Terms of reference

The Ministerial Advisory Board (the Board) is an advisory body reporting to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Welsh Language.

The main purpose of the Board is to provide good quality, timely and relevant external advice. This will be used to inform the Welsh Government’s policy-making, horizon-scanning and evaluation. In doing so, the Board will help improve the Welsh Government understanding of the economic and business landscape and the policy responses required to address current challenges and respond to future opportunities.

In offering an outlook and perspective based upon individual knowledge and expertise, the Board will complement and add value to existing sources of advice provided by the civil service, social partners and interest and representative bodies outside of the Welsh Government. 

The Board will help to deliver better value from the time and effort external experts put into giving advice by ensuring alignment of that work with the vision and priorities of the Economic Action Plan and the Economic Resilience and Reconstruction Mission.

The Board will primarily focus its attention and advice on policies, issues and priorities within the economy portfolio. However, with regard to the whole government agenda set out in the Economic Resilience and Reconstruction Mission, the Board should also consider wider cross-government economic development implications of activity in other portfolio areas.

The Board will discharge the following duties: 

• provide regular, creative and high-quality advice to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Welsh Language to help improve economic development in Wales
• horizon-scan to highlight areas of future challenge and opportunity, using individual and collective expertise to raise awareness of issues that warrant further attention and therefore helping to shape the Board’s work programme
• respond to requests from the Cabinet Secretary and senior officials for advice, challenge and testing of key policies including a focus on delivery of Programme for Government commitments within the Economy portfolio
• identify best practice and learning from other nations and regions in the UK and internationally; and demonstrate how such examples might be used to inform thinking in Wales
• suggest specific issues which would benefit from short, sharp reviews undertaken by bespoke task and finish groups or additional expertise that the Board may need to co-opt from time to time depending on its work programme. 

The membership of the Board will reflect individual skills, knowledge and expertise rather than duplicating representation of specific economic, business or societal interests already reflected in other fora such as existing social partnership arrangements and interest groups and representative bodies that exist independently of the Welsh Government.