Dylan Jones-Evans, Director of Research and Innovation at the University of Wales and Chairman of the Welsh Conservatives' Economic Commission, has left the following very interesting comment on this blog today:
Having just completed an a analysis of public and private sector employment on Anglesey during the recession, you may be interested to note that during the recession, private sector employment on Ynys Mon went down by 5.7 per cent.
In contrast, public sector employment increased by 2.9 per cent.
Since 2001, there has been a decrease of 2,100 in private sector employment on Anglesey and the proportion of those employed in the private sector has decreased from 74 per cent of those employed on the island to 67 per cent.
Those are the facts. Interpret them how you will.
Anglesey's long-term future can only be secured by having a prosperous and thriving private sector. However, as Dylan Jones-Evans' figures above show, since 2001 the number of private sector jobs on Ynys Mon have reduced by a staggering 2,100 jobs. Thats the equivalent of the entire population of Beaumaris - a huge amount for an Island of this size! We better all hope that Wylfa B becomes a reality...
10 comments:
What Anglesey lamentably lacks, and desperately needs, is a strategic planning vision.....specifically a new Local Development Plan (LDP) to establisjh a positive framework for allocating and delivering employment sites that will be capable of creating the jobs that we, especially our young and unemployed, care so much about.
Anglesey`s LDP is nowhere on the horizon...why ?
Lethargy, delays, continuing infighting and incompetence at IACC again, Officers are all right and comfortable thank you very much, on fat salaries and guaranteed pensions and flexi-time....the public sector !....but there is no leadership or vision in the Planning Department.
There are several officers there who are supposed to be forward planners, ie policy officers...what do they do with their time ???
Word is that they are keen to engage with Arfon planners, to do the job for them ! Disgrace !
There are many sites in Anglesey that could be brought forward for employment development...these are jobs locked up in filing cabinets.
DRUID, and all serious politicians....you can set this up as a key political issue for the future of Anglesey, at this very opportune time ????
BoF
On this topic, what has the fat-cat, expensive Economic Development Department of IACC been doing since 2001.....anything positive ?....where are the returns ??
We have the costly bureaucracies...but never the tangible economic returns from them !
"We had better hope that Wylfa B becomes a reality" ?.
That prospect is way over the distant horizon... Anglesey needs a bird in the hand than two in a far distant bush.
There is enough scope here, assuming planning permission (of course), to create industry on land that is all too readily available.
It is not impossible to regenerate and promote our remote location.... of course we are not too remote from Ireland`s investors and industrialists, although we may accept that their economy is probably worse than ours.
But possibilities are still out there....consider the current WAG application for pp for commercial use on behalf of an Irish company at Parc Cybi Holyhead.
Its possible if our elected MP and AM were strong and proactive enough to lobby and do deals in our capitals.
Remember Cledwyn...Rio Tinto....Wylfa...etc.
Imagination please ?
I agree with all the above comments. Speaking of the Economic Development Department of the IACC, what is their purpose? As per my post on the Three Towns Fund, it seems they simply pass all the development money on to Menter Mon. Do we really need the middlemen?
Their purpose ?
Is supposedly to encourage growth and employment, attract inward investment and regenerate Anglesey`s economy.
Instead its nothing but, as the Druid incisively describes, an expensive and unecessary middleman who, as I argue, has done nothing of particular note for Anglesey since it was created.
I`d readily applaud them if they could demonstrate value for money and some significant achievement, but they haven`t.
They have passed on European Objective 1 money, but so what, they have achieved little in themselves.
Its an expensive high salaried talking shop comprising of staff who know nothing of the demands and pressures of the competitive private sector.
Its often the case that these people are home-grown public sector bureaucrats, on flexi-time.
Those who can DO, those who can`t, work for the COUNCIL ??
BoF
Anglesey should forget 'Energy Island' and become more like the 'A Team', taking on any job too dirty for anyone else. We've made a start with a dodgy power station, paedophiles and prisons....surely there are some borderline-carcinogenic factory processes that are still allowed within the EU, after all jobs are paramount and a short life exepectancy is a bonus in these troubled times.
On a more serious note, I think that the supposed increase in IQ that comes from being bi-lingual should be exploited. That it isn't makes me think it is untrue.
Get a reputation for having a couple of extra IQ points inherent in the population and concentrate on things that require high IQ, like ICT.
Software development is something that can be done as well or better on Anglesey than anywhere else - broadband has made this possible.
They should double ICT lessons at Anglesey schools and encourage high IT literacy at every opportunity. Children should be expected to be writing simple programs by the time they are 10 years old.
I am not thinking of call centres - the accent is too inpenetrable to outsiders.
Unless the theory of a long-term brain drain from Anglesey is true, and the increased IQ is offset by the lesser one to start with?
We have Business Eye; Mentor Mon; Anglesey Economic Development Unit and Grant officer's in HQ. So, can someone please explain why they point potential claimant's in the direction of freelance agent's who prepare the grant applications. Albert Owen said himself that a large portion of Objective 1 has been spent on delivering the grant's. It appears they have made jobs for themselves and have failed to deliver Objective 1.
Anon....my point exactly, made earlier.
Its a self-supporting/self-serving public sector bureaucracy that feeds on itself....there should be evidence available in IACC of -
1. the amount of Ob.1 money granted to Anglesey since its launch,
2. where has it been spent,
3. with what tangible new-employment outcomes,
4. what % was reserved for/by the bureaucracy
The information should be illuminating ?
Bof
Statistics were issued a few year's back showing Anglesey at the bottom of the table when it came to converting Objective 1 funding into jobs. Statistics prove we are not getting value for grant money. You hear of statistics such as, for every pound donated to Charity only 10p goes to the real cause, well the same applies to Grant's on Anglesey.
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