Devolution's decade shapes Wales

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By Vaughan Roderick BBC Welsh affairs editor The key Yes campaigners celebrate victory in the 1997 referendum

Nobody who sat up through the early hours of 19 September, 1997, will ever forget the tense political drama that led to the creation of the Welsh assembly.

After trailing the No side for the whole night, it was Carmarthenshire that finally tipped the balance in favour of devolution by the narrowest of margins.

Despite the small majority, it was without doubt a milestone in Welsh history.

As the former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies famously claimed, devolution is a process, not an event.

While the referendum marked the end of the battle for devolved government, it was only the beginning of the story as far as the institution itself was concerned.

For the assembly, the early years were rocky, to say the least.

It's a fair bet that it will be at least another decade before anything like a permanent constitutional settlement is reached

The fratricidal infighting within Labour following Ron Davies's fall from grace left his replacement as Welsh party leader, Alun Michael, leading a struggling minority government.

It was only when Rhodri Morgan took the top job that the Welsh assembly began to grow into the body we know today.

That growth has been relentless and continual.

In pure cash terms, the Welsh Assembly Government's spending has ballooned since it was established and it now spends about £4,000 per head on every man, woman and child in Wales.

Much of that money would have been spent anyway, of course, on providing schools, hospitals and roads.

DEVOLUTION MILESTONES Sept 1997: Wales votes to establish an assemblyOct 1998: Welsh Labour leader Ron Davies resignsMay 1999: Assembly opens in Cardiff BayFeb 2000: First assembly leader Alun Michael resigns; Rhodri Morgan takes over2000 - 2003: Labour in coalition with Liberal DemocratsMarch 2006: Assembly debating chamber, the Senedd, opened by the QueenJuly 2006: Assembly gains new powers with Government of Wales Act; Labour enters coalition with Plaid Cymru

So has establishing the assembly made a difference to the way those services are delivered?

Certainly the way services are provided in Wales and England has diverged increasingly over the past decade although, ironically, that's more because of changes in England than anything that has happened in Wales.

While the government in Westminster has pressed ahead with radical reforms such as private sector involvement in the public services, foundation hospitals, city academies and the like, the assembly government has stuck with more traditional models.

Comprehensive schools aren't regarded as "bog-standard" in Wales - as Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications chief once put it - but as the way forward, and private finance initiative (PFI) deals are very rare beasts.

Cardiff Bay has also adopted a series of measures designed to put "clear red water" - in Rhodri Morgan's phrase - between Wales and Westminster.

Some, such as free entry to museums and galleries, were later copied in England.

Others, such as free bus travel for pensioners and the abolition of prescription charges, remain distinctively Welsh.

Yes campaigners literally jumped for joy following the final result

Like Scotland, but unlike England, the assembly government has attempted wherever possible to re-open disused railways such as the Vale of Glamorgan and Ebbw Valley lines.

Some promises have been trickier to deliver.

European rules have resulted in a messy compromise where the assembly government has made life easier financially for Welsh students studying in Wales but has been unable to help those who choose to study elsewhere.

Whether the Welsh model is superior to the English one is debatable.

But they are without doubt very different and that difference will grow as the assembly government begins to acquire the power to make laws granted to it under the latest Government of Wales Act.

All of which may lead to a third devolution referendum four years from now, this time to decide whether the assembly should have full law-making powers like the Scottish Parliament.

Even that probably wouldn't be the end of the story.

With an SNP government in Edinburgh pressing for independence and unresolved questions surrounding the status of England, it is a fair bet that it will be at least another decade before anything like a permanent constitutional settlement is reached.