Despite the downturn, Labour is building for the future in Wales

By Lesley Griffiths

If the Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government ever went in search of suitable motto, they could a lot worse than turn to Mohandas K. Gandhi’s truism, “You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result”.

Since the scale and nature of the global economic downturn became apparent last autumn, there has been a relentless pace in the response of Rhodri Morgan’s Welsh Government, to not only address current problems in the Welsh economy but also crucially, to prepare Wales for the upturn, when it begins to gather momentum.

The speed of Assembly Government action, has been breathless in terms of implementing and delivering a variety of new policy initiatives, as well as re-directing and re-focusing spending priorities to meet the challenges that have arisen in recent months.

A ‘rapid-reaction’ ethos has grown around the Welsh Government, as it attempts to grapple with the economic maelstrom swirling around it and I believe this ethos, could not have been possible without devolution in Wales.

Accompanying this culture, there has been a pioneering edge to some of the new policies currently being rolled-out to help the Welsh economy through these troubled times.

One of the first (and maybe the most crucial) reactions of the Welsh Assembly Government, was to pull all the relevant economic players together, into one room, to address what action was needed. The vehicle for this dialogue, has been a series of top-level, all-Wales economic summits.

Since last October, there have been four such gatherings, involving both Welsh and UK Governments, leaders of some of Wales’s top companies, trade unionists, Wales’s Business Partnership, local government and representatives of the all the key economic sectors in Wales – including construction, manufacturing, retail, tourism and financial services. The most recent summit, took place just last week at the ‘jewel’ in the Welsh economic crown , the massive Airbus factory at Broughton in Flintshire.

The summit series has brought with it a focus and a real, palpable sense of urgency for all parties to understand what action is required. By common consent, the Welsh Assembly Government has not been found wanting in process. ‘Delivery’ has been the watchword and ‘delivery’ is what is now happening.

Interestingly, Opposition parties in the Assembly, have been left floundering and flailing around in the Government’s wake, unsure whether to attack or praise what action is being taken. They have been truly reduced to bystander status, as the pace has quickened and the policies rolled-out.

There has been an holistic strategy behind Government’s approach to saving Welsh jobs, pulling together many vital economic threads, to ensure Wales can get through these global problems, as unscathed as possible.

The summit process is now delivering for Wales on many fronts, with the Welsh Government using every ‘weapon’ in its own armoury, to assist a variety of industry sectors over the next crucial few months.

Some of these ‘weapons’ include:

* Procurement – with the Government maximising opportunities for Welsh companies to benefit through public sector contracts and also pledging to increase its proportion of invoice payments to companies to within 10 days.

* Infrastructure – with the Welsh Government bringing forward £350 million worth of capital schemes for projects, which include affordable housing, rail and road links, school buildings and NHS Wales. The affordable housing element of this, will deliver £42 million over 3 years, providing 300 affordable homes this year alone.

* Business support – with more than £290 million being allocated to fund its Flexible Support for Business programme, providing a more simplified system for business to be able to access Welsh Government assistance. The £35 million Business Innovation Support programme, which offers support to thousands of Welsh companies, who want to turn their innovative ideas into cutting edge products. The new £25 million Enterprise Networks project will help 4,200 businesses and 155 social enterprises over the next seven years, and encourage clusters of SMEs in key sectors to bid collectively for public sector contracts.

* European money – with Wales expected to break all European records in attaining full 100% spend on European Structural Funds against the 95% benchmark expected by the EU.

Another key factor to this distinct Welsh approach, has not been simply to handout financial aid. It is clear that the Assembly Government has one eye constantly fixed on positioning Wales for the post-recession phase.

A prime example of this happened at the end of 2008, when the Welsh Government published its ‘Green Jobs Strategy’. This forward looking – almost audacious – document, spelt out how the Welsh Government intends to shape and drive business opportunities in Wales, as we move towards becoming a low carbon, low waste economy. At a time of recession, this kind of approach is positively bold.

However, the main schemes devised by the Welsh Government, which are now attracting attention outside of Wales, address skills training, or more precisely, the re-training and re-skilling of sections of the Welsh workforce.

The schemes – called ‘ProAct’ and ‘ReAct’ – have now entered our economic lexicon in Wales and both could be coming to a part of the UK near you, very soon.

Gordon Brown praised the Welsh Government’s pioneering efforts in these areas just last week in PMQs, when he said:

“Through the Assembly, Wales has developed a new programme called ProAct to help people to stay in jobs rather than be made unemployed, and a great deal of work is being done by us to look at that scheme and at how it could apply to other parts of the United Kingdom.”

So, what is Wales doing that is making other parts of the UK sit up and take notice?

Well, ProAct is a scheme which provides quality training for employees put on short-time working – offering employers and employees an alternative to redundancy, through retraining on days not being worked. Although only announced at the all-Wales economic summit in December, ProAct is already delivering for Welsh workers thanks to £48 million worth of Assembly Government funding. Added to this, is a £20 million package of measures to encourage recruitment of new apprentices.

ReAct is a £35 million scheme to help 12,000 potentially redundant workers get back into work quickly, by updating their skills and helping and encouraging employers recruit them. The Assembly Government intends to increase the capacity of the ReAct programme by 50% for 2009/10.

The fruits of the success of all this frenetic activity in Wales, are already beginning to be felt in some sectors of our economy. Last week, 100 jobs were saved at a Japanese-owned motor parts maker, Shimizu, in Powys thanks to our ProAct scheme.

However, some elements of the new policies, new investment and re-direction of funding, may not have an instant result. This uniquely Welsh strategy, is not confined to simply damage limitation, right here, right now. The Welsh Assembly Government has that upturn firmly fixed in its sights.

The one certainty and strength of our approach during the current difficulties, is that unlike the Tories’ laissez-faire attitude in the eighties, Welsh Labour will not abandon our communities with no support, no hope and no prospects.

To return to Gandhi’s pearl of wisdom – he was right. Doing nothing is not option.

As a Party, we can be rightly proud that here in Wales, Labour is delivering for the people, using imaginative, innovative and consensual methods. Despite the downturn, we are already building for the future.