When the National Assembly for Wales - now the Senedd - was established in 1999, we were told that it would mark a break with the political culture of Westminster.
Instead of a closed-down form of democracy where the term “official secret” had an absurdly wide application, and where openness and transparency were regarded by insiders as obstacles to good governance, a new era was to be launched in which public engagement would be paramount.
A few years later the Senedd was built in Cardiff Bay, its very design intended to reinforce the principle of openness. It’s a matter of enormous regret that now - 23 years after the institution was launched - there are very real concerns about the way things have turned out.
