by Les Broad
business must provide service this neat little get-out must be very useful). Thus there have been no less than eleven people paid from the public purse whose joint contribution to the development of David's business has fallen a very, very long way short of justifying their existence.
A word should be said about the timescales that these people work to, bearing in mind that an LEA business adviser will happily arrange two meetings when one would suffice as this helps him meet his client contact targets. David, in common with others in a similar position, needed action to be taken quickly - a reaction time from these people measured in minutes would have been ideal, hours a realistic compromise. But it was not minutes, nor hours, nor even days.
Weeks of inactivity passed. The timescales were such that the word that should be said is this one - geological.
How, then, should Finance Wales have been structured? Perhaps because the simplest structure is usually best it would be ignored by politicians and those who enact what they perceive to be the will of politicians, who see beauty only in complexity, complexity that they no doubt hope will bamboozle the rest of us. So let us define that simple structure.
First, the WDA should have been slimmed down (a lot) and had its role defined as managing inward investment projects and promoting Wales overseas. It is still a broad remit.
Second, the remaining parts of the WDA and all the LEAs and council economic development departments should have been scrapped, legislation being enacted to stop the counties reintroducing them.
Third, the staff of these scrapped institutions should have been evaluated carefully so that the talented were retained while the empire builders, the clockwatchers and the downright incompetent were consigned to oblivion.
Fourth, Finance Wales itself should have been an institution where anyone, our friend David for instance, dealt with a single person, a case officer with a small portfolio whose task it would have been to focus the efforts of others in the organisation to achieve his client's objectives. In order to do this, Finance Wales would have needed to create a range of aid packages including soft loans on negotiable terms, but not with the level of risk aversion we find in the clearing banks. It should of course have subscribed to the DTi's Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme. It would have needed equity finance packages encompassing what Xenos now provides, plus venture capital funds reaching down to the very lowest level and structured to provide equity finance to unincorporated businesses. A model for such a scheme already exists in the private sector which was rejected out of hand without proper examination when it was offered to Finance Wales.
Fifth is a negative. There should be no grant schemes. These may have a place in certain areas, such as charitable or home improvement grants, but they have no place in economic development. When a grant is given the money is gone for ever, whereas if an equivalent amount is invested by way of equity finance in an applicant business it should be recovered, with a worthwhile profit, to be recycled into more small businesses.
Sixth, the staff should have been trusted enough for management to have faith in their ability to make decisions, in particular decisions involving quite high degrees of perceived risk. At the moment rule books govern everything and those rule books should have been thrown out so that those in the business support network with talent could use their discretion instead of only their ability to read rules.
Seventh, given that Finance Wales would offer a range of equity finance packages at all levels from microbusinesses upwards, the fact would have had to be faced that it is one thing putting money in to a business, and quite another getting it out. An exit route needs to be planned for at the same time as the input. To this end, there is no reason why, given the political will, Finance Wales could not have been a market maker, operating a mini stock market for Welsh businesses through which stakes in large, medium and small businesses in the Principality could be bought and sold. Properly structured and marketed, it would have been a major benefit to growing Welsh businesses.
Eighth, each of our counties has certain financial obligations to meet annually, one of which is insurance which can be used as an example of what might be achieved. Denbighshire, for instance, spends a considerable sum on economic development of the county every year but fails to practice what it preaches - it places all its insurance through a Manchester-based insurance broker. In the unlikely event of there not being a broker in Denbighshire, or come to that Wales, capable of handling Denbighshire's account it is surely not beyond the bounds of possibility for economic assistance to be given to a Welsh brokerage to headhunt the necessary staff. Finance Wales could, however, have gone a stage further. It could have passed all the insurance requirements of all the counties in Wales (and those of the National Assembly) through an offshore captive insurance company through which the reinsurance market could be accessed. A simple feasibility study would demonstrate the cost savings of doing this and Finance Wales would be the obvious vehicle.
But so many opportunities have been lost. We still have a confusing business support system. We are still giving money away in grants instead of investing in businesses. We don't have an exit route for private investors in unquoted Welsh businesses. We don't have equity investment schemes that are nearly far-reaching enough. We are throwing money away in duplication of effort, much of which is counter-productive. We can rationalise costs across Wales, insurance being one example, but have not done so.
Instead of adding tiers to an already complex bureaucracy we should be simplifying but we are not. We spend six figure sums on promoting the Welsh language in South America when people in Wales are desperate for funds to start businesses. The National Assembly spends six figure sums on job advertisements in newspapers, aided by employment agencies not even based in Wales. The country will not stand on its own feet while we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot - when will those pontificating in the Assembly's debating chamber realise this?
(Written 12 November 2001 – things have changed since, but not for the better.)
THE WELSH ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2003
A PERSONAL VIEW OF THE RESULTS
(I stress that this is a personal view that I put forward simply to state a case and it is written with only newspapers and TV news broadcasts as sources of information.)
Now that the dust has had a month or so to settle after the Assembly (I simply cannot
find it within myself to call it the Welsh Assembly Government – it sounds too ludicrous) elections some quiet reflections might be appropriate. Firstly, I think I disagree with a comment made by Peter Hain on election night: the low turnout may mirror the situation in other parts of the UK and further afield, as he says, but it is – or certainly should be – a cause for concern here in Wales where we were voting people into an institution created after a referendum in which only one person in three out of the Welsh electorate indicated their desire for its existence. The dismal turnout of 37.7%, according to the figures published in the Daily Post newspaper and using an estimate of the size of the electorate in Blaenau Gwent which wasn’t included in those figures, is the clearest possible indication that the Assembly has achieved, or is perceived to have achieved, nothing. Indeed, the principal memories of its first term will be of much unseemly wrangling over its desire to spend huge sums on an unnecessary new building and an endless succession of advertisements for well paid and largely Cardiff-based jobs. I doubt if those jobs would have been created had the Principality still been under the aegis of the Welsh Office; I have even more doubt about whether their impact would have been much missed.
Second, and of more immediate relevance, is that the Labour Party have 30 out of 60 seats and (with a neat piece of sleight of hand in the matter of the appointment of a Presiding Officer and his Deputy) a working majority despite having secured only 14.8% of the available votes, representing much less than half of the votes actually cast. If this is democracy in action it seems to fall a little short of the ideal. Although I, personally, am some way removed from being a supporter of t
he Labour Party I have a great deal of respect for Rhodri Morgan as an individual, but he would do well to remember, when he pontificates at home or on the travels in which he will inevitably indulge at our expense, that he speaks for less than 15% of the Welsh population. Perhaps an acknowledgement of this fact would have been in order instead of the rather dictatorial offerings in the hours following the results; “we’ve won the election and can do what we like with the country” is not what most people want to hear. Our current Prime Minister Blair is trying it on from No. 10 and will end up falling flat on his face; Rhodri Morgan is twice the man that Blair could ever hope to be and has at least some acquaintance with truth and realism so his failure to admit the real position is a little disappointing.
Presumptuous though it may be, perhaps a mere voter can offer a few words of advice, with which I freely concede others may disagree, to those returning to the ivory tower in Cardiff, those going there for the first time and the comfortably remunerated droves of staff who do whatever it is that they do to justify their salaries. I offer the following few simple points.
(1) Businesses create wealth, politicians and