Govt shedding £15 billion on regional development agencies
The government is shedding public money on its regional development agency (RDA) scheme, new research has revealed.
An investigation conducted by the Taxpayers’ Alliance shows the economic performance of the areas RDAs work in has failed to improve and in some cases even slowed down, despite spending over £15 billion on the scheme.
“RDAs have failed in their core mission to narrow the gap between the economic performance of England’s regions,” said Ben Farrugia, policy analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
On employment, for instance, growth in jobs and the number of people in work slowed since RDAs were set up in 1999. Between 1995 and 2000 the number of jobs in England increased by 9.5 per cent, while between 2000 and 2005 it increased by three per cent.
But economics correspondent Daniel Barnes, editor of myfinances.co.uk said the findings had to be treated with caution.
“RDAs are massive and unaccountable spending machines, leaking money top, right and centre,” he told politics.co.uk.
“The core problem is the EU divides up Europe into little regional boxes when shelling out cash, and while this fits French regions nicely, the UK has nothing comparable,” he continued.
“RDAs do waste cash, but the Taxpayers’ Alliances’ broad-brush analysis does not show how cash is wasted.
“The figures do add up, but there are all sorts of other factors which could have caused this, not least of all the simple fact of a cyclical economy.”
RDAs are non-departmental public bodies established to promote economic development. All nine RDAs report to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform apart from the London Development Agency (LDA) which reports to the mayor.
