Having posted on the demise of IBW on Saturday, it was well worth reading the comments section on the excellent "Change of Personnel" website regarding the same issue.Two notable comments jump out and I hope that CoP doesn't mind me replicating them here, although I recommend you do read the full article.
Anonymous said...
Whilst I rarely raise my head above the parapet on matters of the ex-WDA (less I am accused of bias), I am minded to contribute to this debate. As the last Marketing Director of the WDA, I am now forced to ply my trade in the SE of England, where I run Invest Thames Gateway (which does what it says on the tin!). As most Welsh Civil Servants never actually cross the bridge, allow me to tell them what is happening. Disbelief and laughter about the dismembering of the Welsh international identity, for starters. When the whole apparatus of FDI in England is being dismantled, and "localised", this should have spelt a major opportunity for the Welsh to get back into the world and push the benefits of Wales (albeit RSA free, but hey, England manage it!). This is more about certain members of the D&ET getting back at what they perceived was the last bit of the old WDA, rather than a strategic approach to opportunity creation. I suggest that Wales starts to be nice to UKTI and apologise for the rather high handed way they have acted towards them for the past 25 years, otherwise FDi will also go the way of the recent economic strategies of WAG.
Anonymous said...
"I hear that the Scots have increased their FDI & Trade budget by 25% to take advantage of the demise of RDA's and IBW!"
And if these comments weren't bad enough, there was worst to come.
A few days after WAG announced the Economic Renewal Programme (ERP) and the abolition of IBW, data was released by the UK Government which showed that a record numbers of countries invested in the UK in 2009/10, with inward investment generating 94,000 jobs over the past year, a 20 per cent rise on the previous year.
Interestingly, the South West of England want to trumpet their success to all and sundry but there has been absolute silence from the normally effervescent public relations team at DE&T about Wales' inward investment performance.
Is this because, woe betide, IBW may actually have done better than expected last year and WAG is
reluctant to share its success with the rest of the Welsh public?
There is a further article on the Regen site which examines the consequences of the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies on English regions.
As the author notes,
"If inward investment is left out of the equation and simply transferred to UKTI in Whitehall, there is a risk that the UK will only attract companies to the "easier options" of London and the South East, with the rest going to the well-resourced inward investment teams of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with their extensive overseas offices network."
I assume this piece was put together before the ERP was published and you can now scratch the inward investment team of Wales from that equation, which could make us more dependent on UKTI for drumming up opportunities for Wales.
Yes, believe it or not, a Plaid Cymru Economic Development Minister may well be responsible for returning the responsibility for inward investment back to London through his actions.
You couldn't make it up even if you wanted to.
Comments
Henry David thoreau, if we all had to live like Thoreau for a year we would understand that getting rid of stuff that aint workin aint so bad
It apparently involves financial mismanagement and the spin doctors are running around like headless chickens trying to control the situation.
DJE, you are fab!
I have also heard rumours about IBW. It would seem that the RDSs are busy putting out their info but not WAG.could it be that IBW has actually done better than expected and delivered thousands of jobs for Wales? Imagine how embarrassing that would be for a minister who has just abolished the department.
The development of the Development Board for Rural Wales, the WDA and other ideas that originated with one of my grandpas was significant in terms of the economic effects. Lord Brecon visited other countries - particularly the US - and discerned that the future of business in Wales was probably more likely to succeed if we encouraged people to start up and develop from the ground up as well as attracting established businesses - such as Hoover (now departed) - to fill the gaps that would arise.
The result was a hotchpotch of disparate different incentives (including factory units that were ready to accept new and developing businesses on advantageous terms) - the development of a distinct and advantageous identity for encouraging inward investment - and some of these ideas and incentives are simply being allowed to wither and disappear as a result of the disappearance of the WDA and the transfer of its skillset largely to places outside Wales.
The outrageous waste of the WEFO funding on vanity projecs for individual politicians and their pecadilloes rather than for establishing infrastructure and incentives for employees is an example of the stupidity of some of our political masters.
As you say, Dylan, you couldn't make it up. As a simple lawyer, whose experience in business is very limited, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief.
You have to wonder, with this new report into financial problems within DET whether such a situation would have arisen under WDA leaders such as David Waterstone.
As I am clueless as to what has happened in IBW, I have now asked the Welsh Conservatives to look into this.
As all the other RDAs are announcing their results (northwest the latest), when will WAG let us know about IBW's performance?
What are they hiding - success?
The WDA had its faults, but it also had its huge successes. Since leaving the WDA I now spend all of my time working with and advising Development Agencies all over UK and Europe on inward investment strategy etc. All of the various comments made in the above posts I not only absolutely agree with but I can verify that IBW's competitors both in the UK and Europe are amazed at what has happened, especialy since the scrapping of the English RDAs overseas offices will leave a huge opportunity for the devolved administations of Scotland and N Ireland - Wales should have been positioning itself to make the most of this as the Scots and N Irish are doing.