Health Minister David Ashford has explained why a governance board at his department was disbanded two years ago.

The quality of governance in the Department of Health and Social Care is one of the issues that has come under the spotlight in a series of inquiries by the West Midlands Quality Review Service.

His predecessor Kate Beecroft (Douglas South), who was ousted by Chief Minister Howard Quayle at the turn of the year, said governance needed to be looked at as a ’matter of urgency’.

A governance board was created in 2014 and disbanded in 2016 - when Mr Quayle was still the health minister.

Mrs Beecroft followed up with a House of Keys question tabled for written answer, asking for details of the decisions.

Mr Ashford said the corporate governance board met eight times before it was disbanded in March 2016.

’Following the appointment of the current chief executive officer (Malcolm Couch), the role and function of all committees and boards was reviewed,’ he said.

’The senior management team group became a board of directors and the governance board was replaced by themed quality committees with responsibility for delivering the DHSC governance framework.’

He added: ’The introduction of quality committees was for the purpose of providing scrutiny and oversight of all departmental activity including governance.’

Interview, page eight.