{"id":478127,"date":"2025-10-06T12:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/478127\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:49:11","slug":"senedd-expansion-causing-almost-half-of-staff-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/478127\/","title":{"rendered":"Senedd expansion causing almost half of staff stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

The figure has proven ‘stubborn to shift’<\/p>\n

Almost half of Senedd staff are suffering significant stress with a “worrying” workload because of the Welsh Parliament\u2019s expansion. Manon Antoniazzi, the Senedd\u2019s chief executive, said 47% of staff are suffering from stress \u2013 a statistic that has proven “stubborn to shift”.<\/p>\n

The pressure comes as the parliament prepares to expand from 60 to 96 politicians after May\u2019s election in a change requiring an overhaul of buildings, budgets, and processes. Ms Antoniazzi said the Senedd Commission, which runs the parliament\u2019s support services, has developed a wellness strategy and targeted support for services under strain.<\/p>\n

She said overall staff sickness has decreased significantly, from 8.6 days for each employee last year to 6.4 now, comparing favourably with the wider civil service average of 8.1 days.<\/p>\n

But Ms Antoniazzi recognised a rise in absences due to mental health in the staff survey, attributing this largely to personal reasons rather than work-related stress.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the evidence session on October 2 the committee questioned a \u00a341,830 payment to ex-deputy chief executive Siwan Davies who left the \u00a3150,000-a-year post in January.<\/p>\n

The \u00a341,830 was an \u201cextra-contractual\u201d payment approved by the commission as part of a \u00a371,320 package relating to Ms Davies\u2019 departure \u2013 with the rest related to pay in lieu of notice and accrued annual leave, according to 2024-25 accounts.<\/p>\n

Ms Antoniazzi assured the committee the payment was fully scrutinised by Audit Wales which was \u201csatisfied appropriate governance steps were taken\u201d.<\/p>\n

She told Senedd members: \u201cAll the circumstances were disclosed to Audit Wales and they looked at all the steps and gave that assurance to me, which I can pass on to you.\u201d For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The scrutiny of executive pay came as the Senedd revealed significant pay gaps elsewhere in its annual diversity and pay gap report.<\/p>\n

While the median gender gap was 0%, meaning men and women are paid equally, the median pay for ethnic minority staff was 20% lower than for white staff.<\/p>\n

The gap, which was down from 26%, is not due to unequal pay for the same job but a lack of diversity in higher-paid roles \u2013 with ethnic minority staff mainly employed on lower bands.<\/p>\n

The meeting heard the number of applications from ethnic minorities has increased sharply to 20% of all applicants but this has not translated into job offers which have dropped to 7%.<\/p>\n

Ms Antoniazzi recognised the need to monitor conversion rates from application to offer saying the commission is reviewing recruitment processes to identify and remove barriers.<\/p>\n

Beyond the staffing and pay challenges officials also detailed the top strategic risks facing the Welsh Parliament \u2013 effectively the commission\u2019s \u201cred alert\u201d list.<\/p>\n

Ed Williams, who is the commission\u2019s director of resources, pointed to cyber-security, data protection, and the Senedd expansion programme.<\/p>\n

The annual report describes cyber-security as one of the Senedd\u2019s most significant risks, which is subject to \u201cconstant monitoring\u201d due to its evolving nature.<\/p>\n

Delivering Senedd reform was also flagged amid concerns about the \u201ccapacity and capability of the commission to deliver against growing and changing demands\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The figure has proven ‘stubborn to shift’ Almost half of Senedd staff are suffering significant stress with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,33595,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-478127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-senedd","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115327307946151730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}