There have been serious concerns raised about the demise of the enterprise agency Entrepreneur Action on this blog and on Valleys Mam's, where a number of clients and service providers have revealed the mess behind the management of the Assembly's flagship high growth programme.
This has finally been picked up by the Western Mail today.
However, the reaction of the Assembly Government beggars belief yet again
“Entrepreneur Action and Entrepreneur High Growth Services are private companies that bid for business support contracts awarded by the former Welsh Development Agency. At this stage of the liquidation proceedings, it would be highly inappropriate for the Assembly Government to respond to anonymous comments allegedly made by a former employee of EA. The priority for the Welsh Assembly Government is to seek to secure alternative service provision and support for the companies registered on both programmes provided by EA and EHGS.”
Now the Assembly is trying to push the blame onto the WDA when it is their civil servants who have been managing the programme for the last three years!
There is now a priority to find out what on earth has gone wrong and not to sweep this under the carpet.
I hope Assembly Members will ask questions of how the flagship business support programme has failed as it will reveal the serious deficiencies in the whole approach to business support in Wales.
Certainly, the Audit Committee may wish to examine the internal processes that have led to this situation and, no doubt, a loss of money to the public purse.
This has finally been picked up by the Western Mail today.
However, the reaction of the Assembly Government beggars belief yet again
“Entrepreneur Action and Entrepreneur High Growth Services are private companies that bid for business support contracts awarded by the former Welsh Development Agency. At this stage of the liquidation proceedings, it would be highly inappropriate for the Assembly Government to respond to anonymous comments allegedly made by a former employee of EA. The priority for the Welsh Assembly Government is to seek to secure alternative service provision and support for the companies registered on both programmes provided by EA and EHGS.”
Now the Assembly is trying to push the blame onto the WDA when it is their civil servants who have been managing the programme for the last three years!
There is now a priority to find out what on earth has gone wrong and not to sweep this under the carpet.
I hope Assembly Members will ask questions of how the flagship business support programme has failed as it will reveal the serious deficiencies in the whole approach to business support in Wales.
Certainly, the Audit Committee may wish to examine the internal processes that have led to this situation and, no doubt, a loss of money to the public purse.
Comments
As for the media i agree they are bad at picking these things up but after today's revelations in the Western Mail where does the story go? I bet our AM's or MP's wont do anything about the welsh media any time soon either.