Whilst readers of this blog are familiar with the facts on the Welsh economy, the Western Mail (and Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym) seems astounded that the Welsh economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK.
THE Assembly Government last night admitted the Welsh economy faces “major challenges”. It made the statement as it emerged that the nation has had the lowest economic growth rate in the UK during the Tony Blair decade that began in 1997. Official UK Government figures included in a report on competitiveness in Northern Ireland place Wales at the bottom of the economic performance league behind all other 11 UK regions. The table is headed by London, followed by the south-east of England. Northern Ireland is in third position and Scotland is seventh.
Plaid Cymru’s economic adviser Eurfyl ap Gwilym, who came across the table by chance, said: “This is not a good position for Wales to be in. It’s undoubtedly the case that unemployment levels have come down while the employment rate has gone up. But it seems despite all the efforts over the years to get people back to work, many of the new jobs that have been created are low paid, not producing much added value to the economy. There is no simple answer, and all the factors that together could provide a solution will only do so in the long term. Education performance needs to improve – it’s clear Wales is under-performing in comparison with England and many other countries. Every year we are told exam results are improving, but what matters is how they compare with what is being achieved in other countries.
There is also a widespread feeling in business circles that a lot of vocational courses taught in further education colleges do not reflect the needs of the jobs to be filled in the Welsh labour market. This has created a degree of tension between the business community and the academic establishment.”
Dr ap Gwilym said he believed there was a case for reducing the amount of public money paid to companies in handouts and diverting the money saved into improving the infrastructure: “Our road network in Wales is not good, and improving it would almost certainly create better job opportunities. We also need to be spending more on science and technology: we are way behind Scotland.”
An Assembly Government spokesman said: “Despite significant progress over the past few years, we fully recognise there are some major challenges to overcome before we achieve the kind of prosperity we want across all parts of Wales. That is why we are prioritising programmes to improve the skills of the Welsh workforce, tackling economic inactivity and forging closer links between enterprise and our academic community, maximising the commercial benefits from access to our world-class academic institutions. We’ve also taken steps to improve our effectiveness in developing Welsh businesses and attracting global investment by launching an innovative programme for business support in Wales underpinned by the newly created Single Investment Fund. The new round of European funding programmes, utilising whenever possible European Investment Bank support, will also provide us with the opportunity to deliver further real improvement across the Welsh economy. These are just a few examples of how we are determined to use every tool at our disposal to create the right environment to help support businesses in Wales to provide high quality, highly skilled and well paid employment opportunities across the country.”
Given Eurfyl's position within Plaid Cymru, there certainly seem to be increasing tensions between the advisors and the civil servants over the way forward.
To be honest, I think Eurfyl and his good friend Dafydd Wigley need to make themselves heard a bit more often as almost none of their economic policies from Plaid's last Assembly manifesto have found their way into the government programme.
However, the most astounding revelation is that the 'spokesman' seems to conveniently forget that we have had nine years of Assembly Government with responsibility for economic development and education, billions of pounds of additional money from the 'devolution dividend' and a a dedicated programme of £2.5 billion for our poorest areas. Money has been squandered when it could have been invested for the future.
Given the fact that the money from the Treasury has dried up, there are enormous pressures on the Assembly's budget in the areas of education and health and rumours around Cardiff Bay that millions of pounds of cuts have been ordered in economic development and business support, I cannot see how the Assembly Government can turn the economy around during the next few years without a radical vision for the Welsh economy.
THE Assembly Government last night admitted the Welsh economy faces “major challenges”. It made the statement as it emerged that the nation has had the lowest economic growth rate in the UK during the Tony Blair decade that began in 1997. Official UK Government figures included in a report on competitiveness in Northern Ireland place Wales at the bottom of the economic performance league behind all other 11 UK regions. The table is headed by London, followed by the south-east of England. Northern Ireland is in third position and Scotland is seventh.
Plaid Cymru’s economic adviser Eurfyl ap Gwilym, who came across the table by chance, said: “This is not a good position for Wales to be in. It’s undoubtedly the case that unemployment levels have come down while the employment rate has gone up. But it seems despite all the efforts over the years to get people back to work, many of the new jobs that have been created are low paid, not producing much added value to the economy. There is no simple answer, and all the factors that together could provide a solution will only do so in the long term. Education performance needs to improve – it’s clear Wales is under-performing in comparison with England and many other countries. Every year we are told exam results are improving, but what matters is how they compare with what is being achieved in other countries.
There is also a widespread feeling in business circles that a lot of vocational courses taught in further education colleges do not reflect the needs of the jobs to be filled in the Welsh labour market. This has created a degree of tension between the business community and the academic establishment.”
Dr ap Gwilym said he believed there was a case for reducing the amount of public money paid to companies in handouts and diverting the money saved into improving the infrastructure: “Our road network in Wales is not good, and improving it would almost certainly create better job opportunities. We also need to be spending more on science and technology: we are way behind Scotland.”
An Assembly Government spokesman said: “Despite significant progress over the past few years, we fully recognise there are some major challenges to overcome before we achieve the kind of prosperity we want across all parts of Wales. That is why we are prioritising programmes to improve the skills of the Welsh workforce, tackling economic inactivity and forging closer links between enterprise and our academic community, maximising the commercial benefits from access to our world-class academic institutions. We’ve also taken steps to improve our effectiveness in developing Welsh businesses and attracting global investment by launching an innovative programme for business support in Wales underpinned by the newly created Single Investment Fund. The new round of European funding programmes, utilising whenever possible European Investment Bank support, will also provide us with the opportunity to deliver further real improvement across the Welsh economy. These are just a few examples of how we are determined to use every tool at our disposal to create the right environment to help support businesses in Wales to provide high quality, highly skilled and well paid employment opportunities across the country.”
Given Eurfyl's position within Plaid Cymru, there certainly seem to be increasing tensions between the advisors and the civil servants over the way forward.
To be honest, I think Eurfyl and his good friend Dafydd Wigley need to make themselves heard a bit more often as almost none of their economic policies from Plaid's last Assembly manifesto have found their way into the government programme.
However, the most astounding revelation is that the 'spokesman' seems to conveniently forget that we have had nine years of Assembly Government with responsibility for economic development and education, billions of pounds of additional money from the 'devolution dividend' and a a dedicated programme of £2.5 billion for our poorest areas. Money has been squandered when it could have been invested for the future.
Given the fact that the money from the Treasury has dried up, there are enormous pressures on the Assembly's budget in the areas of education and health and rumours around Cardiff Bay that millions of pounds of cuts have been ordered in economic development and business support, I cannot see how the Assembly Government can turn the economy around during the next few years without a radical vision for the Welsh economy.
Comments
Possilbly the starting point should be to look at the dynamics of Wales. Simply saying building more roads will create better opportunities for creating jobs is in many ways over simplistic.
If for example we had a motorway running from North to South Wales yes there would be lots of business parks across Wales but at what cost?
The unique beauty and diversity of our country would have been lost forever, and much of Wales would be no different to any other county in England.
Instead, we now have the ability through technology for anyone, anywhere in Wales to run highly successful small businesses regardless of their location.
This should be seen as being highly encouraging, because it can potentially allow us to grow businesses across the country, whilst still allowing the intrinsic beauty of Wales to remain.
This in itself is highly important as it represents one of the key reasons why Wales has such potential as a tourist destination.
Ultmately, for Wales we need to set our own path and develop an economic policy that will work for our small, yet diverse nation.
The fact that our physical communication links are not ideal should now be seen as a virtue. In many ways this "shortfall" has served to protect much of the country from inapproprate development.
At present we do seem to lack a visionary and optimum plan that would ensure the growth in economic prosperity for all of Wales.
But if we can learn to be more confident, more questioning and more demanding, Wales could in time emerge as a highly skilled, productive and affluent nation.
Plaid Cymru for all their economic prowess in Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym and I like you Dylan hoped he may have some influence in changing attitudes, are powerless to push through any meaningful economic or financial change that would help to grow Welsh Business instead of continually undermining it. Not that anyone in the Welsh Assembly Government will admit that of course.
I like you have heard the rumours about budget cuts and am not surprised that economic development and business support budgets are for the chop yet again, sadly its all so predictable.
Revolution may be
That is one posssible scenario. Given the record of the past decade there are other, far less palatable, more probable scenarios.
"we need to set our own path and develop an economic policy that will work for our small, yet diverse nation."
To me this sounds an idealised proposal.If other parts of the UK are more prosperous and their methods, or part of them, can be utilised here, it makes more sense to do that.
with all the political research expertise in Cardiff Bay and at Party Headquarters available to the parties, it makes you wonder about the quality of staff employed at the Assembly and the priorities they have, that none of them seemed to pick up on this information or recognise how important it could be.
Supporting the growth of a diverse range of small business across Wales would help to increase economic wealth across all of the nation and also be a more sustainable way to grow our economy.
Using the huge tax revenues alloted from Westminster, they will hide behind the issues of dealing with social policies and Patriotism,'the last refuge of a scoundrel,' (Samuel Johnson).