This lecture will be presented by Rt Hon Mark Drakeford MS (First Minister of Wales), with respondents Richard Garside (Director , Centre for Crime and Justice Studies) and Alex Osler (Head of Operations, National Probation Service, East of England)

Rt Hon Mark Drakeford MS, First Minister of Wales

Mark was born and brought up in west Wales before moving to Cardiff more than 30 years ago. Since then he has lived in the Pontcanna area of Cardiff. A former probation officer, youth justice worker and Barnardos project leader in Ely and Caerau, he has also been a professor of social policy and applied social sciences at Cardiff University. He has also taught previously at Swansea University.

In the 1980s and 1990s Mark was a Labour Councillor on South Glamorgan County Council, specialising in education issues, including Welsh medium education. Between 2000 and 2010 he worked as the Cabinet’s health and social policy adviser at the Welsh Government and was latterly head of the First Minister’s political office. He has a 30-year knowledge of the Cardiff West constituency.

Mark became the Assembly Member for Cardiff West in May 2011. He was Chair of the Assembly’s Health and Social Care Committee from July 2011 to March 2013 and of the All-Wales Programme Monitoring Committee for European funds from July 2011 to March 2013. He was appointed Minister for Health and Social Services in March 2013, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government in May 2016 and Cabinet Secretary for Finance on 3 November 2017. On 12 December 2018 he was appointed First Minister of Wales and became a member of the Privy Council on 13 February 2019.

Richard Garside

Richard is the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. He joined the Centre in 2003 to set up the 'Crime and Society Foundation' project, which explored the role and limitations of criminalisation and punishment as responses to crime. He became the Centre's Director in 2006. Prior to joining the Centre, he worked in communications at Nacro, and, before that, at Survival International.

Richard is the lead author of the Centre's keynote annual publication: UK Justice Policy Review. He has also written a range of other pamphlets and articles and is in demand as a conference speaker. He appears regularly in national print and broadcast media as a commentator on crime and criminal justice.

He can be followed on Twitter @richardjgarside

Alex Osler

Alex has worked in probation for 27 years, first as a probation service officer, specialising in housing support, before qualifying as a probation officer in 1997 and becoming a senior probation officer in 2001. She has a breadth of experience in case management, courts, group work, approved premises and has also had a period on secondment to HMP Bullwood Hall – a women’s prison at the time. An assistant chief officer at the point of Transforming Rehabilitation, Alex became the Director of Essex Community Rehabilitation Centre in April 2016 and moved across to the National Probation Service in August 2020 in preparation for unification. Alex is an engaged leader who actively promotes the importance of compassionate leadership, evidence-based practice, service user engagement, the professional relationship, and working in partnership to address criminogenic need and manage risk of harm. Thanks to the sound teaching of Professor Gwyneth Boswell, her mantra is ‘accurate assessment, and appropriate intervention’ and she is motivated purely by doing the very best we can, with what we have, to deliver quality services for service users, victims and communities.

1.30pm Public Policy and Probation: Is there a Welsh Way?

By Rt Hon Mark Drakeford MS, First Minister of Wales

With respondents Richard Garside and Alex Osler

3.00 pm Online debate with the audience

3.50pm Concluding remarks

4.00pm End of event