PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

According to figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the number of civil servants facing job losses over the next four years has been reduced by a third – from 490,000 to 330,000. So what does this mean for Wales? Given that Wales accounts for 5.7 per cent of all public sector employment in the UK, this means that around 18,000 public sector posts will be lost in Wales over the next four years as compared to the 28,000 civil service jobs originally estimated. Whilst these unfortunate job losses are an inevitability of the previous government's spending plans, the fact that 88,000 jobs were lost in the Welsh private sector during the recession does place things into perspective and if the economy grows again, then these public sector losses could be revised downwards again.  In fact, what it means is that the private sector in Wales will need to create 7,000 net new jobs every year between now and 2015 to compensate for the loss of employment in the public sector....

This blog began its criticisms of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Economic Renewal Programme (ERP) the day it was presented to a largely acquiescent and handpicked business audience at the Panasonic factory in Cardiff. I believe there was a general expectation by those in power that the ERP would simply be implemented without any discussion amongst the wider business community in Wales. At the time of the launch, the CBI were “in the bag”, the FSB was largely silent on the ERP, the mainstream press was ready to go along with WAG’s press office on this matter and opposition politicians were simply not prepared to put their heads over the parapet and challenge this poor excuse for an economic strategy. In that atmosphere, this blog began what some opponents tried to describe as a fruitless campaign to demonstrate where the ERP had flaws. It has faced down a group of senior managers within the Department of Economy and Transport (DET) that have been ready to do anything to stop ...

A fascinating interview with entrepreneur Paul Ragan in today’s Wales on Sunday where he claims he has “absolutely no faith” in the Assembly Government, stating that the majority of businesses don’t get the support and struggle to understand where and how to access support. His solution? To create three “centres for business” – one each in North, South and West Wales. The centres would be “iconic” and would provide support for budding entrepreneurs. There would be mentoring sessions with private sector “heavyweights” as well as financial support, advice and funding. Each centre would also have a “lending room”– a Dragons’ Den-style forum to which around 1500 businesses each month could come to pitch and present their ideas to the banks. The centres for business would be paid for through an Assembly and private sector initiative, with one idea is that banks sponsor the buildings in return for having the lending room. It is an inspired idea and with the techniums now becoming avai...

As the eternal optimist, I will be putting on my Welsh scarf and walking down to the Millennium Stadium to see Wales take on the All-Blacks. Considering that you can allegedly get better odds on Wagner to win X-Factor than on the home side winning this afternoon, it doesn't bode well But, you never know and here's hoping that we finally break the hoodoo. C'mon Wales!

During the last couple of days, I have been over in Dublin acting as an external assessor for the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and meeting up with a couple of Irish organisations to discuss potential opportunities for Welsh firms (more on that later). It was a historic time to be in the capital city as my visit coincided with the announcement of the Irish Government’s attempted rescue plan to save Ireland’s economy. In some sections of society, feelings are running high and headlines such as those in the Irish Star (left) makes critiques of the UK Coalition Government seem very mild indeed. The severe cuts equate to more than ten per cent of Ireland’s national income, compared with Britain’s plan to reduce public spending by about five per cent of output. Indeed, given the recent fuss over the reduction in the Welsh Assembly Government’s budget, it is very sobering to read what is having to be done across the Irish Sea to stabilise their economy...

That is what Baz Dhaliwal, the first recipient of the University of Wales travelling innovation scholarship, had to say about his recent visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last week. Funded by the University of Wales’s Global Academy in partnership with Cardiff Business Club, the scholarship has been established to enable a graduate of the University of Wales to visit MIT and to meet leading world experts to learn how they can develop their entrepreneurial ideas into world class products or services back here in Wales. Baz’s start-up business, Rikoset Ltd, is developing new and innovative products to prevent injuries in sport, help rehabilitation and improve the performance of professional athletes; their first product is a revolutionary shin guard service for professional footballers currently being tested at various South Wales clubs. According to Baz, his weeklong schedule of meeting leading experts in entrepreneurship and technology has been a revelation. ...

It would seem that the Scottish Government is focusing its efforts on securing a lucrative share of the Asian market: According to a report in the Herald , the head of Scottish Development International’s (SDI) Asia Pacific division has been busy promoting the importance of export growth in the Far East. "Frank Boyland, who along with colleagues based at SDI’s offices in Singapore, Mumbai and Shanghai, has been participating in presentations to Scottish businesses in Glasgow and Inverness, said: “We’re at the tipping point [between western and eastern economic leadership]. Growth from Asia and Australasia is 7.7% per year, in China it is 8.9% this year and will be 8.3% next year. In India it will be 8% this year. Asia is where the future high net-worth individuals will be and the trade flows between Asian countries will be huge. There are great opportunities to partner with Asian companies to get into that [business stream]. Too many CEOs are asleep at the wheel as fa...

Some people say we can learn lessons from Catalonia in terms of devolution. However, as this video shows, perhaps we can also learn from their campaigning methods. Voting is a pleasure!

"Plaid Cymru’s Education spokesperson has called on the UK government to ensure that some of its announced technology and innovation centres are located in Wales. Nerys Evans AM, says the centres, designed to bridge the gap between universities and business, should be established in Wales to help improve private sector growth and allow Welsh universities to see practical applications for their research". Plaid Cymru Press release, October 26th 2010 "More than half of the Welsh Assembly Government's 10 flagship technium business innovation centres are to close. Launched in 2001, the centres were aimed at helping new science and technology businesses to develop". BBC Wales, 18th November 2010

Should pubs be taxed less on alcohol sales and can it actually reduce alcohol consumption?  That seems to be the surprising view of a leading liver doctor from Southampton University. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Nick Sheron suggests that "VAT is already levied differentially on food and drink; more VAT is charged to drink coffee on the premises than to take it away. If this policy was applied to alcohol but was reversed – say, for example, reducing the VAT for on-sales from 20% to 12% – it would be possible to increase the rate of duty to compensate for this without increasing the price of alcohol in pubs." He said public health would improve as a result and the pub industry would be supported at the same time. This would be a way around the minimum price per unit of alcohol policy that is unpopular with ministers. According to the Department of Health, setting a minimum price of 30 pence per unit would prevent 300 deaths a year, 40 pence about 1000, an...

Having been at MIT for a whole week, coming back to the economic approaches of the Welsh Assembly Government does seem a case of returning to a completely different planet. Whether you agree with ERP or not, surely it is time that they got their communications strategy over its implementation in place. However, that seems to be as much of a shambles as the initial launch and, yet again, there are mixed messages emerging from WAG. For example, the Minister stated yesterday that “We are a small country and can’t give support to everybody and so we have to prioritise and we have made that priority the six key sectors,” Yet in a recent presentation to businesspeople in Blaenau Gwent, James Price (the civil servant responsible for implementing ERP) emphasised that “There are over 190,000 businesses in Wales, but WAG only ever dealt with a maximum of perhaps, 10,000 of these businesses” and that WAG will now act as an enabler for all of these businesses, rather than just supporting th...

Yet another early start (no wonder Americans get so much done!). Today was breakfast with Bill Aulet, Director of MIT’s Entrepreneurship Centre (pictured left). Bill epitomizes the environment that exists between academia and the business community at MIT. He is a highly accomplished business leader with a 25-year track record of success, having raised over $100 million in funding for his companies and has directly created hundreds of millions of dollars in market value. Bill currently applies his knowledge and experience to help students, new ventures, and established firms associated with MIT become more successful. We discussed ways in which we could transfer elements of the MIT programme to Wales and given the fact that the Welsh Assembly Government has just launched its own public sector driven strategy for encouraging enterprise in young people, this may be a useful counterpoint. We then had a meeting with the Deshpande Center, which was established at the School of Engi...

Whilst some in Wales continue to ask questions over the Week In Week Out programme on the University of Wales, it has been reported that the Malaysian authorities have now conducted their investigation into Fazley College and are satisfied about the quality of teaching. According to the Malaysian Star on Friday 12th November , "Ministry deputy director-general (private higher education institutions) Datin Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir confirmed that operations would continue at Fazley Inter national College, which had around 380 students. Dr Siti Hamisah said that a ministry taskforce investigated the college on Wednesday and found no irregularities. She added that visits by Britain’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Malaysian Qualifications Agency were satisfactory". So it would seem, from this report, that the Malaysian authorities are satisfied with the quality of the courses being run within their own country at Fazley College. However, if this infor...

“There are very few ways that an individual can change the World. Entrepreneurship is one of them” Douglas Hart, MIT Professor and entrepreneur Another early start in MIT for the R and D conference but with a stellar cast of presenters looking at the world of innovation. This what we listened to this morning: 8:30 a.m. Michael Cusumano - Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Lessons from Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, Toyota, and More) 9:15 a.m. Mark Mortensen - Moving Beyond Team: The Changing Nature of Collaboration in Modern Work 10:30 a.m. Douglas Hart - From Academic to Entrepreneur 11:00 a.m. Eugene Fitzgerald - Inside Real Innovation 11:30 a.m. Botaro Hirosaki - R&D Management of NEC to Challenge the New Innovation Paradigm Michael Cusumano’s lecture was fascinating as it looked to how services are becoming increasingly important to innovative companies, using information technology companies suc...

And so to the first day of our visit to MIT with three companies from Wales.  Thanks to our unique membership of the Industrial Liaison Programme (we are the only university amongst around 300 bluechip firms), we have unprecedented access to the academic might of one of the World's top three universities. The first meeting, at 8.30am, was with John Williams (pictured shaking hands with yours truly), Professor of Information Engineering at MIT.  John is originally from South Wales although he has been at MIT for over twenty years and currently runs the MIT  Geospatial Data Centre , which is an "über laboratory" that consists of the MIT Auto-ID Laboratory, MIT Center for Grid Computing, and MIT Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. It has had extensive large scale simulation experience to address the "Big Data Problem" that often plagues traditional off-the-shelf open source GIS platforms, and has collaborated with Sandia National Lab, Los Alamos National...

According to figures obtained by the Welsh Conservatives from WAG, the number of managers in the Welsh NHS has risen by nearly a fifth in the last five years and the number of nurses has fallen by 10,000. The number of managers in the Welsh NHS has increased by 20.4 per cent since 2005. In contrast, the number of nurses has fallen by 25.7 per cent, from 40,269 in 2005 to 29,915 in 2009. Several categories of specialised hospital medical staff have also fallen, including geriatric medicine down by 29.6% and neurosurgery down by 15%. Overall, the number of hospital medical staff has increased by 10.1% since 2005, at less than half the rate of NHS managers. This is exactly the same point I made when standing for the Assembly in 2007 - that administration and bureaucracy was increasing whilst investment in frontline services was being reduced. And yet, nearly four years later, we see nothing much has changed. Back in 1999, there were 10,967 administrators and 32,456 nu...

Just come back from a very successful project launch event at Turku in Finland.  We are developing a new groundbreaking programme called MBA4PHD which does what it says on the tin. The three year project will be developing an unique programme of entrepreneurial learning for STEM subject doctoral students in Sweden, Finland and the UK.  I am just about to board the plane to Boston for a week long series of meetings with MIT, so more details later.

Having been in Brussels and Finland for the last three days attending various project meetings, I am somewhat removed from what is going in Wales. Being at such a distance does give one a more objective view, even when your own employer is being criticised publicly,  although the more cynical amongst you may end up stating "Well, he would say that anyway"! Therefore, the question that has been going through my mind is whether BBC Wales, in its quest to get a journalistic "scoop", has made an error of judgment with regard to its Week In Week Out programme on the University of Wales and its links with Fazley College? In particular, I have had a number of comments about a story that is emerging from Malaysia, where Fazley College is based. According to various newspapers including the Malaysian National News Agency and the Malaysian Star , there is a very different view of the issue of the ownership of the college, the main issue that has been highlighted by the ...

I am grateful to the Druid of Anglesey for highlighting my last blog post on the state of Anglesey with respect to the outputs from European Convergence Funding. On the train to Brussels yesterday, I decided to play around with some of the GVA/head data for the UK, which examines the relative prosperity of different parts of the country. In particular, I was interested in the ten poorest parts of the UK in 2001 and their relative performance since then. As you can see from the graph, two areas in Scotland - the Western Isles and Caithness/ Sutherland/Ross and Cromarty - have increased their GVA/head significantly during the period whereas similar peripheral rural areas in Wales - Anglesey  and Conwy/Denbighshire - have remained in the doldrums. At this moment, I haven't got any time to look into this phenomenon in detail but will ask some of my research team to do so over the next week or so. It would be fascinating to understand why some peripheral areas, such as those in...

I must confess that I am great fan of Dad’s Army and my favourite character in that series was Lance Corporal Jack Jones, played by the irrepressible Clive Dunn. As we all know, two of his more famous phrases were "Don't panic!" and "They don't like it up 'em". Interestingly, both of these phrases seem to apply directly to the recent criticisms of my weekly column by Labour politicians in North Wales who seem terribly upset that an adviser to the Welsh Conservatives writes for the Daily Post. In particular, the MP for Anglesey has even gone so far as to suggest that as I support a different political party to him, then my comments on the economy are no longer valid. I could respond by pointing out that, unlike the last three Labour administrations, the current UK Government had given preferred new nuclear site status to Wylfa thus opening the door to thousands of new jobs within his constituency. Or that, despite cuts elsewhere, the Strategic Def...

Back in 2009, I wrote the following on this blog "In my opinion, it is completely inappropriate that a television channel whose primary purpose is to provide Welsh language programmes for the population of this nation remains under the control of Whitehall mandarins within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport". Yesterday, Ieuan Wyn Jones said something similar namely  “If safeguarding the future of our national television channel is a burden to ministers in London then devolve the responsibility, devolve the money and put it in the hands of the people of Wales. We deserve better than to see a London government gambling with the future of our Welsh language channel behind closed doors.” Given this, you have to wonder why it has taken someone within the One Wales Government so long to make such a statement?  Perhaps it is because the culture minister remains adamant that he is not in favour of "devolving S4C on its own" , a point he repeated in an intervie...

According to research by Andrew RT Davies, £2.5 million has been spent on “loose furnishings” at the Assembly Government’s new offices in Llandudno. It means items like desks and chairs have cost the taxpayer more than the total cost of all “preparatory work and design fees” during Stage 1 of the development, which cost £2.2 million. A further £1.3 million has gone on “IT” and £1.4 million on further “professional fees”. Both those figures also exclude VAT. It means for each person who could work at the new offices, an average of approximately £12,000 has been spent on furniture, design and IT. It makes you wonder whether anyone in WAG has heard of DFS and their half-price sales ? More seriously, this does, yet again, raise issues about how government procures goods and services in Wales? Indeed, the most important element of this is where they procured the "loose furnishings" from?  Were these bought from local companies in North Wales or from outside the ar...

More opinions on economic development from the 2010 Wales Fast Growth 50.  I will post some more next week..... "I would introduce a programme for the employment of apprentices, which will raise skill levels to ensure the success of our industry for the foreseeable future. I would also minimise ‘Red Tape’, particularly when applying for grant funding required to explore new opportunities and consider a Government supported scheme to guarantee bank finance for investment and expansion". "I would get affordable funding for growing businesses – the availability of funding is still extremely limited through the normal channels.  The banks say they are open for business but are only prepared to lend on terms that make borrowing wholly unattractive and uneconomic.  I would also foster relationships between schools and businesses to encourage smart students to consider alternatives to college after school - and provide funding for training". "I would encourage s...

As part of the data collection for this year's Fast Growth 50, I have collected opinions from the owners of Wales' fastest growing companies on what they would do if they were Economic Development Minister. Given the consultation exercise undertaken by WAG it is of enormous interest to get the opinion of those who have collectively grown their businesses by over £305 million during the worst recession since the 1920s and compare it to what senior civil servants in the Department of Economy and Transport are spinning as a "business-led" economic strategy. There will be more on this in my Saturday column but in the meantime, this is what the five fastest growing firms in Wales would do. “I would provide technical support, advice and mentoring to Welsh businesses, provide assistance to reduce barriers to future financing and make every effort to train and improve flexibility of labour market” "I would recreate the Welsh Tourist Board to deliver a more cohere...

This year, the Wales Fast Growth 50 marks the twelfth year of celebrating the best of Welsh entrepreneurship in partnership with MediaWales. At a time when politicians and policymakers are looking increasingly to the private sector to grow the UK economy, the fifty companies featured in today’s supplement demonstrate the enormous potential within the Welsh business community. During the period when nearly 90,000 jobs were lost across the private sector in Wales and markets were drying up, these companies have created 1400 new jobs and increased their sales by an incredible £305 million. Is the job creating potential of a small number of firms surprising? It shouldn’t be, as recent research has demonstrated. A detailed economic analysis of employment change amongst SMEs showed that whilst fast growth companies represented only 6 per cent of all UK firms employing ten or more people, they accounted for more than half the job growth in the UK. Similar results have been found for o...