This is beginning to get me angry. Someone from the Welsh Government is obviously briefing the Welsh media that in some sense Wales is doing better economically than is apparent. So I read that the disposable income of Welsh households rose at the fastest rate in the UK in 2010, according to new figures. I note that the ‘new figures’ relate to 2010 before the public sector cuts kicked in ,by the way. Given Wales’s extraordinary reliance on the public sector for its GDP, I would expect those cuts to have a disproportionate effect on Welsh income levels from this point on: to be watched.
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I’ve been busy. I’ve co-written (with a colleague called Sean Macken) a report on the supply and affordability of housing in Sydney. It’s called Homes for All:40 things to do about supply and affordability .
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The headline from the Welsh press tells you everything and does not exaggerate: ’New GDP figures leave Wales trailing Eastern Europe’. Basically, in 2009, West Wales and the Valleys, which is the half of the country receiving EU structural funding, had a GDP per head rating equivalent to just 68.4% of the EU average. Three years ago it was 70.1%. When EU structural funds started coming it was about 74%. This suggests one of two things. Either EU structural funds make you poorer or they prevent things getting worse then they might be. Whichever one you favour, the fact is this. Wales is in a terrible shape and things are going to get worse. I didn’t say ‘before they get better’ as I have no confidence that this will happen.
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The Aussie dollar has hit $1.07 to the Yankee dollar and some are suggesting the ceiling might be still some way off at $1.20 . To put this in a British perspective in 2009 the pound was worth around $2.40 Aussie dollars and is now staring $1.40 in the face. The Aussie dollar is being upgraded due to a number of factors. Partly, it’s because the situation of the US and UK economies is so dire. Partly it’s because of the Aussie resources boom. The simple excellence of Aussie banking regulation before the Credit Crunch has played a role. However, the Aussie has also become a proxy for the Chinese currency which does not itself float on the exchanges. Finally, investing in the Aussie dollar has become a self-fulfilling speculative play where money traders park their cash in dollars because they believe it will carry on going up. With the arrival of that last force – which has all the hallmarks of a bubble – the Aussie dollar has lost contact with Aussie economic fundamentals. And at these stratospheric levels little will remain of the economy outside the resources sector.
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One of my new roles is as strategic advisor to the Committee for Sydney (CFS) which seeks to play a similar role for Sydney that London First has played for London. We have in membership some of the most important and most strategically-minded private and public sector organisations active in the business and public life of the City .Our aim is to identify the key policies or interventions Sydney requires to maintain or improve Sydney’s global city status – and seek to have these policies adopted or interventions implemented by the key decision-makers.
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As a resident of the former and a native of the latter, and passionate about both, I’m wondering how both are doing at the moment. One thing that coming from one and living in the other does for you is give you a sense of perspective. That leads to this immediate judgment: however anxious New South Welshman are currently about the future on average they are well on their way to being twice as wealthy as the average South Walian. Their GDP per head is already 1.60 times that of Old South Wales and on current trends they will be twice as wealthy by 2025. This wasn’t always the case. But then the two have been going in opposite directions since the 1920s.
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I’ve had a busy month working on matters digital in Australia. I’ve just completed a digital strategy for RDA Mid North Coast. We think it’s the first regional digital strategy in Australia. I have attached a link.
I’ve also just completed a report on digital inclusion sponsored by Huawei. It’s partly a record of the Digital Inclusion I chaired in Canberra in late August and partly an action plan for digital inclusion interventions. Have a look at them.
I am now leading the Arup team working on Moreland Council’s digital strategy. That’s in Melbourne and is a first wave test site for the roll out of the National Broadband Network. A really interesting place where more than 50% of the population were born outside Australia.
I’d be interested in your views on the strategy work I’ve been doing. I think the NBN can have substantial impacts, not least on the design and delivery of public services, if the public sector can get its act together. I see a big need role for local government to take a leadership role in developing strategies and taking action to ensure that local communities can exploit the opportunities. Local government can also lead the way by digitising its own services, by involving citizens in online conversations and relationships and by ensuring that there is a significant local effort around digital inclusion. A commitment to open data and open government is a must in this process.
I’m a rubbish consultant by the way, because I give away all my best ideas free here…
There is a review underway into the planning system for Sydney. I wrote a submission for it for the Committee for Sydney whose strategic advisor I am delighted to report I now am. The Committee was formed by a number of the most strategically minded companies, Not for Profits and Councils in Sydney who combine a deep engagement with the City with a passion for seeing it succeed. As Australia’s only global city, it’s vital it does. Planning is pretty central to the fate of cities so the Committee was bound to take a view on planning reform for New South Wales and given the weighty nature of its membership, it’s likely to be an influential view. The punchline? The planning system is broken: do fix it. Don’t tinker.
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South Australia is producing some great stuff on the future of public policy and on how to transform cities. It is providing a model on how a place can punch above its weight in strategic discussions of international significance while also effecting change in its own back yard . Have a look at the work being produced from the ‘Thinkers in Residence’ programme in Adelaide and by the Integrated Design Commission. My former colleague and always friend John McTernan is the current Thinker in Residence ,though as a top level advisor to Blair I thought of him as a contract killer kind of intellectual. He knew where the bodies were buried because he put them there. I’m a big fan and think that the role of violence in bringing about public change is hugely under-estimated. And yes, I’m kidding,more or less.
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Every year at around this time it has become a tradition for the Williams family and the local Community Council in Llantrisant ,Wales, to honour my late father’s musical career through the Ifor Williams Awards . These are like a Valleys version of the X Factor but for young people with actual musical ability.
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