Background
Mark Drakeford was born and brought up in Carmarthenshire, West Wales, before moving to Cardiff more than thirty years ago.
Member of the National Assembly for Wales
Mark Drakeford was born and brought up in Carmarthenshire, West Wales, before moving to Cardiff more than thirty years ago.
University of Wales.
He worked as a probation officer, youth justice worker and Barnardo"s project leader in the Cardiff West districts of Ely and Caerau. After a period working as a lecturer at Swansea University, he returned to work in Cardiff, where he has been Professor of Social Policy and Applied Social Sciences at Cardiff University since 2003. He has written and published a number of books and journal articles on various aspects of social policy.
Drakeford has always been interested in politics, which he says was part of the fabric of life in 1960s Carmarthenshire.
He was the Labour councillor on South Glamorgan County Council from 1985 – 1993 for Pontcanna, 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 Assembly Government, and was latterly head of the First Minister’s political office during Rhodri Morgan’s tenure as First Minister.
Shortly after his election, he became Chair of the Assembly’s Health and Social Care Committee, as well as the Chair of the All-Wales Programme Monitoring Committee for European funds. Drakeford was appointed Minister for Health and Social Services following a cabinet reshuffle on March 14th, 2013.
His appointment was welcomed by the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing.
In July 2013, Drakeford guided the Human Transplantation (Wales) Acting through the Senedd, which resulted in Wales becoming the first part of the United Kingdom to introduce presumed consent for organ donors. He called it “an historic day for Wales”, and “a progressive policy for progressive nation”.
Welsh Labour, Labour Party.