PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

In a week when the Finnish Ambassador to the Court of St James was visiting Wales , I am returning the favour. I am currently in Finland, where I have been attending a meeting of the  MBA4PhD international project between Wales, Gothenberg and Turku, as well as exploring ways in which the University of Turku can work more closely with the University of Wales over the next few years. As the picture shows, Turku is a paradise in the summer although it is hard going at this time of year, with snow still falling yesterday. I have had some interesting discussions with colleagues about the state of the Finnish economy, with many worrying about Nokia's future, especially given its dominance in such a small country. However, it would seem that exports are helping the nation to recover from recession. According to the Finance Ministry, gross domestic product will grow by 3.6 percent this year, before growth slows to 2.7 percent in 2012 and 2.4 percent in 2013. Certainly, innovatio...

Last week, I was sent a paper written by Tim Morgan of the Centre for Policy Studies. Entitled "Five Fiscal Fallacies" ,  it articulates, in detail, the need for reducing public expenditure by the current Coalition government. Most importantly, it debunks some of the myths that have been pushed by the Labour Party and the Trade Union movement over the last ten months, namely that the reductions in public expenditure are “savage” cuts. For example, “in 1999-2000, government spending totaled £343 billion, which, had it simply moved in line with inflation, have reached £438 billion by 2009-10. In fact, spending in that year was £669 billion, a real-terms increase of 53% over a ten year period in which GDP had increased by less than 17%. By 2014-15, and again expressed at 2009-10 values, aggregate spending will be a modest 3% below the 2009-10 figure, which cannot remotely be described as a “massive” cut. Moreover, spending will remain 48% higher than in 1999-2000”. So, to...

Last week, all of my time was spent managing a major summit of leading academics from some of the world's top universities. Attended by professors from institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Memphis, Boston University and the University of Central Florida, it discussed key issues in the critically important and growing area of geospatial cyber-physical supply chain, including environmental security, supply chain management and high performance computing. They were joined by representatives from the United Nations, US Department of Defense, Northrop Grummann, Microsoft, IBM and Sonalysts. You only have to open a newspaper these days to know that the field of cybersecurity is becoming a major issue for governments and industry around the World. For example, the US Federal Government recently announced plans to spend more than $13 billion a year within the next five years on protecting its sys...

For the last few days, I have been slightly out of the loop hosting a conference in Cardiff for the University of Wales. The World’s first summit on the geospatial cyber-physical supply chain brought together leading scientists from some of the world's top universities to discuss key issues in this critically important area. It was a fantastic event with professors from institutions such as MIT, Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Memphis, Boston University and the University of Central Florida creating an international masterclass of discussion and dialogue with other representatives from the United Nations, US Department of Defense, Northrop Grummann, Microsoft and IBM. Needless to say, the outcome of the conference, apart from creating sixty new ambassadors for Wales, could create significant opportunities for the Welsh economy over the next few months. As a result of spending time at this successful event, it was only yesterday that I finally got the ch...

I thought it would be pertinent to post the civil service code of conduct on this blog. Recent events have made me think that some individuals have, unfortunately, forgotten some of the key elements of this code. Perhaps this will help them review their position when considering their response to Ministers. Civil Service values 1. The statutory basis for the management of the Civil Service is set out in Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. 2. The Civil Service is an integral and key part of the government of the United Kingdom. It supports the Government of the day in developing and implementing its policies, and in delivering public services. Civil servants are accountable to Ministers . They are in turn accountable to the National Assembly for Wales. 3. As a civil servant, you are appointed on merit on the basis of fair and open competition and are expected to carry out your role with dedication and a commitment to the Civil S...

In magic, they say the most important skill is that of misdirection – which is the act of taking advantage of the limits of the human mind in order to give the wrong picture and memory. As the mind can concentrate on only one thing at a time, the magician uses this to manipulate the "victim's" idea of how the world is supposed to be. Take, for example, the announcement yesterday on the review of governance in higher education. Driven by one journalist’s obsession and another man’s petty desire for revenge, one of the week’s main stories on the BBC was about the University of Wales’ validation provision in Singapore. Yet, around the same time, HEFCW were announcing a cut of nine per cent in the budget for higher education in Wales, which would see funding cut by £65 million for 2011-2012, undoubtedly resulting in at least a thousand job cuts across the university sector unless further efficiencies can be made. Did the education minister play on the fact that anyt...

As mentioned yesterday, there are five key reasons, according to the "insiders" who sent me their critique report, as to why DET isn't working. As you will see, most of is to do with the civil service set-up within the department although some will argue that this is due to a lack of political leadership.  This is what they had to say - judge for yourselves.  1. The ERP is politically driven. It is owned by the Deputy First Minister, not by business and certainly not by senior management within the department. It may or may not stick after the next Assembly elections, depending on the election result. The view from the ground internally is that senior management appears not to care much either way as long as it gets the department to the next election line. What happens after is up for grabs. Rather than being treated as a real strategic approach to using public sector economic development as a tool in Wales to get alongside business and create robust structure...

As I mentioned last week, late last year, a letter was sent to me at the Western Mail which, unfortunately, was not given to me until the end of last month. It purports to come from a group of senior managers within the Department of Economy and Transport (DET) who are “driven by a sense of frustration and concern that a failing department is steaming towards further failure". It is anonymous and the authors are very open in stating that “cowardly and possibly disloyal as it is, we have chosen not to put our names to the paper. At a time of job threat, there could be only one result”. Nevertheless, having read the details, there can be very little doubt that whoever has written the critique certainly has insider knowledge of the machinations of the civil service. Whether there are any exaggerations in some of the claims made could only be verified by DET itself (which is highly unlikely).  If only partly true, it is a fascinating insight into the hidden world of the civil s...

Given that we are suppose to have a system of relatively open government here in Wales, WAG seems keen not to divulge certain pieces of information to the general public. For example, there has been much mystery surrounding the membership of the new Council for Economic Renewal which, according to WAG, was supposed to be a "fresh start" and which shouldn't be "a simple re-hash the former Business Partnership Council". So where are the details of the council? Who sits on this new dynamic body? Well, unfortunately, there is no information anywhere on the WAG website although we are promised that the minutes will be available by the end of March. However, the little information I have been able to glean from our democratic body suggests that, despite a bright new dawn being promised, the membership is exactly the same i.e. the minimum legal requirement of 14 external members (5 each from Business Wales and Wales TUC and 2 from Social Enterprise in addition t...

“He is Wales, he is film, he is theatre, he is poetry, he is spirit, he is passion and he is hiraeth. He is everything that we aspire to be. The Hollywood Walk of Fame would be blessed to have his star on it. It is an absolute outrage he does not have a star there. He is the star that will shine the brightest.” Michael Sheen on Richard Burton

In the midst of all the excitement of the Manufacturing Action Plan for Wales finally being published after a three year hiatus, it seems that the news channels have forgotten that today is also the publication date of the latest Labour Market data for Wales, which includes information on employment, unemployment and claimant count. Given that we have two very different governments at a UK and Welsh level both trying to claim credit for any good news on jobs and blame the other for the bad news on increasing dole queues, what does this latest release tell us? First of all, 126,000 people are currently unemployed, a slight increase on last month but a decrease of 7,000 on a year ago. The unemployment rate of 8.7 per cent is the highest of all four of the home nations.   In terms of employment, there are currently 1.327 million employed in Wales. This is a slight increase on last month but 20,000 higher than a year ago. However, the employment rate of 67.5 per cent remains ...

“If Wales is to improve its innovation performance over time, then we must ensure that the sum of the parts – government, industry and academia – is greater than the whole”. The Challenge It is critical to encourage innovation so that the amount of R&D undertaken in Wales increases substantially. Welsh Higher Education Institutes have a key role to play here and WAG funding must incentivise the commercialisation of knowledge, whilst maximising the potential linkages between academia and industry. The evidence Recent research shows that investments in innovation accounted for between two-thirds and three-quarters of labour productivity growth in OECD countries such as Austria, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States between 1995 and 2006 [1] . Innovation was the main driver of growth. A lack of innovation – characterised by low levels of investment in knowledge, such as skills, research and development, and technology - has been identified as a major barrier rest...

In terms of the state of the Welsh economy, there is an interesting pre-election game being played in the political arena. Critics of the Welsh Assembly Government state, quite rightly, that Wales has the lowest GVA (gross value added) per head of any of the UK regions and that on this internationally accepted measure of prosperity, West Wales and the Valleys is now poorer than some parts of Bulgaria and Poland. Not so, insists the Welsh Assembly Government. According to the First Minister, GVA per head is the wrong measure to use for the economy especially, as he said recently, “gross disposable household income in Wales is catching up pretty quickly with the rest of the UK”. So who is right? There is little argument over the status of GVA data, which shows that Wales has declined from 77 per cent of the UK average GVA/head in 1999 to 74 per cent, although some parts of Wales, such as Cardiff, have become more prosperous since 1999 although West Wales and the Valleys has con...

“Business development and skills should go hand in hand within any enterprise support network and there should be a seamless approach by government to the delivery of support in this area. The Welsh Conservatives should therefore create a new Department for Business and Skills that will enable a clear strategic approach to be adopted”. The Challenge The skills of the Welsh workforce lag behind more prosperous regions of the UK and compare poorly to the world’s leading advanced countries. The evidence “Skills That Work for Wales – A Skills and Employment Strategy and Action Plan” is a critical report produced by The Wales Employment and Skills Board that, unlike many other reports, takes seriously the premise that if we improve skills within Wales we will have a more prosperous society, reduced inequality, more jobs and less poverty. Most importantly, the Board emphasised the important message that improving skills is not merely an issue for Government alone, but must fully involve empl...

“The Welsh Conservative Party would make the new repayable grant system available to all sectors of the Welsh economy and all sizes of businesses.  It is vital, as the nation struggles to come out of recession, that every business that needs finance to grow and create employment within their local economies is given every opportunity to access such funding”. The Challenge                     It is generally accepted that the current system of grant support is largely unsustainable within the current economic climate. The Welsh Conservatives believe that, overall, there needs to be a gradual move away from the free grant culture in Wales towards an environment where companies, especially SMEs, get quicker access to repayable soft loans that can lead to a more sustainable financial support structure for business to flourish and grow. However, this should not mean abandoning SMES withi...

Having just arrived back from Finland, I am finally catching up with yesterday's business news. Of course, I am not surprised at all by the headline in the Western Mail business section regarding the Economic Renewal Programme which suggests that only 15% of businesses are positive about Economic Renewal Plan. In fact, more than 30% of businesses believe the Welsh Assembly Government’s flagship economic policy will have a ‘detrimental impact’ on the economy, a new survey suggests. The ‘Welsh Economic Barometer’ unveiled by business services firm PwC was unveiled today at an Institute of Welsh Affairs conference held in Cardiff. The straw poll of Welsh businesses found that two thirds of businesses questioned admitted they had not read the government’s Economic Renewal. Of the minority that had, 40.6% thought it would have no impact, while only 15.6% felt it would improve the competitiveness of the Welsh economy. Whilst this seems of little surprise to those of us...

“The Entrepreneurship Action Plan should be reintroduced to act as a focal point for encouraging new business start-ups across Wales.” The Challenge   Wales has experienced the largest decline in the number of new businesses being created since 2004. In order to create an enterprising and innovative economy, there is a need to encourage greater opportunity to develop entrepreneurship, especially within our more deprived communities. The Evidence The UK innovation agency NESTA released a new report on innovation indicators [1] which indicated that a dynamic enterprise culture is essential for innovation i.e. a high birth rate of new businesses will drive competitive markets. As discussed earlier, Wales has experienced the largest decline in new business starts of any UK region, a situation that could have a serious knock on effect on the innovative capacity of the Welsh economy, regardless of the increased spending on research and development within the University sector. A UK...

THE CHALLENGE As Sir James Dyson [1] noted in a report on revitalising the manufacturing sector, it could, if supported properly by government, play a major part in the future growth of the UK economy. Dyson suggested that it is critical for the UK economy to rebalance itself away from financial services and property, two sectors that did not generate as much added value as many had suggested. With policymakers now looking for an export-led growth over the next few years, it is clear that manufacturing – which already accounts for half of the UK’s exports – can be doing far more, especially in hi-tech sectors. Secondly, with manufacturing focused outside the south east of England, any growth in the sector will have a disproportionate effect on the less prosperous parts of the UK, including Wales. As Dyson notes in his report: “Whatever it is that creates generic differences between innovators and non-innovators, the consequence is that the former are likely to be quicker, more flexibl...

Hat tip to the Druid but read this and weep.... "I don't really remember the meeting. I will be asking officers in my department where this is at. They (Lightning) would have needed some grant funding. It could be still in the pipeline. I'll be asking my staff what's happened to it" Ieuan Wyn Jones on being asked why nothing had been done  about a car manufacturer promising 400 jobs in Holyhead. I know this is a local story and that the WAG Press Office will be pressing their contacts within the BBC to keep this out of the limelight but it really does demonstrate what is wrong with our approach to business in Wales i.e. a government that doesn't give a flying fornication about creating jobs and does not take wealth creation seriously enough.

Having decided to check the stat counter function yesterday for the first time in ages, I had a look to see how many visitors had been on the site since August 2010 when I signed up with the application. To my pleasant surprise, there had been 54,831 unique visitors to the blog, resulting in 70,334 pageloads. Obviously, not as many daily readers who get the Daily Post on Monday and the Western Mail on Saturday but they can easily ignore my columns in both papers if they wish! And according to Wikio, this little blog of mine is in the top 500 in the UK which, given I have so little time to devote to it, makes me a very proud Welsh blogger. I am also 116th in 'politics' despite not being politically active at the moment! So thanks to everyone who bothers reading these thoughts of mine. Of course, whether you like them or not ain't my problem!

“The general consensus from the business community, according to WAG’s own consultation regarding the ERP, is that business support should be streamlined and made less bureaucratic, rather than abolished” The Challenge   According to the FSB in Wales, support given to businesses in terms of advice needs to be relevant, timely and properly attuned to individual needs. FSB statistics show a low level of take-up of government funded business advice among businesses even though this support has a key role to play in developing businesses. Decisions should be taken as close to the businesses as possible and not centralised. A top down structure that has given too much power to civil servants replaced the Welsh Development Agency’s decentralised model. The business support programme should therefore be streamlined and simplified, cutting red tape and bureaucracy and ensuring that the right support gets to businesses quickly and easily. The Evidence As part of its new Economic Renewa...