Annual Report and Statement of Accounts of the Assembly Commission: 2007-08

4. Our Estate

Our estate includes the Senedd, Ty Hywel and the Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay and a North Wales Office in Colwyn Bay.Within Cardiff Bay, the landmark Senedd building is located on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay and provides the key facilities to carry out assembly business in the debating chamber, committee rooms and public galleries.  The Senedd was designed to reflect the Assembly’s core values of openness and transparency and is open to the public seven days a week.  More information on the Senedd is available here.

The Senedd also includes a large public reception and gallery area where a wide variety of events and exhibitions were also held throughout the year. The open atmosphere lends itself to such events and enables members of the public and our stakeholders to engage with Assembly Members.  Some key milestones which were worthy of celebration included the welcoming of our 500,000^th visitor to the Senedd and an event to celebrate 10 years since the devolution which invited visitors to comment on camera about changes in Wales since devolution.  We worked in partnership with Cardiff Council to bring the St David’s Day parade to the Senedd and Cardiff Bay for the first time ever with over 3,000 people taking part in the parade.  Nearly 2,000 of these visited the Senedd and Pierhead and took part in our very own National Assembly for Wales St David’s Day celebrations which included music and dance performances as well as activities for children and their families

Ty Hywel is the office headquarters of the Assembly, located adjacent to the Senedd.  The building provides office accommodation for Assembly Members and their staff and staff of the Assembly Commission..  The building also provides additional meeting and conference space to support Assembly business.  During the year, the temporary debating chamber in Ty Hywel that was used until the Senedd was opened, was adapted to provide a school and youth debating chamber and classroom facility that is used by the Education team as part of the Assembly’s education service.

The Pierhead Building is a Grade 1 Listed Victorian building in a prominent location within the Cardiff Bay waterfront.  The Pierhead has been used by theAssembly as its exhibition and education centre.  The use of the building was reviewed during the year following the relocation of the education facility to Ty Hywel.  Proposals were presented to the Assembly Commission to adapt the Pierhead Building to maintain its public accessibility whilst celebrating it’s heritage status with an appropriate interpretation scheme and to provide more flexible exhibition, events and conference facilities to support the requirements of the Assembly.  These proposals were accepted and the project will be implemented during 2008/09.

The North Wales office in Prince’s Park, Colwyn Bay provides a visitor centre, exhibition and shop, conference room and office accommodation for External Communications staff based in North Wales.  The visitor centre is a flexible space that has been previously adapted for committee meetings and educational events.  Staff based at the North Wales office operate the switchboard for the National Assembly for Wales and the Assembly’s information and booking line. In all 37,738 request for information were made during the year.  There is hot desking accommodation for the outreach and education team.  It has been agreed to review and reconfigure the facilities available at the North Wales office which will be implemented during 2008/9.

Sustainability of our estate

The National Assembly for Wales Commission is committed to embedding sustainability into the way we do business. The Assembly aspires to be an exemplary organisation in terms of sustainability and environmental stewardship. Support at the very highest level is critical to achieving this objective and the Commission’s Environmental Statement gives the unequivocal endorsement of the Chief Executive and the Commissioner with responsibility for Sustainability.

The Environmental Statement sits at the apex of a suite of business plans that aim to convert our strategic objectives into a programme of practical action designed to achieve the desired environmental outcomes at an operational level.

These business plans include the Sustainable Development Action Plan, The Green Dragon Level 5 Action Plan, The Sustainable Procurement Action Plan and individual Service Plans. Individual employees are also encouraged to incorporate sustainability objectives into their Personal Development Plans

In addition to these formal structures, the “Green Team” acts as the Assembly’s “Green Conscience”, providing as a source of environmental innovation, a critical friend challenging the status quo and a pool of volunteers who undertake projects linked to sustainability.            

In order to improve the energy efficiency of our estate, we were very pleased to work with the original environmental systems designers of the Senedd, BDSP to complete their revised energy prediction for the Senedd.  This report provided us with the necessary information to monitor our current energy usage and to implement targets for reducing our energy usage.  As a result of the report we have revised the lighting settings and controls to reduce our electricity usage.  We will be considering the feasibility of implementing the other energy reduction strategies in relation to computer room equipment during 2008/09.

In December 2007 we commissioned the Carbon Trust to carry out a review of the energy performance of estate in Cardiff bay and to produce detailed recommendations to reduce our energy usage.   The Carbon Trust presented their findings and recommendations in March 2007 and their recommendations will be implemented in 2008/09.

We have continued to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill and increase the amount of waste we collect for recycling as follows:

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