Are you making a difference to the downturn? KEY FIGURES PUT ON SPOT OVER THEIR POLICIES FOR RECESSION WE ASK THE ASSEMBLY...

Byline: By DAVID JONES Business Correspondent

NO-ONE can doubt the level of effort being expended by Welsh Assembly Government ministers in trying to bolster the battered economy of Wales.

Jobs are being stripped out of North Wales by some of the largest and most important employers in the region - Corus and JCB among them - and practically every firm is tightening its belt in order to survive what is predicted to be the worst downturn in 80 odd years.

A number of initiatives aimed at protecting Welsh jobs have emerged from the four all-Wales Economic Summits held so far - and have been put into effect in remarkably quick time.

But how effective have those steps been?

It was a question Business Post put to First Minister Rhodri Morgan as the fourth summit came to a close at the Airbus East Factory site in Flintshire last week.

Mr Morgan conceded there was a need to quantify the success of the various job-preservation initiatives being rolled out - and he revealed that efforts were indeed underway to analyse the "outcomes" of the portfolio of measures.

Some of the initiatives are still in their infancy, and it would be sensible therefore to give them time to yield results before trying to assess just what they are contributing, he said.

One such scheme is ProAct which was announced in December and started at the beginning of January. The scheme, which came out of the debate between business and union leaders and government chiefs at an earlier summit meeting, is backed with pounds 48m of Assembly Government money.

It aims to offer quality training for employees put on short-time working as a result of the recession - as an alternative to redundancy.

The First Minister said ProAct was already making "rapid progress" although it was too early to put a figure on the number of firms that would ultimately become involved.

Other WAG initiatives such as bringing forward capital spend schemes for the refurbishment of hospitals, schools and homes would also aid in the safeguarding of jobs, particularly in the construction industry, he said.

Mr Morgan said he hoped that by April it might be possible to say how many jobs have been protected thanks to the various summit ideas.

Just as importantly, he added, was getting the Welsh economy into shape ready to take advantage for the upturn in the economy - whenever that came - and that involved stepping up the skills agenda.

Airbus runs one of the UK's biggest apprentice schemes - with Deeside College helping with the training programme.

Brian Fleet, Airbus' Broughton wing making factory boss, said initiatives such as ProAct were an excellent way to help boost skills in the workforce.

A communique issued at the close of the fourth Economic Summit gave a resume of other recent developments aimed at helping the Welsh economy keep its head above water.

Those developments included a pounds 35m Business Innovation Support programme to enable businesses to turn their innovative ideas into cutting edge products and a pounds 25m Enterprise Networks project to encourage clusters of SMEs in key sectors to bid collectively for public sector contracts.

Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones said it was vital that the economy should benefit from the resumption of a "proper flow of money" - both to support the day-to-day trading of businesses and to ensure that consumers could access the credit needed to make big ticket purchases.

The conundrum of how to free up the log jam of lending and persuade the banks to get money out to customers once again is something that politicians at all levels are still grappling with.

It was clear that the period from now to Easter was going to be "critical", added Mr Jones.

To sum up, then, the four summits - two of them in North Wales - held so far seem to have made some progress in tackling the very severe problems thrown up by the recession. To be fair, no-one expected the Assembly Government, or anyone else for that matter, to come up with a panacea to all the ills besetting the economy.

It is also clear that people are having difficulty in gauging the effectiveness of the initiatives being rolled out from the summits.

But with methods now seemingly being devised to analyse the "outcomes" of the various schemes, people might in a few months time have a much clearer idea of what is working - and, perhaps, what is not.

[e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

First Minister Rhodri Morgan, Deeside College boss David Jones and Airbus factory boss Brian Fleet (right) celebrate one of N.Wales enduring success stories at the all-Wales Economic Summit, but at places like Corus (inset) and JCB the picture is less rosy; First Minister Rhodri Morgan (right) meets Airbus apprentices