At yesterday’s Bevan Foundation conference on the second anniversary of the One Wales agreement Steve Thomas, the Chief Executive of the WLGA, suggested that the programme of Government for the next two years should be ripped up. “One Wales needs to be re-examined and re-prioritised”, he said.
The Opposition spokesman on Local Government, Darran Millar, also lined up behind the proposal.
They argued that the scale of cuts facing WAG and Welsh Local Government over the next few years renders a programme agreed in a more benign economic climate redundant.
And given that some 60% of Welsh GDP is accounted for by the public sector, it is hard to argue that the projected cuts in public spending will have profound consequnces for the Assembly budget.
Nick Bourne repeated his demand for free prescriptions to be abolished – even though he conceded this would only bring savings of £13 Million after extra funding for stroke services and hospices are taken into account. It’ll take a lot more than that to meet the cuts.
The Cabinet yesterday considered their transport priorities for the next five years. It’ll be interesting to see if large capital pet projects survive. It has long been rumoured that the new M4 around Newport is for the chop (hardly a surprise with a price tag of £700 M), and the proposed new road to Cardiff airport will be hard to fund. It seems that days of big road schemes are over – unless they shave a few minutes off the journey to north Wales, of course.
Angela EL 8:51 am on 8 July, 2009 Permalink
Surely they should never have left the table. Any document like One Wales should be live and be changed as circumstances and macro conditions change.
That’s the trouble with the various strategies that government produces, they are written , glossed up shelved ,trotted out at certain events ,put on the web and never changed.
Can you imagine how much more effective they would be if they actually were reviewed regularly and there was input into them from people other than civil servants.
By now we should have been on Wales Two or Three to keep up with the changes that have been taking place.
David Phillips 8:58 pm on 8 July, 2009 Permalink
The future growth of the Welsh economy has to come from new green manufacturing and technology design and patent protection. We need to accelerate the shift in focus towards the growth industries of tomorrow where we can capture a growing slice of that market. We urgently need to embrace a new dynamic where young people see the attractiveness of pursuing a career in science and engineering and where apprenticeships are designed to anticipate the skills set needed not tomorrow but in 2 years and five years from now. The announcement by Andrew Davies, WAG Finance Minister, of accelerated capital investment projects is most welcome and we look to see what impact the Education and Skills allocation will have going forward, in light of the strategic necessity to boost our social capital.
Dr. Christopher Wood 6:25 pm on 13 July, 2009 Permalink
Seems to me that since “some 60% of Welsh GDP is accounted for by the public sector” that there needs to be more rain-makers in Wales. So there’s a solution!
Dr. Christopher Wood 7:06 pm on 13 July, 2009 Permalink
David Phillips> your comments are music to my ears! That is precisely what Wales NEEDS. Wales needs to protect its intellectual property – it’s not property unless it is protected because any Tom, Dick, Harry, foreign competitor can copy, use, sell, distribute Welsh innovation without fear of legal consequences if the Welsh technology is not patent protected. And the BIGGEST market for Welsh innovation, if it is patent protected, is the United States of America which is gearing up to spend a FORTUNE on green manufacturing, green chemistry, green biotechnology, green nanotechnology … the list goes on and on.
As it happens I am one of Wales’s top experts, if not the top expert, on the US patent system. Feel free to pick my brains on how Welsh small businesses can tap directly into the US market for patented green technology products/services.
Wales is crying out for good value jobs. Wales can do it. It has the people. We just have to ‘make it happen’.
I am willing and have the ‘goods’ to help Welsh high-tech start-ups, the best vehicle for Welsh businesses to learn what I have learnt this past decade is for Welsh politicians to bend over backwards to get me to Wales to give talks to groups of Welsh high-tech start-ups and prospective Welsh start-ups, and anyone, including seniors and young adults, who want to know how they can protect their inventions in what still is (subject to President Obama not destroying it) the greatest market for patent protected goods and services: the United States of America.