Just got back from Amsterdam today after attending a meeting of ESBA - a pan-European small business representative group. On catching up with my newspaper reading (de rigeur if you are a budding politician!), I saw a letter from the press officer for the TUC in North Wales, who argued that businesses have not been involved in the Objective 1 projects because of a lack of verve and enterprise.
I am very surprised at the anti-business tone of this letter as my experiences of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee concluded in its review of the funding stream that the application process is too slow and bureaucratic and that small businesses do not have much resources to devote to making applications which may actually take so long to be approved that the project is no longer relevant to the business or the region. In contrast, many public sector bodies have dedicated European Officers, funded from taxpayers or ratepayers money, who spend their entire time applying for projects on behalf of their employer.
However, the ultimate proof over the failure to engage with the private sector lies in the impact Objective 1 has had on the local economy. Whilst there are notable exceptions, many of the public sector schemes that have been funded have not been either effective or sustainable, and the growth rate of Objective 1 areas still lags considerably behind the rest of Wales which has received no European funding. In the period 1999-2003, the prosperity of West Wales and the Valleys has grown by 19.9 per cent whilst East wales - which does not qualify for Objective funds - has grown by 25.7 per cent.
Even the Wales TUC can surely see that the success of the next round of Objective 1 funding lies in encouraging and supporting our wealth creators to not only to take part in the programme, but to come up with innovative ideas that could, and should, make a real difference to the prosperity of the Welsh economy.
I am very surprised at the anti-business tone of this letter as my experiences of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee concluded in its review of the funding stream that the application process is too slow and bureaucratic and that small businesses do not have much resources to devote to making applications which may actually take so long to be approved that the project is no longer relevant to the business or the region. In contrast, many public sector bodies have dedicated European Officers, funded from taxpayers or ratepayers money, who spend their entire time applying for projects on behalf of their employer.
However, the ultimate proof over the failure to engage with the private sector lies in the impact Objective 1 has had on the local economy. Whilst there are notable exceptions, many of the public sector schemes that have been funded have not been either effective or sustainable, and the growth rate of Objective 1 areas still lags considerably behind the rest of Wales which has received no European funding. In the period 1999-2003, the prosperity of West Wales and the Valleys has grown by 19.9 per cent whilst East wales - which does not qualify for Objective funds - has grown by 25.7 per cent.
Even the Wales TUC can surely see that the success of the next round of Objective 1 funding lies in encouraging and supporting our wealth creators to not only to take part in the programme, but to come up with innovative ideas that could, and should, make a real difference to the prosperity of the Welsh economy.
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