebooklet.com/thefederalconfederalletters1#page=1
In the eighth episode of our series Wales: A Work in Progress, the IWA's Co-Director Joe Rossiter speaks to Senior Lecturers in Economics at Bangor University, Dr Edward Jones and Dr Rhys ap Gwilym. We discuss what is devolved to Wales when it comes to tax (as well as what isn't) and consider the options available for future changes to taxation.
In this episode, Victoria Kioi, editor in residence at the welsh agenda, talks to actor Gabin Kongolo about the creative sector in Wales, learning Welsh later in life, his Congolese heritage, and navigating the creative industry. Gabin Kongolo is a poet and actor. His work includes film-poem Ndako and he was recently featured in Bariau (2024).
In the seventh episode of our series Wales: A Work in Progress, the IWA's Policy and External Affairs Manager Joe Rossiter talks to Steph Coulter from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy. Wales: A Work in Progress is the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Legal Education Foundation. In this series, we explore options for Wales' future in conversation with experts and people interested in shaping the way forward for our country. In keeping wi...
This is a recording of Building from the Bottom: Delivering wellbeing and resilience through community ownership held by the Institute of Welsh Affairs in partnership with Bangor University. Despite our best efforts, we apologise that part of the recording is unintelligible due to equipment issues on the day. A transcript of the episode is available here.
You can now listen to the launch of our latest report, Sharing Power, Spreading Wealth. Read the full report here: https://www.iwa.wales/our-work/work/sharing-power-spreading-wealth/
Welcome to the welsh agenda podcast. In this episode, our resident editor Matthaus Bridge reflects on his journey as a bilingual English and Welsh speaking journalist as he enters the professional world after learning the language in school. A few words from Matthaus: 'Like many people my age, I learnt Welsh in school, and am now the first and, to date, only, fluent Welsh speaker in my family. In my life, I navigate different professional and personal identities, and it sometimes feels like it c...
Welcome to the welsh agenda podcast. In this episode, our resident editor Matthaus Bridge reflects on his journey as a bilingual English and Welsh speaking journalist as he enters the professional world after learning the language in school. A few words from Matthaus: 'Like many people my age, I learnt Welsh in school, and am now the first and, to date, only, fluent Welsh speaker in my family. In my life, I navigate different professional and personal identities, and it sometimes feels like it c...
The IWA are delighted to bring you a discussion between Chris Stark, CEO of the UK Climate Change Committee (UKCCC) and Wales’ Future Generations’ Commissioner, Derek Walker. In this conversation we will touch on where Wales stands on its net zero journey, how we compare to other nations, and how we can accelerate our transition and adaptation to the climate emergency.
In the sixth episode of our series Wales: A Work in Progress, the IWA's Policy and External Affairs Manager Joe Rossiter talks to Professor Mark Barry about the future of Wales' transport networks. Wales: A Work in Progress is the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Legal Education Foundation. In this series, we explore options for Wales' future in conversation with experts and people interested in shaping the way forward for our country. In keep...
This week, we release the recording of our recent event Social Security Spotlight with Mairi Spowage. Mairi is a Professor of Practice and Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. In this event, she and Auriol Miller discussed Scottish Government's policy on social security. Scotland has a significantly larger package of powers devolved in this area compared to Wales. The Scottish Child Payment, a new devolved benefit, is particularly pertinent ...
This week, instead of an episode, enjoy a recorded version of our recent event with Akash Paun, Programme Director at the Institute for Government. Akash came to speak to the IWA's Director Auriol Miller to discuss his recent paper, submitted to the Independent Commission for Wales' Constitutional Future. In it, Akash proposed a comparison of the UK nations' settlements. In this event, Akash discussed: What the gaps are in Wales’ current settlement What we can learn from other parts of the UK Wh...
In the fifth episode of our series Wales: A Work in Progress, the IWA's Policy and External Affairs Manager Joe Rossiter talks to Yvonne Murphy, the mind behind the Talking Shop, an innovative space created for people wishing to learn more about their institutions in order to become more active in their communities. Wales: A Work in Progress is the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Legal Education Foundation. In this series, we explore options ...
In the fourth episode of our series Wales: A Work in Progress, the IWA's Policy and External Affairs Manager Joe Rossiter talks to the IWA's own Media and Democracy project lead Dylan Moore. Dylan discusses the aims of his research on media and democracy, the causes and impact of the media and information deficit in Wales, and what can be done to address it. Wales: A Work in Progress is the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Legal Education Foun...
Welcome back to Wales: A Work in Progress. In our third episode, we tackle dialogue and democratic renewal. The IWA's director Auriol Miller speaks to Dr Anwen Elias, a member of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales and a reader at the University of Aberystwyth, and to Dr Jennifer Wolowic, Principal lead at Aberystwyth University's Dialogue Centre. Wales: A Work in Progress is the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Le...
Welcome to the second episode of our podcast series Wales: A Work in Progress , the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Legal Education Foundation. This week, we continue our in-depth exploration of federalism. In this series, we explore options for Wales' future in conversation with experts and people interested in shaping the way forward for our country. In keeping with the IWA's independence, we don't take position - rather, we want to give vo...
Welcome to the first episode of our podcast series Wales: A Work in Progress , the companion piece of our project on the constitutional future of Wales supported by the Legal Education Foundation. This week, we explore federalism. In this series, we explore options for Wales' future in conversation with experts and people interested in shaping the way forward for our country. In keeping with the IWA's independence, we don't take position - rather, we want to give voice to different options and e...
Today, we kick off a new podcast series to accompany our new project supported by the Legal Education Foundation: Wales: A Work in Progress . In this series, we will explore options for Wales' future in conversation with experts and people interested in shaping the way forward for our country. In keeping with the IWA's independence, we don't take position - rather, we want to give voice to different options and examine the evidence to understand what the best path might be for Wales, and why. In...
This is a recording of the launch of our report 'Broadcasting Regulation in Wales: What can we learn from Europe?', which took place on 9 March 2023. This event was chaired by the IWA's Director Auriol Miller and included a presentation from the authors of the report, Dr Marlen Komorowski (Media Cymru), Dylan Moore (Media and Democracy Policy Lead, IWA) and Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed (Media Cymru). The devolution of broadcasting is under active consideration, with an Expert Panel set up as part of ...
Hear from Harry Thompson, author of the IWA's report Beyond Social Partnership? Devolved Levers to support Trade Unions in Wales, which was launched on 16 February 2023. This podcast is a recording of a discussion about the role of trade unions. Harry Thompson, the IWA's Economic Policy Lead, spoke to Hannah Blythyn MS, Deputy Minister for Social Partnership, and to Nisreen Mansour, a Policy Officer at the Wales TUC.
This is a recording of the launch of our report Beyond Social Partnership? Devolved Levers to Support Trade Unions in Wales , which took place on Thursday 16 February 2023. This event was chaired by the IWA's Policy and External Affairs Manager Joe Rossiter and included a presentation and Q&A delivered by Harry Thompson, the IWA's Economic Policy Lead and author of the report. As part of our work towards a fair economy for Wales, we have undertaken a short study into the trade union movement...
In the IWA's report Fiscal Firepower and Effective Policy Making in Wales , our Economic Policy Lead Harry Thompson argues that reforming the Welsh Government’s borrowing powers is a key option to better enable transformative policy making in Wales. In this podcast, you can hear Harry in conversation with Rebecca Evans MS, Minister for Finance and Local Government, and Llyr Gruffydd MS, about the challenges of fiscal policy in Wales....
A new Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative & Unionist Party will be announced on 5th September 2022. The new government formed will take over the promises made in the 2019 Conservative Manifesto around levelling up and regional funding post-Brexit. These include the nascent UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the future of the Levelling Up Fund, as part of the wider levelling up agenda. In this episode, Harry Thompson discusses the effects of Levelling Up in Wales, and what is needed to m...
In this conversation recorded after our event with the Swiss Embassy, Auriol Miller, Co-Chair of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales Laura McAllister, and Swiss Ambassador to the UK Markus Leitner have an in-depth conversation about Swiss Federalism and what we can learn from it in Wales. Our event, The Swiss decentralisation experience & Wales’ constitutional perspectives , was held on 29 June 2022 at Capital Law's office in Cardiff. We are grateful for their su...
This was the first of a series of joint events planned as part of the IWA's partnership with Bangor University . The North Welsh population is shifting dramatically. This is not only due to the ageing experienced by other developed nations, but local factors including inward migration of retirees from across the UK and working age people leaving the area. In the two decades leading up to 2018, the proportion of North Walians aged 65 and over increased from 18% to 23%, a trend projected to contin...
This event was dedicated to the launch of our latest report, Our Land: Communities and Land Use . The project is funded by the Friends Provident Charitable Foundation and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Our report tells a story of Wales severely lagging behind in giving communities a right to access land and other assets, with an arduous and demoralising process that seems almost designed to keep assets out of community control, at a time when we emerge from a period of austerity that has driven...
On the 30th of November and 1st of December 2021, the IWA held a two-day summit on the future of the Welsh economy. In this episode, our policy team, Will Henson, Harry Thompson, and Dr Jack Watkins, look back on the event and discuss some of its key moments. The first section looks at our Q&As with Vaughan Gething MS, Minister for Economy in the Welsh Government, and Neil O’Brien MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Levelling Up, The Union and Constitution at the Department for Le...
Co-written with Welsh consultancy firm The Means, this report draws on original research and the Understanding Welsh Places online tool to explore how Welsh places responded to Covid-19. We use stories from communities across Wales to understand how residents used local facilities and assets during the crisis, and what we learned about Welsh places’ preparedness to respond to an event of this scale. We then make recommendations about how the Welsh government and local authorities can invest in t...
At this free online event, attendees heard about our latest report, part of our project on the Foundational Economy, funded by CREW. Produced in collaboration with The Means, a consultancy working on economic regeneration across the UK, our report outlines how regulations and their enforcement can disproportionately impact small and medium sized businesses, making it hard for new firms to enter established markets and to expand. Hear more about the series of recommendations we make of how Welsh ...
This event discusses the surge in volunteering during the Covid-19 pandemic, and explores the challenges the sector has faced as well as whether there has been a shift in policy over the past 15 months. Since the pandemic began in March 2020, interest in volunteering in Wales has seen a significant increase. It has played a crucial role in supporting communities and helping people meet their basic needs. In this last edition of our Rethinking Wales series we explore the reasons behind this surge...
