Hefin Thomas

Hefin is a Senior Consultant at Arad Consulting and has managed a number of research and evaluation projects over the last five years. His economics background and consultancy experience enable him to lead and contribute to qualitative and quantitative aspects of projects including labour market studies, economic assessments, impact studies and policy development. Hefin is currently jointly managing a three year project on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government, developing a model to demonstrate the impact of two flagship policies - Extending Entitlement and 14-19 Learning Pathways. This involves developing and piloting a suite of performance indicators and soft skills assessment tools in a number of settings across Wales.

Hefin also recently managed a two year evaluation of an R&D knowledge transfer initiative in North Wales and has also recently led quantitative research on impact studies for Npower and the Arts Council of Wales. He has also led economic growth driver analysis on behalf of the South East England Development Agency and the Eastbourne / Hailsham partnership as well as undertaking quantitative analysis exploring the impact of Universities as knowledge drivers in peripheral regions of the EU. Clients include national government, regional development agencies, local authorities, private companies and the European Commission.

Hefin recently led a study contributing to a three year plan of customer research for the Welsh Assembly Government – the 2007-10 Customer Research Programme. This study consulted a wide range of stakeholders across various government departments and external organisations to establish current gaps in intelligence and research priorities in terms of education and skills. An LSE graduate, Hefin is a fluent Welsh speaker and is able to undertake all aspects of his work bilingually.