Alan Trench is an honorary fellow in the School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and before that was Research Fellow in the Political Economy of Multi-level Governance in the Law School there. He is also an honorary senior research fellow at the Constitution Unit at University College London. He has published widely on constitutional, intergovernmental and financial aspects of devolution, including editing four volumes in the Constitution Unit’s ‘State of the Nation’ series. He has been specialist adviser to two Parliamentary inquiries into devolution – by the Lords Constitution Committee in 2002-03, and by the Lords Select Committee on the Barnett Formula in 2009. He is also constitutional adviser to Tomorrow’s Wales/Cymru Yfory.

Making the new National Assembly match its role

The Assembly now has full powers – and a big job on its hands in exercising them properly. Here, devolution expert Alan Trench, in a speech he will give today to ‘The National Assembly for Wales as a legislature – then, now, the future’ conference organised by the National Assembly and the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, looks at the issues ahead

Moaning on the sidelines?

The Assembly and the Welsh Government’s attitude towards the Westminster Coalition Government may go down well electorally, but it will leave Wales behind in the long run unless priorities are quickly redrawn and pragmatism employed

No more porkies – here is the real fiscal deficit

The report of the Holtham Commission is more than just an academic exercise: it is a roadmap to more responsible and rounded devolution