PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

One of the pacts that we make with our politicians is that we are generally happy to pay higher taxes if we receive better public services in return. With the tax burden increasing to a point where 41 per cent of the average income is paid to the government, it is only right to expect that critical areas such as our NHS receives the funding necessary for vital services. Given this, many in Wales would have been surprised and disappointed at last week's decision by the Local Health Board in Cardiff to refuse funding for a second phase of the Children's Hospital for Wales. In isolation, that decision would have been bad enough, given that many of us with young families see the health of our sons and daughters as our primary priority and one that should be fully supported by our politicians. However, the funds for the main bulk of the first phase of this vital service, including two 25-bed medical wards and one 16-bed paediatric cancer ward, has not come from our Assembly Governm...

OVER recent years, one of the big debates regarding the status of the economy in Wales has been about the employment profile of the workforce and how it needs to change from depending on the public sector to one where there are private sector jobs in industries such as financial services. That is why it is fascinating to read the latest research on the workforce of Wales , released earlier this week by the Office for National Statistics. The data shows that between 2001 and 2005, the largest increase in the number of jobs was in health, education and public administration, equal to 53% of all the new jobs created in Wales during this period. This is not surprising, given that the devolution dividend has resulted in billions of additional funds being spent within Wales, predominantly in the areas of health and education. However, the business and financial services sector also saw a 19% increase in new jobs, driven by the success of companies such as Admiral Insurance and the Principal...

As someone who has been involved in entrepreneurship for the last twenty years, it gives me an enormous thrill to see Welsh-based businesses succeed, and it is fantastic to see that Deeside-based moneysupermarket.com , a business established thirteen years ago, could be worth £1 billion when it floats on the stock exchange later this month. For Simon Nixon, its 39 year old co-founder, this will mean the culmination of a long journey that will establish this North Wales company as the leading internet business in Europe. I hope that this success will encourage others to take the step into enterprise and to develop new businesses which may not reach the stellar heights of moneysupermarket.com but will, nevertheless, create wealth and prosperity across the region. Being successful in business isn’t always easy. With one in two new firms failing within the first two years, support is needed for many entrepreneurs when they start their journey into business. Despite this, there are indicati...

If we look back on the policy successes of the last eight years in terms of the Welsh economy, what really stands out from the crowd? Is it our approach to R&D and innovation? Is it a strengthening of our management skills? Is it improving productivity within our manufacturing sector? Unfortunately, our policymakers can claim very little credit in doing anything that has made a serious impact on any of these areas since direct responsibility for economic development was devolved to the Assembly in 1999. However, Wales can rightly be proud to have been the leader in pushing forward a whole new approach to enterprise and small business policy through the creation of the Entrepreneurship Action Plan (EAP) for Wales , the first of its kind anywhere in the world. In developing a strategy to improve the enterprise culture of Wales and the quality of business starts and established businesses, the EAP did little that was new in terms of individual initiatives, but that was never the point...

What fantastic news yesterday from Sir Tom Hunter, who has pledged £1 billion to charity. Sir Tom has also been a great supporter of entrepreneurship education in Scotland, supporting a specialist centre at the University of Strathclyde (shame we don't have the same here in Wales!) Following the recent stories over the alleged greed of equity houses , he demonstrates how entrepreneurship can be a force for good and follows in the steps of leading US tycoons such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates , who have pledged their fortunes to good causes. In Wales, David Stevens of Admiral Insurance has recently given away £100 million - the vast majority of his fortune - to support charitable causes. Perhaps large established businesses, such as the high street banks, could also take a leaf out of these entrepreneurs' books when it comes to philanthropy and provide a share of the billions of profits they make every year to good causes.

Last Monday, I took my first North-South flight on the new air service from Anglesey Airport . The 18 seater plane was full and, according to press reports, celebrated its 2000th passenger later that day only two months after it started. I have nothing but praise for the newly built air terminal and the flight itself, although the jury is still out on whether the taxpayer should be subsidising each ticket to the tune of around £50. The Assembly Government also needs to get its act together to ensure that the service forms part of an integrated transport system. For example, a lack of intelligent timetabling for rail and bus links from Cardiff Airport can actually add considerable time to your journey into the capital city. In addition, a rail stop should be constructed at RAF Valley to ensure public transport access from across North Wales into the airport. Nevertheless, this is a major and long overdue step in linking North Wales to other parts of the British Isles. Indeed, in one of ...

One of the major debates over economic policy in Wales during the last two decades has been whether government should encourage the development of more indigenous businesses or should concentrate on bringing jobs through the relocation of large inward investors. Obviously, the best answer to this conundrum is one where both strategies are in balance together, which is probably an economic condition in which Wales has never found itself. However, with more effort being made by the Assembly Government to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and some success in terms of projects such as Amazon's warehousing at Swansea , it may be pertinent to examine a recent academic paper from Nottingham University which has attempted to examine the impact of foreign ownership on the survival of new ventures. As mentioned, enterprise creation and foreign direct investment are the foundations of regional economic policy and therefore it is important to understand whether these two influences coun...

Many believe that the regeneration of our most deprived communities should be at the forefront of the economic policies of those in power in Cardiff Bay. Whilst parts of North Wales continue to prosper, it is easy to forget that we have eighteen of the most deprived wards in the whole of Wales across our region. Bangor may boast a knowledge-based future centred on the technology of the university, but in concentrating on such developments, the problems of the nearby Maesygeirchen estate are a remainder that wealth is not spread evenly throughout the county. Llandudno has become one of the jewels in the crown of Welsh tourism and yet the Tudno and Mostyn wards, with house over 6,000 inhabitants, are amongst the poorest in our nation. To date, the reaction of the previous Assembly Government to these problems has been to spend £136 million on the Communities First programme , which has been tasked with providing opportunities for people living in the most disadvantaged areas. Unfortunate...

Last week, I launched the ninth search for the Wales Fast Growth 50, the annual competition which identifies the fastest growing firms in Wales. Managed by the National Entrepreneurship Observatory (NEO Wales) in association with the Western Mail , the project is primarily aimed at promoting the development of growth businesses by highlighting the fifty fastest growing ventures in Wales. This year’s Fast Growth 50 supplement, containing details of all the winners on the list, will be published on Monday, 29th October. The 2007 list will have a lot to live up to after the success of 2006, which saw a record average growth rate of 218 per cent and an overall increase in collective turnover of £181 million in the period 2003-2005. Despite this, I am confident that the Welsh business sector will surpass expectations and demonstrate, yet again, the vast entrepreneurial potential that exists within the Welsh business sector. Just ten days after the launch, I have already received twenty ei...

According to this morning's Daily Post , all of the Labour MPs in North Wales are against the coalition with Plaid Cymru. It can only be assumed, from this, that all the region's constituency parties will also vote against any deal, except probably Caernarfon, given Martin Eaglestone's views . If that is the case, then the arithmetic suggests that the Gogs, along with all the South Wales Valleys areas, may just about get the majority for the constituency vote in today's meeting of the Welsh Labour Party at the CIA (although I am sure backstage deals are being done as I write). As a result, it is highly likely that Rhodri will have to rely on the unions, his metropolitan friends and the few Labour supporters across rural Wales to get the Red-Green deal agreed. Will Welsh Labour ever be the same again?

In anorak terms, so far it has been a fascinating day all round, what with the new 'gang of four' joining Kim Howells to raise their heads above the parapet of the new Camelot to warn of the All Wales Accord. Will this signal the opening of the Old Labour floodgates? Is Dragon's Eye already out trawling through the working men's clubs of the Valleys to find dissenting voices? Will Rhodri regret not picking up his 'hotline' to Mike German's office? Many will be waiting with bated breath to see how many more will 'come out' over the next 48 hours. So is the new alliance already in a precarious position? If we take the five Plaid Cymru AMs who do not want a coalition with Labour, along with the four (declared) Labour AMs who do not want a coalition with Plaid, we suddenly have only 31 AMs (excluding the PO of course) in this 'new stable government for Wales' who have not voiced their opinion against it. Also, given the stated opinions of Huw Lew...

Peter Griffiths, chief executive of the Principality Building Society, gives a realistic view on the future of affordable housing in Wales in the Western Mail today . “If you look at what’s come out of the policy document from Labour and Plaid, one of the suggestions is grants for first-time buyers. All you are doing by introducing those is stoking up demand when the issue is all about supply. How can you create a vehicle in Wales which brings more land forward for development?" I have written on this extensively before and, as we would say on the Llyn Peninsula, ' mae Peter yn llygad ei le ' regarding the inflationary nature of 'first time grants' and the importance of securing local land for housebuilding for local people (although I do disagree with his comments on lawmaking powers for the Assembly!) Certainly, it could start to be a solution to the ridiculous prices we have seen recently in the land of my fathers. I hope that the politicians will finally l...

Fascinating insight from the Economist , of all press sources, into the future battle between Brown and Cameron Well worth a read.

The BBC reports today that there will be a new study, by the Nuffield Review and education charity Rathbone into why many young people are drawn into crime and long-term unemployment rather than education or jobs is being launched. I blogged about this subject earlier this year, especially with regard to the importance of coming up with a real solution that makes the most of the talents of our young people here in Wales. Given that the new Red-Green One Wales accord has promised "an inquiry into disengagement from learning amongst children and young people to look at evidence of what works", I hope there will be close co-ordination with the Nuffield project and that we finally come up with a Welsh solution to make the most of the talents of our young people.

When the hospital reconfiguration consultation document “ Designed for North Wales " was published last year, it was astounding that it seemed to largely ignore the demographic profile of the geographic area served by Llandudno Hospital. When services vital to the real health needs of an ageing population were being earmarked for closure, health planners engaged by the Welsh Assembly Government seemed blissfully unaware that the county of Conwy had the highest proportion of over 75s in the whole of Wales and that this would grow rapidly over the next twenty years. Unfortunately, they are not alone in such ignorance and policymakers regularly seem content to focus on short term political imperatives rather than proactively responding to the changing world around them. That is why I was pleased that a special economic summit being held in Germany recently was examining the challenge that the whole of Europe is facing when it comes to an ageing population. The big fact from the confe...