Assembly Ministers can communicate with each other easily. In the house of commons for example, notes are written and passed on by an usher but in the Welsh Assembly, consoles are used.
The AMs’ all sit in the same seat every time. The speaker has a monitor which raises up from the front table, he can see the names of people wishing to speak and he decides the order of who should speak next. A light then appears in front of the AM allocated to speak and the microphone is switched on. The microphones pick up sound quite well.
Verbal speech is given which is then recorded by the proceedings team so that they can grammatise it. Any Welsh spoken is translated into English and vice versa and the transcript is available on the Internet one week later. Other information is available 24 hours after discussion.
A printout of every member’s votes are posted on the wall outside the chamber for public viewing but the parties have usually already agreed on a decision before a vote is cast.
A whole system reboot takes about 30 minutes but one of the advantages of the electronic system is that it saves time overall. A complete vote takes about 15 seconds to register in the system and Mr Ray Jones, Sound Manager organised a mock vote. The argument was “should school hours be reduced to 1 hour a day?” The vote outcome was 10 for, 14 Against and 3 Abstentions.
The Welsh Assembly are having a new building at a cost of £55 million. The new chamber when finished will be larger and more semi-circular. Natural light will provide an easier atmosphere to work in. The new system will have better quality microphones and brand new equipment, still using touch-screen consoles. The spending on ICT alone for the new building is estimated at a staggering £10 million.
