Better off without quangos says TaxPayers’ Alliance

Jul 4 2010 by William Green, Sunday Sun

THE thorny issue of Government cuts has divided opinion. Some commentators believe we must keep investing to stimulate the economy, while the TaxPayers’ Alliance believes we must curb the excesses caused by Labour. Here MARK WALLACE, campaigns director for the group, explains why he thinks Regional Development Agencies may have had their chips.

SINCE the Coalition Government announced the scrapping of the Regional Development Agencies, many have predicted doom and gloom for the region.

Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods said “this decision will set this region’s economy back a decade” and added that she feared the North East would lose the resources needed to support private industry.

Apparently, Ms Blackman-Woods thinks One North East has been an unparalleled success. But the reality is very different.

When you look at the economic facts, the Regional Development Agencies have failed to make much impact at all.

Their key mission was to close the income gap between the regions, particularly between the North East and the South East.

But in the last decade that gap has actually got wider, not narrower.

Sure, the North East - like the whole country - has got a bit better off, though much of the improvement was wiped out in the recession.

But it is almost impossible to pin down solid evidence of value added to the region by One North East.

Sometimes it seems as if the only workers who’ve gained anything from this quango are its own executives, who enjoy six-figure salaries that most could only dream of.

For a body that has spent billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, they should have concrete achievements to show for it.