Wales Productivity Forum Insights Paper informed Senedd budget scrutiny

By Dr Fari Aftab, Wales Productivity Forum Research Associate

In January 2025, the Wales Productivity Forum published an Insights Paper, Wales’ Productivity Challenge: A Focus on the Future, setting out six core recommendations for a credible, long-term productivity strategy for Wales.

In December 2025, the Senedd Finance Committee published Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2026-27. Recommendations 27 to 33 focused specifically on productivity and drew heavily from the Insights Paper and its recommendations, while setting out what the Committee expected in terms of commitment, planning, measurement and delivery.

The Insights Paper’s six core recommendations call for:

• A long-term commitment to improving productivity, with independent guidance and assessment.
• A national productivity growth plan with short, medium and long-term priorities.
• A national conversation on productivity and cross-sector collaboration.
• Business support that includes practical productivity advice, guidance and best practice.
• A deliberate focus on public sector productivity.
• An intergenerational investment approach focused on people and infrastructure.

These recommendations were included in the written evidence submitted to the Draft Budget 2026-27 by the Wales Productivity Forum. The written evidence made the economic argument for prioritising productivity: productivity growth increases real wages, supports tax revenues, and therefore strengthens the resources available for public service delivery. It also argued for clear follow-through on commitments: explicit ministerial responsibility for productivity, clear lines of accountability, and consideration of a Welsh Productivity Commission to provide independent scrutiny and guidance.

On Thursday 20 November 2025, Professor Melanie Jones, Academic Lead of the Wales Productivity Forum, gave oral evidence to the Senedd Finance Committee. She appeared alongside representatives from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses, and the Welsh Retail Consortium. This gave Committee members the opportunity to explore the recommendations from several perspectives.

In the scrutiny report, the Committee noted the six core recommendations in the Welsh Forum’s Insights Paper and recorded that both the Forum and the Federation of Small Businesses referenced these recommendations in their evidence.

The Committee reached a clear conclusion. It found that the recommendations “provide a clear framework” to address Wales’ productivity gap and “should underpin” the Welsh Government’s long-term strategy for improvement. Recommendation 28 formalised this, proposing that the six core recommendations serve as the basis for a future national productivity plan.

Recommendations 27 to 33 translated the Insights Paper agenda into a set of deliverable tasks: first, to embed the six core recommendations into a future plan; and second, to add budget discipline, measurement, targets, evaluation and capability, so the agenda can be governed effectively.

Recommendation 30 set out the case for national productivity targets to encourage and monitor progress.

Recommendation 33 highlighted the need to improve productivity literacy within government and across the private sector to strengthen understanding and drive long-term productivity growth.

The Welsh Government’s response was positive. It accepted in principle the need for a stronger productivity focus, recognised productivity as central to improving living standards and delivering public services more sustainably, and indicated that this agenda already sits within its Economic Mission.

The Government’s acknowledgement is a useful starting point. The response does not, however, set out a distinct new direction. It largely locates productivity within existing policy commitments. The significance of the scrutiny process lies not in securing that recognition alone, but in keeping attention firmly on what comes next. The challenge now is to build clearer strategy, stronger accountability and more visible practical delivery on the foundations that have been laid.