More Welsh Government excuses

Mark Drakeford really doesn't like scrutiny

Let me start by apologising for this newsletter coming a little later than usual. It is also going to be shorter than previous ones.

Yesterday I wrote a very detailed piece looking at what is happening at S4C. Then we had the report into bullying at the broadcaster followed by the terrible news about Sian Doyle’s overdose.

There is more that needs to be reported on this whole affair. However, given the sensitivity around it I will be holding off for a few days. I promise that you will still be getting an analysis but I don’t think it is appropriate at this time.

This is the great thing about the newsletter format for journalism: it can be more thoughtful and considered, so thank you to all the paid subscribers who are helping to fund this.

I have therefore put together a shorter newsletter today to tide you over.

‘Our record speaks for itself - unless we gag it’

As we tune in to watch the man who asked if blowing a hair dryer up their nose would get rid of coronavirus it is easy to forget that the vast, vast majority of decisions relating to Wales’ Covid response were made right here by the Welsh Government. 

The Welsh Government and Mark Drakeford spent huge amounts of time during the pandemic pointing out that “in Wales we do things differently”. They rode this wave to a strong 2021 Senedd election result. 

Now there are some really strong reasons to argue that the Welsh Government’s performance during the pandemic was poor. They include being markedly slower on protecting care homes, keeping lockdowns going longer than necessary and the firebreak lockdown that came too late and for too short a time. It is hard to make a strong case for Wales performing well during Covid except for “well, England was worse”. You can read a comprehensive breakdown of their mistakes here.  

However, we will probably never really know in the level of detail we deserve to what actually happened in Wales because the Welsh Government is still refusing to have a Wales-specific inquiry into their handling of Covid. Unlike the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government is happy to say “what England is doing is enough”. It is funny that the only time the Welsh Government have ever said this is when it comes to their own scrutiny.

What is most frustrating about this is that when there is another pandemic it will again be the Welsh Government who has to manage it. How can they possibly have learnt lessons when the inquiry set up to do just that won’t even be looking in detail at their specific decision-making?

It isn’t just the Welsh Government who aren’t learning lessons - Wales’ plummeting education scores

The latest global league tables show the performance of pupils in Wales has fallen significantly since the last Pisa tests in 2019 and continues to be below the OECD average.

For maths, Wales is down by 21 points, for reading 18 and science 15. For context, the OECD puts 20 points as equivalent to a year's learning and 10 points as half a year

Standards slipped across the whole of the UK but Wales saw the largest drops, meaning we now trail behind 32 other countries in maths, 33 in reading, and 34 in science. We can of course debate whether Pisa is the best way to judge an education system (it doesn’t look very broadly across the curriculum, for example, and perhaps in a future newsletter we can explore other ways of comparing systems). But for now, let’s see how Wales compares to other parts of the UK (it doesn’t look good):

Wales

• Maths: 466 (2022) compared to 487 (2018) -21

• Reading: 466 (2022)compared to 483 (2018) -18

• Science: 473 (2022) compared to 488 (2018) -15

England

• Maths: 492 (2022) compared to 504 (2018) -12

• Reading: 503 (2022) compared to 505 (2018) -2

• Science: 507 (2022) compared to 507 (2018) equal

Scotland

• Maths: 471 (2022) compared to 489 (2018) -18

• Reading: 493 (2022) compared to 504 (2018) -11

• Science: 483 (2022) compared to 490 (2018) -7

UK

• Maths 489: (2022) compared to 504 (2018) - 15

• Reading 494: (2022) compared to 504 (2018) -10

• Science 500: (2022) compared to 505 (2018) -5

So what was to blame for this fall in standards? According to the Welsh Government’s education minister, Jeremy Miles, they were making good progress but the pandemic “has derailed some of this improvement”. Did the pandemic not happen in other parts of the world?

As part of this analysis, however, it’s important to note that the pandemic hit poorer people harder, and Wales does have more people living in poverty than many other parts of the UK. 

Still, at least we can be sure that the Welsh Government will be applying the detailed lessons learned in the area of education during the Welsh-specific inquiry into Covid. Oh, wait…

Why we really need some immigrants (and why we should pay them to come here)

In an ideal world we would be training all our young people to fill all the highly-skilled vacancies we have at present. However, as you can see from the Pisa results, we are not there yet. 

So what is the answer in the meantime? Well, a fascinating report by the Wales Governance Centre has made some suggestions. Without going into too much detail, being an immigrant is pretty pricey. Beyond the cost of physically moving yourself and your family (if the UK Government will let you bring your loved ones) there is also a fee called the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS).

This charge levied at immigrants to the UK was introduced in 2015 and has been increased massively beyond the rate of inflation. It now stands at £1,035 for most applicants and amounts to 0.4% of the Welsh NHS budget in 2022-23 (about £40m).

Given that Wales has an ageing population which has lower levels of education (generally), a bunch of extra immigrants who are on average younger and better educated have the potential to be a real boost. It is a lazy cliché to think of immigrants as not being as qualified but this chart shows that this is a fallacy. 

As immigration is not devolved it is harder for decision-makers in Cardiff Bay to influence this area. However the report suggests that they could be creative and offer to pay the IHS for immigrants who make their home in Wales. An interesting idea which is almost worth doing just to watch some people explode with incandescent rage.

Anyway, I hope you found that insightful. As always please share to help spread the word about this newsletter. Also feel free to send me your feedback. This is after all your newsletter. 

Diolch,

Will