The Blue Print

When the recession first bit in the autumn of 2008, one of the commitments that came out of the first all-Wales economic summit – convened to tackle the recession in a co-ordinate way – was for the Assembly Government and other public sector bodies to work more closely with businesses who had public sector procurement contracts, to not only pay them on time but to increase the amount of business it did with indigenous companies.

Increasing the amount of Welsh businesses tendering and winning public sector contracts is very important to the private sector because £5bn worth of goods and services are procured annually by the public sector; so this wasn’t an inconsequential commitment. It actually wasn’t a new commitment either as a key pledge in the One Wales document published a year earlier stated:

“We will introduce an all-Wales purchasing code of practice to support progressive increase in the amount of public purchasing sourced from Wales.”

So how has the Government fared in delivering this pledge?

In its annual report, which was debated in Plenary last November, the Government stated that it was ‘COA’ or to jargon bust ‘Completed and Ongoing Activity’. For me, this way of measuring a key performance indicator on government progress seemed very odd – how can you have something that has been completed but is ongoing at the same time? There were other such examples, like one of the commitments in the Economic Development section of One Wales which stated:

“Implement a labour market strategy with a long term goal of full employment at the rate of 80%”

Again this commitment was labelled as COA, which as we all know, is a complete nonsense.

Andrew Davies, the Finance Minister at the time said that the levels of Welsh businesses securing public sector procurement contracts was rising and that nearly half of that business was being won by Welsh-based companies. However, the reality as I found is very different.

I have gathered information under a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the levels of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) procurement local authorities and health boards had awarded Welsh businesses in 2008-09. I was amazed by the results. For those health boards that responded, nearly £40m worth of procurement contracts had gone to less than 5% of Welsh businesses; and from the local authorities that responded, nearly £45m of contracts had gone to less than 5% of indigenous companies.

I challenged the Government again today on its record and both the First Minister and the Business Minister admitted there had been problems for Welsh business to properly engage with the public sector and win those ICT contracts. The Business Minister said that she has been exploring recently with the Director of CBI Wales, David Rosser, what the barriers to procurement were and how access could be improved.

She promised me a Government statement; I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

I am sure that the announcement by the First Minister that the Assembly Government favours October as the month for the referendum has nothing to do with the fact that we have a Conservative Secretary of State!

For months the Assembly and UK Government have been silent on the timing of the referendum.  If the previous government had been that interested in resolving the timing then Peter Hain could have advanced this issue at a greater pace instead of acting like an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping (My apologies to Black Adder Goes Forth for misusing this phrase)!

In addition to meetings at the Wales Office it begs the question as to what Peter Hain was actually doing before he left office. Perhaps the new Secretary of State should search for a note left by her predecessor explaining why he couldn’t face responding to the request for the referendum, it seems to be the fashion these days!

Personally I have always favoured October, and in my view the new Secretary of State should do all she can to achieve this. If however it is impossible then St David’s Day is the obvious choice where we still leave 2 months until polling day for the Assembly elections.

This blog has been somewhat light on “postings” – well non existent actually – during the election period as my attention was elsewhere.

Now that the election is over and a new government is taking shape between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats it is worth taking stock at what we have witnessed this week.

Since the new political map of Britain was defined by the electorate on May 6 there was clearly going to be a lot of hard work to construct a government which could command the confidence of the House of Commons. I suppose this was the main sticking point for the Labour Liberal talks where a grand coalition would have required a sort of “Rainbow Plus” arrangement relying on the nationalist parties of Scotland and Wales, the Northern Ireland parties such as the SDLP, together with Lady Sylvia Herman and Caroline Lucas!

It simply wouldn’t have worked.

The attempt to put together a government using the skills and experience in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties demonstrates a political maturity, a willingness to achieve stable government to take the difficult decisions in the national interest. Instead of ploughing on with a minority government David Cameron has played his hand exceptionally well, demonstrating not only his suitability to be our Prime Minister but also why he has the capacity to be a great Prime Minister.

I wish him, and my colleagues who are now occupying government departments, well as they get our country back on track.