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WAG FAILS ON THE ECONOMY AGAIN

According to the BBC this morning, the Assembly Government's pledge to get 80 per cent of adults of working age in Wales into employment is unlikely to be met.

As this blog pointed out earlier this week, employment is falling in Wales despite the rhetoric of Government politicians over schemes such as ProAct, which Ministers have used as their only tool to try and boost the Welsh economy.

Given that this admission follows the dismal failure to reach their prosperity target of 80 per cent of UK GDP , you have to seriously wonder who is advising WAG on economic policy. Indeed, you would have to question whether they actually have one at all.

Comments

Jeff Jones said…
Pretty strong stuff regarding the lack of any economic policy. Although yesterday I looked for some reason at the WEFO list of convergence funded projects. There were many that you could argue were linked to attempting at least to raise GDP even if they might not work in the long run. But others seemed to have a pretty tenuous link with any future economic prosperity. It will be interesting to see what happens when the EU starts to look at the outcomes on a number of these projects in years to come. Future economic prosperity in Wales isn't helped by the fact that we really haven't got a vision of what sort of society we want in the post coal/steel age. At least the Irish civil Servants and politicians who were behind their use of EU funding had a vision of where they wanted Ireland to be after its poor economic performance in the 1970s and early 1980s. The fact that we have 22 local authorities with 22 economic development departments with boundaries that make no sense in strategic development terms further confuses matters for the private sector. In its UDP my own local authority has 35 years of employment land. The only problem with this is that the private sector will not look at the land concerned because it is often in the wrong place. But if you ask to develop the land for other productive purposes which would add to the GDP of the area the planners argue that it can't happen becasue it is out of accord with a plan which was established 20 years ago. At the momnent I'm involved with a devloper who would like to bring a £200 million investment to Bridgend. Hopefully it will create 2000 employment opportunities. The site concerned is owned by WAG and derelict for years. The scheme is fully supported by the local AM. You would have thought that both WAG and the local authority would have jumped at the opportunity. WAG in fact will even get a capital receipt. You might even say what's the problem. The problem is that the land is allocated in the local plan for employment. To make the scheme work Tesco have to be persuaded to move to the site from an existing store to free up more development land. They will only do this for sound commmercial reasons if they are able to build a bigger store. Despite various reports showing thst such a store can be accommodated by the town the planners are refusing to be flexible because it is not in the plan. Since the planners wouldn't agree WAG will not look at negotiating with the developer on the land they own. The old WDA which used to own the land would have jumped at the chance. For 2000 potential job opportunities to be lost because of arguments about the size of a supermarket would be madness at the best of times. In the middle of a recession it makes no sense whatsoever. Why should investors bother with Wales if they face attitudes such as those described above. In Europe the elected Mayor of the locality would be moving heaven and earth to ensure that the scheme would go ahead especially since the municipality would gain a new stadium and other leisure facilites for nowt on the back of the development.
September 03, 2009 8:52 am
Anonymous said…
So whats new Dylan.I think I am getting WAG FAG. My fingers cannot even be bothered to type the arguements and reasons , they have been rehearsed so many times.
Jeff I so agree with you .I had the same attitude when trying to get a client sorted who would have brought very skilled and innovative jobs to North wales. This would have been a boon for younger people in particular because of the nature of the client.I just met what I call cardigan and bri nylon attitudes, 30 years out of date.
So what do we do DET has not got the right people in place any more, the LAs seem to have put economic development way down their priority list and planners are a pain, outmoded and retrenched. Just take a look at RITP director for Wales , that says a lot.
Big shake up is necessary and its about time decisions were made on a new and relevant set of criteria and its also time that people were put at the centre of economic policy.
September 03, 2009 10:03 am
Victoria Winckler said…
The problem is not just with creating jobs but with ensuring the people without jobs are equipped to get them and that the jobs are flexibile and don't discriminate - see my post over at www.thisismytruth.org
September 03, 2009 12:27 pm
Professor Dylan Jones-Evans said…
Jeff - cannot agree more with your post. There seems to be a general reluctance by local government officials or the WAG civil service to push forward with anything that will bring jobs to Wales. Entropy is the natural state for these organisations and they will hide behind rules and regulations rather than move heaven and earth to get jobs to Wales during the worst recession of recent time. In the Assembly, they have watched impotently from the sidelines whilst tens of thousands of welsh jobs in manufacturing have been lost during the recession. This has happened whilst they are sitting on two billion pounds worth of European money. Worst of all, Ministers sit on their hands unable or unwilling to kick the backsides of those managing this bureaucracy and get it working for the benefit of Wales. I have been told by numerous organisations that they are now unwilling to put in bids to WEFO because they know it could take up to two years for approval. Give it another twelve months and there will be a general panic about spending the money again as the whole spectre of de-commitment kicks in.

Mam – I have said time and t
ime again, there is no longer any economic policy in Wales. The main focus is on managing the process which you only do when you have the overall strategy in place. Ask any politician or senior civil servant if they know what the economic policy of Wales is and you will be met by blank stares.

Virginia – I agree, but that means moving the emphasis towards skills and ensuring that it works closely alongside business development. That is simply not happening. By the way, the membership form for the Bevan Foundation is in the post, as promised!
September 04, 2009 6:59 am
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