The Taxpayers Alliance has heaped criticism on Regional Development Agencies and singled out AWM for its terrible performance on job creation.
RDA’s have been around for 10 years and received £15.3bn in funding from the taxpayer yet more jobs were created in the 10 years prior to RDA’s taking responsibility for job creation despite it being the raison d’être of an RDA. Advantage West Midlands is singled out because the West Midlands has the worst record for job creation, for vanity projects like BizTV and because 5 AWM employees got a taxpayer-funded salary of over £100k during the 2006/07 financial year.
AWM, naturally, is quick to defend itself claiming that the report is based on out-of-date information. They make the unsubstantiated claim that they have created or safeguarded over 17.600 jobs in the last financial year and provided advice to 12,200 businesses. What they fail to mention is that a lot of those 12,000 businesses didn’t want their advice but were forced to pay for it to be able to get access to flood assistance money.
They also failed to mention that the British government is currently unable to claw back millions of pounds spent by AWM that the EU had agreed to pay as the funding allocated to AWM by the European Regional Development Fund has been suspended because the EU has concerns over accounting controls at AWM.
AWM’s target for job creation for 2007/08 was a minimum of 13,347 and a maximum of 17,653. For the first half of the financial year they had created 6,211 - less than 50% of their minimum target and just over a third of the way to their maximum target.
AWM’s target for business creation for 2007/08 was a minimum of 1,361. For the first half of the financial year they had created 70 - just over 5% of their target.
AWM’s target for supporting businesses to improve their performance was a minimum of 10,333. For the first half of the financial year they had supported 3,626 businesses - a little over 35% of their target.
AWM’s target for reclaiming and/or redeveloping brownfield land was a minimum of 129 hectares. For the first half of the financial year they had reclaimed and/or redeveloped 3 hectares - 2.3% of their target.
In AWM’s rebuttal of the Taxpayers Alliance report, AWM claim to have created or safeguarded 17,600 jobs but in the first half of the year they were underperforming. They claim to have provided “high quality advice” to 12,200 businesses they needed to grow but in the first half of the year they had achieved just over one third of that target. They claim to have reclaimed 150 hectares of brownfield land yet in the first half of the year they had reclaimed only 3 hectares.
How much of the 150 hectares of reclaimed brownfield land is actually in use? Does clearing the site of debris and putting up a “To Let” sign count as reclaiming brownfield land? If AWM’s figures are to be believed, they helped create 1,291 new businesses to meet their target of 1,361 in 6 months yet they only managed 70 in the first 6 months.
The figures just don’t add up.
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I can’t help but notice, in the interest of fairness, that you fail to mention that the organisation actually did hit all it’s end-of-year targets but you refer back to the six-month figures…. perhaps the point about using out of date information is true then? Clearly, as you use Google alerts to keep up to date, a quick search will find this http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2008/07/22/advantage-west-midlands-praised-by-government-for-meeting-its-targets-65233-21387038/
I also wonder that while you keep banging on about democratically elected representing us, you don’t even question why an organisation that claims to represent me (the Taxpayers Conservative Party Alliance) hasn’t been voted for either. I find that a bit strange.
There is already a body set up to represent taxpayers, it’s called Parliament and I vote my MP in every four years, it’s a really good system.
Ho hum. Keep checking the google alerts. I know you don’t like people speaking out against you and pointing out factual errors and this won’t be received well, but if you want to be taken seriously and have more than a handful of people commenting on your ’stories’ (rather than just me pointing out when you seek to mislead people) you need to stop thinking that the public is stupid.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:16 pmThey didn’t hit all their targets they hit all but one. But as I pointed out, the figures don’t add up. They were missing one target by over 97% after 6 months and then suddenly rallied round in the second half. Why isn’t that performance repeated throughout the year?
Who does a better job of representing taxpayers? AWM or the Taxpayers Alliance?
August 10th, 2008 at 9:50 amI don’t know why they rallied in the second half, but do you?
How do you explain your subjective use of information to fit your agenda?
And who does a better job of representing taxpayers? Open for debate, of course, but I tend to look at keyboard warriors with no accountability in a very, very harsh light.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:06 pmSubjective use of information? It was quite clear, I thought, that I was using the half year figures to highlight the improbability of them having hit those targets.
The Taxpayers Alliance don’t have statutory powers and they don’t spend taxpayers money. When they get the power to decide what happens in my town or a taxpayer-funded budget, then I will criticise them.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:06 pmHang on, I’m confused. Are you suggesting what they are saying about the end of year figures is untrue? And if so, why do you unquestioningly accept the half year figures? If this is simply in order to fit your own agenda, then fair enough.
August 17th, 2008 at 11:57 amThe reason I am so interested is that I am currently researching an article about the accuracy of information presented on a cross-section of weblogs when placed under scrutiny. Needless to say, the results are variable and very interesting!
I forgot to ask if you don’t mind: if you do think the information about the performance figures is untrue, what evidence do you have to base this on?
August 17th, 2008 at 1:53 pmPlus, did you check whether the job creation claims made by the Taxdodgers Alliance for BEFORE RDAs existed were true or just accept what they claim and report them as fact?