How much risk should we take?

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I can’t help feeling that the coverage of the decision by former minister Edwina Hart to provide support for Kancoat has focussed largely on the wrong issue.  It is, I suppose, typical of the current state of political debate that it concentrates on the personal rather than on the substance, but the complaints about a potential ‘conflict of interest’ seem to me to be petty at best.  There are many constituencies close together in the valleys of the south; if the fact that a factory in one is within the travel to work distance of residents in another is considered sufficient to generate a conflict of interest for the AM, then it will become difficult for ministers ever to take such decisions.

I thought that the real issue here was, or should have been, about the ability of ministers to pick winners when it comes to supporting businesses – or even whether that is what we really want them to do.  It seems that the minister was advised that the business plan was ‘weak’; well, yes, but is that a reason for not providing support?  In the first place, if the business plan had been strong, the company could probably have obtained the necessary finance commercially without government support; and in the second, the nature of new businesses is that some – actually, a large proportion – will inevitably fail.  And many business plans are closer to being works of fiction than most people might suppose; although maybe a poor ability to produce fiction might suggest that a particular scheme is doomed for other reasons.

If the people starting the businesses, and seeking the finance, don’t know in advance which will succeed and which will fail, then on what basis do we ever expect civil servants, let alone ministers, to be able to make a better judgement?  It’s completely outside the bounds of their experience or knowledge.  Even some of the ‘entrepreneurs’ who are generally praised so highly get it wrong much of the time; some of the most apparently successful entrepreneurs are actually serial failures if one looks at their overall history rather than picking out the occasional outstanding success.

Empirical evidence suggests that a lot of frogs need to be kissed before one of them turns into a prince, and the fact that the money comes from government (and thus from the taxpayer) doesn’t change that.  If we want governments to be involved in the business of supporting businesses, then we have to accept that some of their decisions will, with the benefit of hindsight, turn out to be mistakes; what matters is the overall value for money of the whole portfolio.  The real question should have been about how decisions are taken, and how many failures we should accept as part of the price of taking a risk. 

Politicians seeking to ‘hold the government to account’ should be looking more closely at that aspect than criticising ministers (or ex-ministers) for individual failures.  The problem is that it doesn’t generate the same easy headlines.

Messenger survives shooting

Tweet I spent much of yesterday at two consultative meetings on the reorganisation of Community Health Councils; one in Pembrokeshire and the other in Carmarthenshire.

The Pembrokeshire meeting was by far the better attended; not just in terms of numbers, but also in terms of people from outside the CHC itself, representing the public and a range of other groups. It was also the most fiery – there were times when I began to wonder whether the civil servant sent to explain the Assembly Government's proposals and listen to the views expressed would escape with his life. But, in fairness to him, he was only the messenger.

There is real concern in the county - mirrored in Carmarthenshire, although one has to say rather less forcibly expressed – about what looks like a more centralised and less locally accountable new structure for the CHCs. And it's entirely understandable. Pembrokeshire CHC was right at the heart of the battle against the closure of Withybush Hospital in 2006/2007, and the feeling locally is certainly that a more centralised structure would not stand up for local interests in the same way.

The Health Minister, Edwina Hart, clearly feels that the current structure is not working as she would like it to operate, and will be even less fit for purpose in the new NHS structure with a reduced number of Health Boards and the abolition of the Health Trusts. But what is currently proposed simply won't do in the eyes of local people.

There are alternatives, such as a looser federation which maintains the current county identity but allows the three CHCs in the Dyfed area to come together to express a common view as well. I very much hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the views expressed locally, and change the proposal as a result of the representations received.