Transforming Telford, the unelected and expensive “regeneration” quango set up by Telford & Wrekin Council and a couple of unelected regional quangos, has had its “contract” withdrawn.
The previous Liebour administration at Telford & Wrekin Council was responsible for setting up the quango that costs Telford council taxpayers a million pounds a year. In return for a million pounds of taxpayers money, Transforming Telford has declared itself responsible for creating a handful of jobs and was almost responsible for scuppering the private redevelopment of the Telford Centre.
The excellent residents group, Telford Council Watch, was tipped off that Transforming Telford was being wound up this week. The council voted last night to withdraw their “contract” and repatriate their powers and responsibilities back to the elected council where they belong. Transforming Telford hasn’t been wound up yet – the council only got 2 seats on the board of directors in return for their “investment” and can’t force the decision – but the company was set up for the sole purpose of spending our council tax on regeneration and as they’re no longer required to do so, there’s no reason for the company to continue to exist.
Hopefully most of the staff of Transforming Telford will be transferred to the council rather than being made redundant but as far as I’m concerned – and I’m sure most residents would agree – there is no place for Chief Executive Sarah Raper or the other “top brass” quangocrats in the council.
Technorati Tags: Transforming Telford, Telford
The latest is 6 redundancies.
It’s a shame but we can’t be expected to hand over a million quid a year to Transforming Telford for something the council is supposed to have been doing and was, in fact, still doing alongside Transforming Telford.
The trouble with all these regeneration quangos, as I’ve said many times, is that there is one pot of money and all these quangos dipping it and every new quango take a bit more out of the pot of money to pay for their offices, staff, admin, legal fees, etc. For every quango that’s set up to provide regeneration, the pot of money available for regeneration gets smaller.
The redundancies are regrettable but those 6 jobs were presumably the admin and management jobs required to run a regeneration company that aren’t need if the council is doing the job – jobs that are taking up money that is supposed to be spent on regeneration.
I certainly won’t lament the loss of Transforming Telford and I doubt you’ll find many people that will.
It should never have been set up in the first place. The scenario concerning quangos has been replicated up and down the land. Andrew Eade was on the radio tonight complaining about the money drying up – how much of that is down to Transforming Telford. He and Carter have been sat on the board for the last two years so how much of the cost is down to them?