PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Last week, the news broke that yet another manufacturer in Wales was shedding jobs as a result of the changing nature of the marketplace.Aykroyd’s of Bala, which makes children’s nightwear, announced the loss of 66 jobs in a rural area which can ill afford to have increased unemployment. Indeed, one could argue that the proportional impact of such an announcement in South Gwynedd is as high, if not higher, than the job losses that will come as a result of the Burberry closure in Treorchy. Could such an announcement have been avoided? Well, it is been an open secret here in North Wales that the company has been struggling of late and, earlier this year, was forced to cut its production by almost half due to a drop in demand. The question from the point of view of Assembly intervention is whether they had any discussions with the business when such problems were becoming apparent. Certainly, there is the impression that the Assembly only steps in after the ‘horse has bolted’ and an Assem...

A fascinating article on tax varying powers for regions of the EU by Professor Gavin Don of the University of Edinburgh. As some of you may know, the EU have ruled that different rates of corporation tax within regions of a sovereign state is illegal - Portugal trying to use lower corporation tax to attract firms to the Azores being the test case. However, as Professor Don suggests, this is not the end of the matter as the court ruled that the reason for Portugal 's defeat was that only "genuinely autonomous regions could vary tax rates". He suggests that in Scotland, the present devolution settlement would qualify but clearly, the half-baked Welsh one wouldn't, even with new powers in May. If, like me, you believe that further devolution should be used to create a more prosperous Welsh economy, then it is clear that the path to greater powers must be followed by all parties, especially if it gives us the opportunity to lower rates of corporation tax in our poorest ar...

A fascinating article in the Sunday Times on the pension scandal of the last few years, where the private pension schemes this country was known for have been destroyed by Gordon Brown's decision to withdraw tax relief from such schemes. Politically, it could be his downfall, given the effect that it is already having on the future retirement plans of many people in the UK Pensions remains a time bomb for all politicans and it will be interesting to see how the Conservatives will deal with such an issue, given that it will probably take a generation to repair the damage.

Like many, I was surprised to read about the UK Government’s record on unnecessary red tape on business, following new results released last week. According to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), the cumulative cost of regulation on British business is now £55.6 billion, an increase of more than £10 million in the last twelve months. Despite promises to the contrary, it is clear that many small firms are simply being drowned in increasing paperwork that takes the entrepreneurs away from running and growing their business. In Wales, the increase in bureaucracy is becoming unsustainable and,t aken proportionately, the red tape burden on Welsh businesses is over £2.2 billion. This is a sum which is equivalent to over 15 per cent of the entire Assembly Government’s annual budget and six times higher than the entire expenditure by the Department of Enterprise on business support last year. Since 2006, the burden on Welsh firms has increased by over £400 million, which is equivalent to a...

Last week, the Welsh Assembly Government announced that their business support structure was to change to become more customer-oriented and to move away from the plethora of programmes and initiatives that have plagued Wales for as long as many of us can remember. Like many others, I broadly welcome this approach which finally focuses on addressing the needs of small firms in Wales and I am glad that officials within the Assembly Government have had the courage to go down this pathway of reorganising the business support structure, although I would contest whether the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) needed to be abolished to achieve this. Perhaps the greatest shame is that it has taken so long to carry out these changes, especially as we are in the eighth year of devolution with full control over business support. During the last five years of writing this column, I have been consistent in my backing for a business support structure that listens to its customers, namely the small firm s...

Last week, I met up for a coffee with the convener for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), who had asked whether I could help make an economic case for the retention of civil servants locally within the North Wales area at a time when many jobs were being threatened by Government moves. This threat stems from an edict by Gordon Brown that 104,000 civil servant posts would go by 2011, with 10,000 jobs of those to lose their jobs being based in Wales. Now if these were real efficiency drives, I don’t think anyone – including the unions – would have problems in working alongside employers in making the service better for everyone. However, the current consultation process demonstrates yet another ‘helicopter’ approach that looks at the big picture from above without any consideration of local issues. This is a problem that has also been seen with the recent hospital reconfiguration plans in Wales. Perhaps the best example of this is the proposed downgrading of Llandudno Hospit...

Had a great visit with Magnus to Gothenberg yesterday to see the work of the Chalmers University of Technology in the field of entrepreneurship. Learnt a lot about technology-based commercialisation programme which, hopefully, can be transferred back to Wales in the near future. Also met with a group of very entrepreneurial medics from the Sahigrenska University Hospital (above), and we have decided to look at the potential of a pan-European project in medical entrepreneurship, which should be both groundbreaking and exciting. Plenty going on, as per usual!

Currently in Sweden visiting my old friend Magnus Klofsten at Linkoping University, who pioneered the business platform model for new firms, a process which has been adopted by thousands of firms across Europe. Certainly, Assembly economic officials could learn from the work being undertaken in Linkoping on the commercialisation of technology, especially through the work of Mjardevi Science Park, which makes the technium programme look like a collection of beach huts, as the attached picture of just their latest development shows. The park currently over employs 5000 high tech staff across a range of businesses and it is about time that we had a similar development in Wales. How about using that long redundant LG semiconductor plant as the catalyst for such a development?

Part of the research currently being undertaken within the National Entrepreneurship Observatory involves interviewing several of the managing directors of the fastest-growing firms in Wales. This is a fascinating project which is revealing knowledge on the way that growing organisations manage themselves in an increasingly turbulent environment. The book will be out next year! One of the issues already being highlighted in the detailed interviews is that the development of a sustainable competitive strategy is not only down to being better than your competitors but, for many small firms, is about minimising the impact of areas in which the business has inferior competencies and capabilities. In this respect, perhaps the most critical issue for many growing firms is the role of the owner-manager within the business as it grows. As most of you will realise, most small firms are characterised by a simple organisational structure which reflects the personality traits of the owner-manager....

Interesting developments after Tata steel yesterday won their bid to buy Corus. In t he Times today , Philippe Varin, the chief executive of Corus stated that Port Talbot, which makes slab steel, could be under the most pressure in four or five years, when new Tata plants in India come on stream. Additional capacity from India will be able to be shipped to Britain for finishing, replacing Port Talbot’s output. This is a serious issue for the Assembly Government which must immediately begin talks with Tata over its strategy for the steelworks at Port Talbot. We cannot have a situation, in five years time, when Tata suddenly decide to pull the plug with serious consequences for one of the poorest areas in Europe. Dialogue is key in this matter and a senior civil servant must take responsibility for the Assembly's relationship with Corus over the next few years.