Welsh economy is expendable, apparently

The gobsmacking news tonight is that at least 250 jobs are to be axed in a shake-up of the Assembly’s department of Economy & Transport in Wales. This represents a 25% cut in the workforce of an arm of government that is supposed to deliver its Economic Renewal Programme.

The Beeb quotes sources as saying that reductions will be mainly by early retirement, voluntary redundancy and departmental transfers.

Reaction from the Welsh CBI, who allegedly had advance notice of the announcement, is fairly sanguine about the whole thing. Unlike Dylan Jones Evans who has consistently challenged the flimsy rationale underpinning ERP, the view from the decidedly cheap seats is that decapitation is an inevitable outcome of an ongoing supply-side downsizing action vis-a-vis golden eggs.

And after all, everyone knows that IWJ doesn’t really do ‘economy’. He was more than happy to shunt off the responsibility to Leighton Andrews – and now Jocelyn Davies – in order to concentrate more of his time on trains, planes and whatever.

But while First Minister Carwyn is out and about chewing things over with the proles, between soundbites, a few opponents on either side of the chamber are already asking why the DE&T and why now? Some are even pondering whether the recent expositions in committee by Andrew Davies about civil service intransigence actually had a degree of official sanction.

Others look on askance and point to far more superfluous limbs on the money tree that could be lopped off with little noticeable effect. One such candidate is arguably the National Leadership & Innovation Agency for Healthcare (NLIAH) whose annual ‘core’ budget of £10.4 million goes towards “developing and providing programmes and support to the NHS in Wales, together with NLIAH’s staff and running costs”.  Yet no-one seems able to say how what this body is better placed in performing this role than the Wales Centre for Health or Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) or the Health of Wales Information Service (HOWIS) or even Public Health Wales.

To date, the WAG spin-corps has just about managed to sell ERP as something approximating the Big Society with bells on but that situation will only last for so long. Given a bit of time, even the compliant Welsh media will start to question how the One Wales government can tackle the rising level of unemployment in Wales when they plan on adding to the total. But by then it will probably be too late.