That’s the question a Senedd Committee has been grappling with over the last six months.
How a parliament organises its business and the rules about who can speak or vote may seem archaic, but they can have a big impact on how a government is held to account.
The size of the Senedd will increase to 96 Members after next year’s election. The Future Senedd Committee has been looking at how a bigger Senedd could improve scrutiny, strengthen accountability and broaden representation.
A unique opportunity for change
One of the main drivers put forward in favour of Senedd expansion was to give the institution sufficient capacity to fulfil its policy, legislative and scrutiny responsibilities.
Now that this increase in members has been agreed, the question turns to how to use this additional capacity to deliver better outcomes for the people of Wales.
The Future Senedd Committee was established to try and find the answers. The Committee has been gathering the views of current and former Members of the Senedd, as well as looking at academic research on the organisation of parliamentary business.
On 9 May 2025, the Committee published its final report, with a series of recommendations made to the Senedd’s Business Committee. This is the body responsible for the organisation of Senedd business, made up of representatives of the political parties in the Senedd and chaired by the Llywydd (Presiding Officer).
A new way of organising Senedd business
One of the ways the additional capacity could be utilised is to increase the amount of time that the Senedd sits in Plenary or in committees. The Committee is clear in its report that the status quo, where the Senedd meets twice a week for Plenary, is not a model that should be considered for the future.
It says that extra Plenary time will be needed in a larger Senedd. This could provide further opportunities to scrutinise legislation, hold government ministers to account or debate issues that are important to individual members and committees.
It suggests this could be done by Plenary meeting an extra day every week or as part of a ‘multi-week’ timetable of two or three weeks.
Multi-week models are where business in a parliament is focussed on different parliamentary activities across different weeks. For example, the first week of business could focus on Plenary meetings, with others having a greater emphasis on committee work or a mix of the two.
Multi-week models are common in many other legislatures, such as the European Parliament and the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. Senedd Research undertook a comparative analysis of other parliaments with a comparable size and electoral system to that of the Senedd after 2026 to support the Committee’s work.
The Committee agreed a set of principles that should be considered when making decisions about the organisation of Senedd business. These include:
- Finish times for Plenary and committee meetings should be as predictable as possible.
- Plenary must meet every week for essential business items such as First Minister questions.
- There must be sufficient time in Plenary for effective scrutiny, for holding the government to account, to enable the efficient delivery of government business, and for the consideration of Member Bills.
- Committees must be provided with the time and flexibility to meet away from Cardiff Bay.
The Committee also considered whether any changes could be made to how the Senedd’s committees operate. It concluded that its probable the additional number of Members will only give limited flexibility to expand the number or size of Senedd committees.
It is also likely that Members will continue to have to sit on more than one Committee. Currently, backbench and opposition Members often sit on more than one Committee, unlike their counterparts in other larger legislatures, such as the House of Commons in the UK Parliament.
Previous studies have suggested that this could impact on Members’ workloads and therefore affect their ability to prioritise committee work amongst many other demands on their time.
Given that creating more capacity for committee scrutiny work was a key reason for expanding the Senedd, the Committee has suggested that there should be monitoring of the impact of new arrangements on the time Members have to prepare for committee work and whether this leads to better scrutiny outcomes.
A positive culture is just as important
Whilst the structure of the Senedd’s business can help to improve the effectiveness of scrutiny, the Committee concludes that the way in which it is conducted by Members is just as important.
The report highlights evidence showing that high performing parliaments are those where Members set high expectations of one another in the delivery of their roles. This is particularly the case for committees.
The Committee says that steps should be taken to ensure that positive parliamentary behaviours already developed in the Senedd are embedded in the next Senedd term.
A more representative Senedd
A key part of making the Senedd more effective will be ensuring that it represents all the people of Wales.
The Committee examined work that has already been undertaken on the barriers that people face when seeking elected office in Wales and across the UK.
It recognised that actions will be needed both inside and outside the Senedd to fully address this issue. The Committee suggests a number of practical steps the Senedd could take to tackle barriers including:
- improving the support that’s provided to new Members when they enter their new roles;
- providing better predictability for start and finish times to support Members with caring responsibilities; and
- to establish an on-site creche for Members and other users of the estate.
The Committee says that remote participation in proceedings should continue in future as it can support Members who have to manage factors such as caring responsibilities and health conditions.
A lot of decisions ahead
With the election less than a year away, there are still a lot of decisions that will need to be taken to prepare for the next Senedd.
Many of the recommendations from this report, will fall to this Senedd’s Business Committee.
However, final decisions about the number and size of committees and timetabling arrangements will have to wait until after the election. The incoming Members of the Seventh Senedd will ultimately be responsible for the deciding the way forward.
Article by Josh Hayman, Senedd Research, Welsh Parliament
