Alun Davies calls for less hectoring of councils

I wonder of there is any link between yesterday's blog's on Leighton Andrew's
 claim that freedom of information requests submitted to Cardiff University represent an attempt to damage his reputation and the reports that
local government secretary has suggested the Welsh Government should apologise to local councils for "hectoring" them in the past

To be fair to Mr Davies he is on record on criticising Leighton Andrews on Local Government reform.

Back in  2015  Mr Davies  had accused Leighton  of fighting councils rather than working with them to reform local government in Wales.

The Blaenau Gwent AM,a appeared before an Assembly scrutiny committee for the first time since announcing his intention to slash the number of councils in Wales.

Alun Davies  said: 

In terms of the absolute debate we are having, the public debate we are having today, it seemed to be between yourself as a protagonist against local government, it not seen to be the very positive debate we should be having on the future of local government.

“I’m interested to know why you think we’ve failed to have that debate so far.

Mr Andrews replied:

 “You’ve got to look back at what’s been the context of local government. The context is one in which we’ve seen a number of major failures in service delivery.”

Mr Davies became local government secretary last November.
The AM for Blaenau Gwent, who made the comments in a personal blog, also promised local authorities a "road map" to new powers
He said:

 "Great efforts have been made recently to re-build and re-set the relationship and there is certainly a sense that things have improved significantly."

But he adds:

 "For me it is time that Welsh Government joined the debate over the future of local government with a degree of humility rather than an over-large helping of hubris."
"Too often in the past the tone from Welsh Government has been hectoring, arrogant and policy expressed in intemperate language with criticism that has been unwarranted and unjustified," he said.
"Perhaps it's time for the government to say sorry and to start again."

There are some who would argue that Alun Davies talking about humility  is somewhat like Donald Trumps claim to be a modest man.

I don't know if Mr Davies claim  of a new approach to relations with councils is planned criticism of Leighton Andrews, but I suspect that he will react in a similar manner to Mr Andrews when faced by local government intransigence.

Anyway surely Local government reform should be part of top down reorganisation , when we eventually see an increase  in AM and maybe  a new electoral system based on STV  for all of Wales.

In the meantime I expect that the no-nonsense approach he has  very reason Leighton Andrews  was appointed as a Minster , may well be used by his former colleagues against him.