RECORD OF MTSPs SUB-GROUP MEETING – 15 DECEMBER 2005

Present:
	Seamus McAleavey (Chair)	NICVA
	Jim McCusker	NIC/ICTU
	Bob Barbour	Centre for Competitiveness
	Michael Maguire	IoD
	John Gilliland	UFU
	Wilfred Mitchell	FSB
	Graeme Hutchinson	DETI
	Philip Rodgers	DETI
	Richard Johnston	DETI
	Stephen Moore	DETI

1. Seamus McAleavey welcomed Graham Gudgin and Andrew Webb from Regional Forecasts Ltd to the meeting. He explained that this meeting was a follow on from the MTSPs Sub-group meeting on 11 November and had three purposes:

(1) to provide members with more detailed information on how the NI model operates;

(2) to give Regional Forecasts an opportunity to address issues some members raised, at the last meeting of the MTSPs Sub-group; and

(3) to explore in more detail what scenario planning means in practice for the Sub-groups.

2. Seamus invited Graham Gudgin to speak and the latter delivered a PowerPoint presentation that:

- outlined the background to the model;

- explained how the model was intended to contribute to effective policy making;

- detailed progress made during the first year of the project; and

- outlined the proposed programme of work for the second year of the project.

3. In particular, Graham Gudgin explained that the project’s aims are to monitor and forecast the EDF indicators to provide early warnings, undertake research to enhance abilities to anticipate trends in indicators and to work towards assisting EDF set informed targets, by developing an ability to simulate impacts of policy changes.

4. Seamus thanked Graham for his presentation and the opened the meeting up to questions and comments from members. These questions and comments addressed a wide range of topics including:

- data sources;

- the role of the public sector;

- spillover effects of the RoI economy;

- the reasons for falling productivity;

- the importance of graduates in the private sector;

- grants versus venture capital;

- the role of high technology manufacturing;

- the impact of migrant workers; &

- the importance of skills levels.

5. Graham concluded by noting that monitoring data for 2005 would start to become available in early 2006 and that scenario planning work would commence soon thereafter.