Assembly deploys business support fund

Apr 19 2008 by Dylan Jones Evans, Western Mail

ON Wednesday, we saw the announcement of the project that will, apparently, “transform the Welsh economy for years to come”.

As of this week, all Assembly business support will be delivered through a single investment fund replacing the current system of numerous capital grants and business support programmes. There will be one contact number for businesses (with only one application form to complete) and 200 Assembly Government business-facing customer relationship managers will be employed to act as sole points of contact for businesses seeking support.

Is this “radical” approach going to transform the Welsh economy? Well, the spin pumped out from the Assembly Government over the last few months would have you believe this is the most innovative reorganisation of business support in years and the best thing since sliced bread.

However, the reality is that there is probably no more additional money available for supporting Welsh businesses than previously, albeit that what is available is now packaged into one fund. Indeed, there are rumours that the Economic Development and Transport division has been told to save millions of pounds of operational spend at a time when more funding is needed to deliver such a programme.

Is there anything else that is new to this programme?

Well, the investment fund promises one point of contact for businesses, although that was already in existence through Business Eye, and some are already asking whether more will need to be spent in needlessly rebranding this new service to businesses.

The service also promises plans to have 200 Assembly Government business-facing customer relationship managers acting as sole points of contact for businesses.

Again, that is a rehash of previous support and it is easy to forget that the former Welsh Development Agency had a fantastic network of hundreds of account managers working on behalf of businesses throughout Wales, supported by a similar network within the enterprise agency movement.

Given that most of those original managers with years of business experience are no longer in their jobs, who will take their place? Retraining civil servants or bringing in business school graduates fresh from college will hardly fill businesses with confidence that the people giving them advice will actually know what they are talking about.

Finally, the Assembly Government has promised to phase out all the various business support programmes in favour of this one coherent approach. Excuse me, but haven’t civil servants, in drawing up this great new project, been aware of the hundreds of ideas for supporting business that have recently been posted on the Welsh European Funding Office website?

All these proposed projects, emerging from higher education, further education and the private sector, and potentially spending huge amounts of European money, will be providing support to businesses in Wales and will, because of a lack of any strategic approach to their delivery, end up competing with the Assembly’s new funds. This will mean that businesses will be even more confused regarding the support available and we will end up back where we started.

So what is the final result? The political prejudices of senior politicians led to the demise of the Welsh Development Agency which provided a co-ordinated system of support throughout Wales. As a result, we have now been left with a pale imitation of that body, now run directly by ministers, which will add very little to the Welsh economy.

Of course, the great thing is that businesses will now be able to apply for support on one application form. At a time when Wales remains firmly stuck to the bottom of the UK prosperity league table, is that what the vision for the Welsh economy has come down to – a sheet of paper?

We keep hearing political platitudes about the importance of enterprise and innovation and yet where is the vision for this apart from vague references to previous strategies such as the Entrepreneurship Action Plan which was abandoned years ago?

While the UK Government is developing a new approach to delivery through detailed strategies for enterprise and innovation, the Assembly Government is putting its faith in a “new” investment fund which is a rehash of all existing programmes.

A new Assembly Government should have developed a new approach to stimulating the economy. Yet, this new main vehicle for reform – the single investment strategy – was the brainchild of the former economic development minister and has merely been accepted, without question, by his successor as the way forward for Welsh business. In this case, it would seem that a cabal of senior civil servants have pushed through a reform with little ministerial resistance.

Contrast this with an area like health, where billions more is spent on delivery every year and where the new minister has accepted that the previous strategy was wrong and has undertaken radical reform to address this.

Wales needs to have vision for the future that will take it to the new level. It needs to attract the best of international value added businesses, whilst encouraging greater Welsh entrepreneurship and innovation. It should ensure that we access the best global knowledge while making the most of the expertise within our higher education system. It needs to attract the brightest and best from around the world while ensuring that every single employee in every business in Wales is up-skilled.

It needs to create an infrastructure in transport and information that is not only fit for the 21st century, but is the envy of other economies around the world.

That, and not the shuffling of paperwork on the metaphorical deck of the Titanic, will ensure that we get the economy of this great nation back on track.