There are three Acts of particular importance that affect voluntary organisations in Wales. Find out how they affect your organisation.
Role of Welsh Government
Welsh Government’s role is to govern Wales and draft legislation and regulations relating to the devolved competencies. Welsh Government Ministers oversee a wide range of different portfolio areas, including health, education and the economy. With regard to the voluntary sector, The Third Sector Scheme sets out how Welsh Government and the third sector will work together.
Find out more about Welsh Government’s role.
Role of the Senedd
The role of the Senedd and its Members is to hold Welsh Government to account; debate and vote into law the legislation Welsh Government would like to pass; represent Wales and agree Welsh taxation. There are 40 Members of the Senedd. Labour have the most AMs and therefore are the party in Government.
A number of committees meet regularly to scrutinise Welsh Government activity in particular policy areas. Committee members come from across the different political parties that form the Assembly. Committees include the Children, Young People and Education Committee, the Finance Committee and the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee.
Find out more about committees.
Devolved competencies
The Government of Wales Act 1998, plus the Wales Acts of 2014, devolved a specific number of powers away from UK Government to the National Assembly. The Wales Act 2017 amended this, so rather than having a long list of devolved competencies, Wales is now able to make laws on any matter not reserved to UK Parliament.
The Senedd is not able to pass or modify existing legislation around foreign affairs, defence, policing, welfare, justice or the media, for example. These are powers only UK Parliament is able to utilise and are known as ‘reserved matters’.
The Senedd is able to pass legislation around health and social care (including its own NHS), transport, education, local government and the environment, among other things. It has also recently been granted its own tax raising powers.