Birmingham Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Birmingham City Council were criticised yesterday for arranging a seminar for local businesses on how to move their business away from the West Midlands.

The President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, ironically, has a seat on the board of Advantage West Midlands, the unelected regional development agency whose job it is to attract jobs and investment into the West Midlands.  No wonder they’re on track to miss four out of their six targets from the British government!

The seminar has been arranged by Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and is being supported by Birmingham City Council and will offer advice and assistance on offshoring all or part of their business.

Of course, if the board of Advantage West Midlands was elected rather than appointed from a pool of eurofederalist yes-men, we would be able to boot the President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce out of office through the ballot box.  But it’s not elected and the electorate is only allowed to pay for Advantage West Midlands, not have a say in how it’s run.

If a local councillor started offering practical assistance to local businesses to move to another town they would most likely find themselves out of a job come the next election but in the unelected regional quangos, incompetence is rewarded.  Take Phil Davies as an example – he used to be the Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, was sacked by his own party for incompetence and has gone on to secure several high-profile, taxpayer-funded jobs with regional quangos.  The reason?  He’s a member of the Labour Party, he’s a eurofederalist, he supports the balkanisation of England into euroregions and – most importantly – he does as he’s told.

Call me old fashioned, but I think that if you’ve got a job to do then you do it and if you don’t then you should be out of a job – doubly so if your job is in the public sector and funded by the taxpayer.  The President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, John Crabtree OBE, has failed in his position as a director of Advantage West Midlands by allowing his Chamber to arrange a seminar to encourage local businesses to relocate abroad.  He should be removed from the board immediately and a free and fair election held so that the electorate can decide who is going to have a say in spending Advantage West Midlands’ £300m taxpayer-funded budget.

Technorati Tags: AWM, Birmingham, Offshoring

Advantage West Midlands, the unelected Regional Devleopment Agency, has some targets set by what is now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

The half-year results for April-September 2007 have now been published and on balance it’s looking … well, a bit poor really.

The first target is job creation – how many jobs have AWM created?  Their target is to create a minimum of 13,347 jobs and a maximum of 17,653.  So far they reckon they’ve managed 6,211 which is over 900 short if they continue at the current rate.

That’s 0 out of 1 so far, not a good start.

The second target is assisting people into employment – how many people have AWM helped to get a job?  Their target is to help a minimum of 4,306 people get a job and a maximum of 5,695.  They reckon they’ve helped 3,856 so far this year which is well above the maximum target (is it a good thing to exceed a maximum target?).

That’s 1 out of 2 (assuming it’s ok to exceed a maximum target), getting better.

The third target is business creation – how many businesses have AWM helped to create that have shown growth and are stil in business 12 months on?  Presumably this is last years start-ups because these are half year figures, or perhaps it’s an estimate … who knows?  It’s not really relevant anyway because their minimum target is 1,361, their maximum target is 1,799 and they’ve managed 70 (no, I didn’t miss a zero off the end).

1 out of 3 … not good.

Target number four is business support – how many businesses did AWM help to improve their performance?  They have a minimum target of 10,333 and a maximum target of 13,667.  They have achieved 3,626 so far which leaves them almost 3,100 short of their minimum target at the current rate.

Oh dear, only 1 out of 4 so far.

Their fifth target is split into two – how much public and private infrastructure investment has been used and how much brownfield land has been redeveloped.  They have minimum and maximum targets of £172m & £228m for the former and 129 & 171 hectares for the latter.  They have so far levered £52m of investment which is £68m short of their minimum target if they continue at the current rate and they have redeveloped 3 hectares of brownfield land which is 123 hectares (or over 95%) short of their minimum target if they continue at the current rate.

A rather disappointing 1 out of 5 targets hit.

Target number six is the number of people that AWM helped to develop skills.  They have a minimum target of 18,083 and a maximum of 23,917.  They have managed 9,313 so far which is 543 over their minimum target if they continue at the current rate.

So that’s 2 out of 6 targets they’ve been set by the British government that they’re on target to hit.  At the current rate they will scrape through one minimum target and exceed one maximum target which, as previously mentioned, we can only assume is a good thing.

Remember, this is the Regional Development Agency that has a taxpayer-funded annual budget of £300m but which, it claims, controls over £1bn of public money in the West Midlands.  Also remember that this is the Regional Development Agency that is to take over most of the West Midlands Regional Assembly’s powers, responsibilites and budget by 2010 when it is finally abolished.

Technorati Tags: AWM, WMRA, Incompetence