PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Yesterday, I showed the discrepancies in support across Wales for the Labou-Plaid's flagship economic initiative, the Pro-Act scheme. Today, I can reveal the similar discrepancy that exists with regard to business support across Wales. According to a Freedom of Information request made to the Welsh Assembly Government, data has become available regarding the "offers of financial support" that have been offered/committed to businesses  across Wales for the period 05/07/2010 - 02/02/2011. Offers totalling £50.15 million in financial support has been made to 180 companies during this period. However, as with the Pro-Act Funding, nearly half of this has been concentrated in four counties. Wrexham, once the manufacturing powerhouse of the Welsh economy, has received the lowest amount of financial support, with only two businesses helped by WAG. The Vale of Glamorgan has only been awarded 0.5 per cent of the funding on offer, which has gone to just three companies. ...

Whilst a row broke out earlier this month between Labour and Plaid Cymru over which party was responsible for developing the Pro-Act scheme , no-one seems to have examined or considered the relative impact that the programme has had on different parts of Wales. Thanks to a report written by the Assembly Members’ Research Service , the differences in ProAct funding to businesses across Wales can now be revealed. According to WAG's own data, nearly half of the £27 million of funding went to 90 businesses in the four counties of Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthen, RCT and Swansea. Given the way that ProAct was largely promoted by WAG towards manufacturing companies (although it was not exclusively geared towards this sector) this geographical focus in counties along the M4 corridor is not unexpected. However, with Labour and Plaid Cymru constantly describing the scheme as being a panacea for the economic issues across the whole of Wales, it is surprising to see that companies based ...

As the main focus of the Welsh media is quite rightly on the National Assembly for Wales elections, it is easy to forget that there is another poll taking place on that day, namely the referendum on the Alternative Vote system. To those who follow politics, there remains some debate over whether the AV vote will have any effect on differential turnout within this election. For example, will more Liberal Democrat voters, rather than staying at home following the battering their party has received in the press and by the polls, actually come out and vote for AV and then, at the same time, give their vote to their party? Equally, given that the latest AV poll shows that two thirds of Conservative voters are against any changes to the current first past the post system (by far the highest proportion of any UK political party), will the normally Assembly reticent traditional wing of the Conservative Party come out in droves on May 5th to oppose the AV vote and, at the same time, vot...

Last year, the First Minister, in an interview with Andrew Marr , made the statement that "our problem is...that our private sector is too small. We have to do more to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that does exist in Wales". As the previous blogpost argues, there seems to be little within the Labour manifesto to "unleash the entrepreneurial spirit" as Carwyn Jones suggests, especially given their new policy focus on large companies in Wales. Indeed, in previous interviews , he has emphasised the point that, stating that  “It’s sometimes said that the public sector in Wales is too large. I disagree; the public sector appears large because the private sector is too small.” But what has happened to the private and public sectors during the last Assembly Government? Examining data for public and private employment in wales shows that during the first three years of the Labour-Plaid administration:  private sector employment in Wales had reduced by 34,000 i...

I have just had an opportunity to briefly examine the Labour Party manifesto for the 2011 Assembly elections. The opening line in the section on the economy, entitled “Standing up for growth and sustainable jobs”, states that “Wales faces significant economic challenges and the next Assembly term will be a critical period for the Welsh economy”. Yet, the rest of the section is a major disappointment, and for a so-called progressive party with a radical manifesto, I can see no major far-reaching policy innovations that will radically change the direction of the Welsh economy and prevent it from languishing at the bottom of the UK prosperity league table. It is notable that there is a tacit admission that their current strategy - the Economic Renewal Programme (ERP) - has got it largely wrong on focusing only on six key sectors. As the manifesto notes, “In building upon the support for the sectoral approach of the Economic Renewal Programme Welsh Labour also recognises t...

In February, I referred to a report on the European Commission’s Framework 7 funding programme and the under-performance of Wales in accessing the funds available i.e. that as of 2010, Wales had secured €39 million euros in research funding. Contrast that with the news for Ireland yesterday that, during the same period, our Celtic cousins had attracted €269m and were on course to secure €600m in research funding to Irish researchers and enterprises by 2007 to 2013. Given some of the lackluster commitments by Welsh politicians to improving the research competitiveness of our economy, it is worth reading what the Irish Minister for Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock had to say: “Thanks to national investment in research, Ireland is participating in the Framework Programme from a far stronger position than ever before. A critical mass of research activity has developed in both the public and private sectors and the design of the current programme suits the needs of Irish researc...

Given the row that has erupted today over the alleged future of the Communities First scheme, it is worth noting the conclusion of the Assembly's public accounts committee last year , which stated that Communities First "has not delivered good value for the significant amount of public money spent on it". According to the Committee, this was largely a result of "weaknesses in the Welsh government's construction and management of the programme...we are particularly concerned that the Welsh government provides insufficient direction to service providers and is not adequately monitoring the programme." Indeed, the Committee was spot on on the deteriorating state of the programme, although this is hardly news to those of us who have been commenting on this area. For example, back in July 2007 , I noted that "the (Communities First) programme has been accused of adopting a top down approach that has largely focused on the administration of the progra...

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." John Milton "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all".   Noam Chomsky "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."                                                                                                                       Voltaire "For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people".                        John F. Kennedy "I...

Earlier this week, a new initiative was launched to encourage greater entrepreneurship across the UK. Start-up Britain, backed by the UK Government as well as 60 global brands such as Axa, Barclays, BlackBerry and Google, as well as the Government, will offer up to £1,500 worth of special offers to people setting up a new business. It will also support competitions to encourage greater entrepreneurship, offer entrepreneurial work placements and provide free mentoring to those looking to start a new venture. Sir Richard Branson, one of the backers of the initiative, rightly said that “firing up a new generation of entrepreneurs will be a crucial part of our recovery and essential for creating sustainable growth in Britain over the next decade and beyond.” Yet, in Wales, there is a sense of déjà vu about all of this. Back in 1999, the private sector led Entrepreneurship Action Plan (EAP) was launched as the first regional enterprise strategy of its kind in the World. True, it ...

Like everyone else in North Wales, we all knew Brynle Williams as the farmer who very nearly brought down a government. As one very astute political observer later told me, one more week of fuel protests and Tony Blair would have had no option but to resign, and imagine what a very different world we would have been living in today. I first met Brynle at a BBC Christmas party in Bangor in 2001, where both of us had been invited as regular contributors. Over a few glasses of wine, the conversation turned to politics and as neither of us were members of a political party at the time, we had a very open discussion.  Naturally, I asked Brynle whether he would be interested in standing for the Assembly and in his usual honest style, he said yes but had not decided which party could have him! With Brynle, despite the twinkle in his eye, you were never sure whether he was being serious or not but would anyone really doubt that Brynle was anything but one of the most natural Conser...