Introduction and background© Centre for Economics and Business Research Ltd, 20115. With the devolution of public spending to localcommunities and the emergence of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), UKCG wants to be able to demonstrate to these local leveldecision-makers the important economic contribution made by construction to their nationaland regional economies. . Making the case for continued public investment inconstruction is especially important for thosecountries and regions that have seen the biggestdeclines in private sector construction activity as aresult of the recession.. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate thiscontribution to each of the Welsh, Scottish, NorthernIrish and English regional economies. In doing so,we hope to support UKCG with objective andindependent evidence to support the case forcontinued investment in construction, not only at theUK level, but also at the local level.

. Construction output in Wales has declined in realterms by 22% between 2007 and 2010. Thepredicted decline in the direct GVA contribution of the industry to the region is over 18% over thesame period.. The volume of new housing fell by 30% in 2008,and by 23% in 2009. However, new housingincreased by 30% in 2010, driven by 33% and 21%increases in private and public housingrespectively. While Wales is one of the few regionswhere new private housing growth exceeded newpublic housing growth, the start date for a significantvolume of public housing was brought forward to 2009.. The volume of new infrastructure has been growing steadily by 9% - 13% annually between2008 and 2010.. Employment in construction has been growing. In2011, Cebr estimate there to be 65,435 FTE jobs,which is 5% greater than in 2007. Economic contribution to WALES© Centre for Economics 6and Business Research Ltd, 2011Source: ONS, Nomis, Cebr modelling Real GVA and FTE jobs in Wales 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 - 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 GVA constant prices (£m, LHS) Full-Time Equivalents (FTE) ('000s, RHS)