The Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK report published today tells us that Wales was ranked at the bottom of a league table of UK competitiveness and came 11th out of 12 UK areas in a UK productivity league table. We also have a lower than average employment rate of 69% against the UK average of 72.7%:
Mark Spilsbury, author of the Investors in People report published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said: “In the current economic climate, it’s more important than ever that businesses are able to get the best out of their people.
“This means challenging and inspiring managers and employees at all levels to achieve their potential: employers have to be ambitious and act now to develop the skills they will need.
“This will improve their productivity and performance, benefiting them, their employees, and the country as a whole.”
An Investors in People spokesman added: “Ambition 2020 warns that the UK is at risk of sliding down international productivity rankings – threatening the country’s competitiveness – unless its skills and employment systems are fundamentally improved.
“Investors in People is urging businesses across Wales to increase their investment in the skills of their people to help keep their organisations on track and remain competitive in future.”
There is a clear role for the Welsh Government in tackling this problem, whose underinvestment in education and training to date must have a role in this poor outcome.
Irrespective of the UK situation, if the Welsh workforce is not geared up to take opportunities when they come along then we will continue to scrape along the bottom of league tables like this.
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Thanks again due to Peter Black AM for highlighting concerns with the Welsh economy) – and sorry if this is posted twice – gremlins my end.
Well, “[A]ccording to Minister Lesley Griffiths, the (science) profession is actually in very good hands in Wales”. (Source: WalesOnline {sic}, March 11 2010).
Of course Lesley Griffiths is talking ‘tosh’; I actually look at the ‘hard numbers’ and have seen a trend that is remains a bad-trend so bad I took time out on a business trip to see Prof. Phil Williams where I showed him hard-stats on the issued patent rate vis-à-vis Welsh Universities. The hard-stats showed that of all the universities in Wales only the Medical School (which merged with Cardiff University) had something approaching a satisfactory number of issued patents. Prof. Phil Williams took note but died a few weeks later in a massage parlor on City Road or somewhere nearby (from memory, as “I wasn’t with him, honest guv”).
The trend remains: academic departments in Wales for the most part remain patent averse. We see this with HUGE scientific figures like Sir Martin Evans. Sir Martin Evans did not patent his principle discoveries and a situation similar to the MABs fiasco developed. MABs (monoclonal antibodies) were invented in the UK, but were never patented in a meaningful way. Companies like Abbott saw the value of the technology and developed a market worth tens of billions of dollars, and could copy the MAB invention because it was not protected by a patent and so did not count as intellectual property in the legal sense of the term. Adding hurt to injury, the US regs on patenting biotech inventions allowed Abbott et al to file patents on specific antibodies created using the MAB technique invented in the UK – Abbott et al built their companies on the backs of what should have been a British patented invention.
Take the “£52m Institute of Life Science (ILS) at Swansea University which is now embarking on a second phase £30m expansion. (Id.)
The ILS houses one of the most advanced supercomputers in the world – how many issued patents do the ILS have in the world’s single largest market for patented goods and services (the 50 states of the USA): ZIPPO. Now take MIT, MIT has over 3,000 issued patents – a MIT scientist recently discovered with the aid of a computer simulation how to recharge rechargeable batteries in seconds (In re cell phone batteries, and minutes In re car batteries). There are patents galore in the works to protect this discovery/invention – hundreds of millions will be made and tens of thousands of jobs created or safeguarded in the private sector – see, e.g., “MITnews”, March 11, 2009), the inventor Gerbrand Ceder already has a track record for filing patents on battery technology so is HIGHLY likely there will be at least one patent on his most recent break-through battery recharging technology).
If it’s not patent protected, it can be copied without fear of patent infringement and (in the USA) treble damages if the infringement is wanton.
There’s a small team a few miles from where I live/work – they have collected a few patents on wireless technology and successfully obtained about half a billion in damages from Blackberry. They are now seeking similar patent damages from several other companies that use their patent protected wireless technology.
Take Sir Martin Evans – “Research by Martin Evans led to the discovery of embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to grow into the different cells that make up the body.” (“The top 10 scientific discoveries …”; Wales News, June 17, 2010.) Did Sir Martin Evans file patents on his original discovery – apparently not, least I can’t find any meaningful patents).
If Welsh inventions/discoveries are not protected by issued patents – then they can be copied without fear of patent infringement. Ask the original inventors of MABs – I read some of their interviews with the author of a book (name escapes me), which was on the reading list or an advanced Biotech IP course at law school (in the USA).
I am one of maybe a handful of lawyers with a JD and PhD combination who grew up on various council estates in Cardiff, Caerphilly and London. I recently contacted Technium to help with the knowledge that I have, but have been told my application is essentially on hold in light of a recent ‘review’ of Technium. The knowledge and expertise that I have is still not being tapped by WAG. It is like Plaid Cymru, whose leader runs the department of economy and transport (run by Plaid Cymru Leader Ieuan Wyn Jones), is not the least bit interested in making a real difference beyond coming out with flowery phrases and idiotic positivism while Wales remains “ranked at the bottom of a league table of UK competitiveness and came 11th out of 12 UK areas in a UK productivity league table. We also have a lower than average employment rate of 69% against the UK average of 72.7%…” (Quote from Peter Black’s article based on today’s Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK report.)
Give it a yr & come back & tell us why the UK is failing due the right wing coalition of the Lib Dems & Tories
This is the comment of an anonymous plaid supporter to a copy that I posted of this article on the Pontytown web site!
[quote="ValleyBoy"]This unsubstantiated link between ‘productivity’ and ‘training’ in Wales is flawed. There is no lack of, or bad training, in Wales in comparison to England or other nations in the UK. The reason for this ‘statistic’, something that has existed for at least half a century, is the issue of ‘brain drain’, where skilled and ambitious employees are inevitably drawn away from Wales in a career path as the better and higher paid jobs exist mainly in London and the South East of England. It has nothing to do with ‘lack of training’ as this LibDem slur against the Welsh would suggest. As someone who has worked in ‘skilled employment in various roles in London and the South East of England in the past, it has never ceased to amaze me the number of ‘Welsh’ people, whether graduates or industrial skills that are to be found in senior positions. This ‘productivity’ is no longer measured as being ‘of Wales’.
More specifically, I consider the ‘Investors in People’ as merely a UK government ‘training wash’ scam, where companies can obtain government money to run internal ‘training’ without formal qualifications, as a method of skilled employee retention. It is most often used to send employees ‘on a course’ and use retainer clauses by adapting contracts of employment. If the UK government were more serious about raising the skills level of the workforce, they would be better placed to pass legislation similar to that existing in other EU countries, where employees have a legal ‘right’ to access formal training such as time for day release to attend college or take formal qualifications. One of the biggest barriers for employees seeking to further their skills is employers reluctant to loose good workers, this disincentive is not tackled by such schemes as ‘Investors In People’ but is tackled by a ‘legal right’ to access formal training with proper qualifications, in works time.[/quote]
Your own assertions as to your own abilities and experiences are, well lets be nice, not worth the screen space you typed them on.
Now your inability to read, comprehend and express an intelligent view on what has been posted suggest that your experience “As someone who has worked in ‘skilled employment in various roles in London and the South East of England in the past” was as a brush handler.
Can I take it that “Plaid to shut all down all night school classes in Wales” is going to be your contribution to the education section of Plaids forthcoming manifesto? Or will you be keeping them open for those who are working a night shift to be able to get to “access formal training with proper qualifications, in works time”?
I suggest you go and put your time to at least gaining a fair view of what is happening, or rather not happening, in Wales with your Plaid team acting as ballast to the rapidly sinking Labour ship.
http://www.freedomcentral.org.uk/tag/economy
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