Written Statement: Reappointment of Members to the Welsh Government’s Welsh for Adults Scrutiny Committee

I am delighted to announce that I have decided to re-appoint the current members of the Welsh Government's Welsh for Adults Scrutiny Committee for a further two years. The current term of the Chair Steve Morris and Members, Anna Skalistira Bakratseva, Helen Barlow, and Richard Houdmont, ends on 31 March 2021.

The Chairman and the three Members have accepted my invitation to remain on the Committee for a further two years until 31 March 2023. I am grateful and very pleased with the Committee's contribution over the last few years and I am confident that they have scrutinized the work of the National Centre for Learning Welsh effectively, giving me assurance that the Centre is contributing to the objectives of Cymraeg 2050, the Welsh Government's strategy for the Welsh language.

The Committee's contribution is going to be more important than ever over the next couple of years as we plan Learn Welsh provision after the National Centre’s current grant term ends on 31 July 2022. The advice and support of an experienced Scrutiny Committee will be important to Ministers during that period.

Here are the details of the Scrutiny Committee membership:

Steve Morris – Chair

Steve is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Applied Linguistics at Swansea University. He has over 35 years experience as a teaching, assessment and curriculum practitioner in the Welsh language, joining the Department of Continuing Education in 1991 before transferring to the College of Arts and Humanities in 2010 as an Associate Professor of Welsh and Applied Linguistics. Steve was elected to the Executive Committee of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) in 2012 and is a co-investigator and member of the management team for the ESRC/AHRC funded research project CorCenCC: the National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh.

Anna Skalistira-Bakratseva

Anna came to live in Wales from Bulgaria and has learnt Welsh. She has a Masters degree in medicine and has studied Pharmacology at Ph.D level. She works as a translator for Cardiff Council. 

Dr Helen Barlow

A Welsh learner with extensive experience in education as a staff tutor, associate lecturer, author of learning materials and conference papers, and an Academic Reviewer for the Open University.

Richard Houdmont

Richard Houdmont learnt Welsh when he moved to Wales in 1977 to work for the University of Wales Press, where he was promoted to be Deputy Director. More recently, he worked for the Chartered Institute of Marketing as a Network Manager for Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Man. He was a trustee of the National Library of Wales between 2016 and 2020 and is currently Deputy Chair of Poetry Wales Press, which publishes under the imprint 'Seren'.