Latest plan for jobs inspired by taskforce

INNOVATION TALK:IN THE summer of 2009, the then taoiseach Brian Cowen established the Innovation Taskforce. It met in plenary session six times, with wide consultation from numerous parties – political (both incumbent and opposition), venture capital firms, indigenous companies, multinationals, agencies and State bodies.

The taskforce also received 138 written submissions. Its final report was concluded in January 2010, and published the following March.

The report had numerous observations and 62 actions, categorised by theme, identifying the government department responsible for implementation, and also sorted by timeline.

In the spring of 2010, the then minister for enterprise, trade and innovation Batt O’Keeffe started the Innovation Taskforce Implementation Group to oversee the delivery of these recommendations. However, following the dissolution of the Dáil in February 2011, the group was stood down.

Nearly two years after the publication of the taskforce report, has there been progress?

Quite a number of the recommendations, particularly the short-term ones, have been put into practice.

For example, Enterprise Ireland has a stronger focus on early-stage companies; the Innovation Fund has been established; there is a more co-ordinated approach to technology licensing by the academic sector; bonus points for Leaving Certificate honours mathematics have been reintroduced for this year; there have been improvements to the tax code as regards innovation, and so on.

Last week, Enda Kenny published the 2012 Action Plan for Jobs, with 270 actions across the economy. The work is impressive, identifying the department responsible and the deadline for each action to be completed. There is also a commitment to publish quarterly progress reports.

Much in the document was clearly inspired by the Innovation Taskforce, including seed, risk and growth financing; deeper integration of multinationals into the economy; cross-sector industry collaboration; management development programmes; an export-led emphasis; reskilling and addressing the shortages of skilled labour in some sections; and leveraging the global diaspora.

It’s explicitly recognised that governments do not create jobs – rather, entrepreneurs do: hence entrepreneurs are the critical core enablers of the economic recovery. It is also recognised that public procurement can foster growth in the SME sector: many SMEs would prefer public sector purchase orders rather than just grant aid from Enterprise Ireland.

So what is missing?

The first might be the role of public service broadcasting in nurturing a culture of entrepreneurship – moving from the antagonistic Dragons' Den-style voyeurism to a more positive, encouraging showcase of successes, discovery and creativity.

Another might be caution that in the national imperative to create jobs and get our nation fully back to work, we do not create low-end jobs which can yet again be very easily moved overseas by the whim of international companies.

There should be a heavy emphasis on upskilling, career development and continuous learning to ensure that our labour force can continue to meet the requirements of high-end and high-value employment.

Another is clarity on the efficiency of the public service, the Croke Park agreement, and the apparent sacrifice of human capital in the public service to protect high salary levels at mid and senior levels.

We should also consider ways to use public procurement as a stimulus for growing start-ups and mid-size companies since procurement seeks to minimise risk whereas innovation, by contrast, is inherently risk-laden.

There are other themes absent such as fostering serial entrepreneurship; building a national one-stop mechanism for technology licensing from publicly funded research; and better secondment for academics and public servants into the enterprise economy.

One of the main recommendations of the taskforce was to put in place a system of metrics that would enable an independent authority, such as the Central Statistics Office, to regularly report on progress.

How many jobs have been created by the innovation economy? Nobody is quite sure.

How many companies are in the innovation sector? Nobody seems certain.

How much wealth is the innovation economy generating for the entire economy? Nobody knows. Are the policy interventions made by Government having a measurable impact on the ground? Nobody has clear data.

While there is certainly anecdotal evidence of progress, the absence of quantitative metrics results in debate and dispute.The Government is to be congratulated on its 2012 action plan for jobs and we await the first quarterly progress update, which will presumably be published next April.

Chris Horn was a member of the Innovation Taskforce