£15bn 'wasted' on Labour's quangos
More than £15billion – £600 for every household – has been wasted on business quangos introduced by Labour, says the TaxPayers Alliance.
Local economies fared better on nearly every measure, including employment, in the seven years before 1999 when the Regional Development Agency quangos were set up, according to research.
The RDAs were established in England to boost regeneration but have been an expensive failure, the TaxPayers’ Alliance said.
It branded them “unproductive, wasteful and unaccountable quangos” adding: “They have neither accelerated economic growth in the regions, nor reduced the disparities between them. The public deserves a higher quality of public services, less waste and lower taxes.’’
Scrapping the agencies would free cash to slash small firms’ corporation tax by 4p, it said.
It added that the quangos were riddled with waste and excess, including extravagant’ trips abroad, lavish conferences and “ludicrous’’ taxi expenses.
In 2006-’07, the agencies received £2.3billion from the Government plus £62million from the EU and spent £2.6billion.
But it is alleged that a lack of proper accountability meant they were left to spend taxpayers’ money indiscriminately.
Average pay for an agency chief executive in 2006-’07 was £169,413 while part-time chairmen got £82,000. The top 39 earners employed by the agencies had packages worth £100,000 a year each – despite some lacking business experience.
Overseas trips highlighted included “thousands” of pounds spent sending staff to a developers’ trade fair on the Riviera.
One agency flew 15 people – 10 business class – to a film festival in Dubai at a cost of £20,000.
Another spent £118,000 on a one-day conference and £3.6million on a “BizTV’’ website, while a project for a national centre for aquatic research in Bedford received £2million from the East of England Development Agency – but had yet to have a business plan or planning permission.
Agency expenses claims totalled at least £8million in 2006-’07, including – as the Daily Express revealed in June – more than £50,000 spent two years running by the South East England agency’s three-day-a-week chairman James Braithwaite on car and taxi travel.
There was also a £400 bill for driving one agency chief and a friend to and from the 2005 rugby league cup final in Cardiff.
The agencies are set to win more powers after a review last year, including taking on local authorities’ planning role.
The Business Department hit back: “Between 2002 and 2008, RDA initiatives attracted investment of £8.2billion into deprived areas.
In 2007-’08 alone, RDAs helped create more than 125,000 jobs, provided support to help more than 112,000 people get a job, assisted more than 260,000 businesses to improve their performance and helped nearly 370,000 people boost their skills.”
