The Annual Welsh GVA post

Here we go again the 2011 Welsh GVA figures were published today, the first GVA data on the welsh economy published since 14^th December 2010 and as usual it’s already 12 months out of date. It long overdue that the Welsh Government starts producing more regular figures like the Scottish and Catalan Government’s manage quarterly and six monthly, but rant over for another year.

First the good news, GVA is up 2.2% to 75.2% or £15,696 per head on the 2010 figures, but that where the good news ends despite the jump Wales is still remain bottom of the heap compared to the rest of the UK.  Northern Ireland’s GVA is 79.2% or £16,531 and Scotland’s is 98.6% or £20,571 per head.

There are also regional difference within Wales East Wales average GVA income is £19,309 compared with West Wales and the Valleys of £13,573

The key points from the latest release are:

·         Total headline GVA in Wales in 2011 was £47.3 billion, up 2.2 per cent on 2010, GVA for the UK (excluding extra-regio) rose by 2.3 per cent.

·         Headline GVA per head in Wales in 2011 was £15,696, up 1.9 per cent on 2010, whilst GVA per head for the UK (excluding extra-regio) rose by 1.4 per cent.

·         GVA per head in Wales in 2011 was 75.2 per cent of the UK average, the lowest amongst the devolved countries and English regions but up 0.3 percentage points over the year.

·         The NUTS2 estimates for 2011 show headline GVA per head in East Wales and West Wales and the Valleys at 92.5 per cent and 65.0 per cent of the UK average respectively.

This will be the final release which uses the smoothed headline data. In future the ONS will be leading with unsmoothed data, more information can be found in the ONS release under future work plans.

I suspect the response from the Welsh and UK Government’s to be telling us how good these figures are because of all the ‘good work’ they are doing on the economy as well as taking credit for the welcome fall in unemployment, but the truth is that the changes for good or bad are mostly out of their control.

The full data tables are here including GVA breakdowns for each Local Authority 

Succour for both sides from NHS Shake Up survey

With the political row of changes to NHS Wales unlikely to produce anything more than sound, fury,  recriminations and finger pointing, it’s perhaps more worthwhile seeing what the public had to say on the subject. 

The NHS Confederation Wales published a YouGov survey of people attitudes to the changes to health services last week and both sides can take some comfort.

The survey found that:

65% of people named “lack of funding” as the biggest challenge facing the NHS in Wales, compared with 46% last year.

48% are aware that money is already very tight for the NHS and it needs to make changes to the way health services are organised to make best use of scarce financial resources.

There is growing awareness of the challenges posed by caring for an elderly population (up to 53% from 43% last year), and also an unhealthy population (up to 41% from 34%).

The Welsh public also appear to understand the need to make changes to improve standards of care.  22% named it as one of their top three reasons for why they think Health Boards in Wales are planning to change the way services are delivered.  32% of people were aware that the quality of NHS care varies from place to place and changes are needed to make all services of an equal standard, while 28% of people were aware that the standards of care provided on weekends is not as good as weekdays.

The quality of care was given as the top answer for what people would prioritise when it comes to hospital care.  59% named it as one their three main considerations, while only 14% named travelling distance.

Even though most people (59%) feel that their local hospital should be able to provide every type of health service for their local community, 79% of people said they would be prepared to travel further, for example by an extra hour, to see a specialist, while 45% said they would be prepared to travel further for higher quality care.

Opinion is fairly evenly split on whether establishing specialist centres for certain types of services is a good idea, with 33% of people saying it would make services better, compared to 19% who thought it would make services worse.  24% people said it would make no difference.

The full press release is here