According to a story in the Western Mail taken up by Miss Wagstaff blog, buried deep in the massed ranks of jobsworthies in the Department for Economy and Transport of the Wales Assembly Government exists a whistleblower/mole who is bravely telling all about the WAG’s performance – he lists a series of alleged shortcomings, claiming they illustrate how the Department for Economy and Transport is letting Wales down, and which include:

• Recent Ministerial refusal to meaningfully engage with the UK Government on stimulating bank lending to Wales’s businesses in favour of WAG lending of public money direct to business;
• hundreds of millions of pounds of European aid being diverted from the private sector into the continuation of longstanding, re-branded public sector schemes with poor track records;
• the much-trumpeted Single Investment Fund and WAG’s SME (small and medium enterprises) relationship manager support is only reaching a minuscule number of Welsh businesses;
• millions of pounds of funding intended for SMEs not being used and handed back;
• an expensive IT project to develop a customer relationship management system not delivering;
• major problems with the public transport concessionary fares scheme;
• ministers’ decision to reject connecting with the highly praised Business Link and Direct Gov websites, helping millions of individuals and businesses elsewhere in the UK, on the grounds that they are “too English” and would make the millions of pounds invested in WAG’s site look embarrassing;
• expensive staff events continuing at some of Wales’ best hotels regardless of the recession, and
• the department’s staff having the least faith in senior management, according to staff survey results.

The witch hunt  is on. This will make the Christopher Glamorgan story pale into insignificance.  Cambria Politico is willing to give the WAG space for a point by point rebuttal of all the allegations since there is no way that the ‘mole/whistleblower’ can be right -  can he/she??

Surely the Mole cannot be right that Convergence Funding has been diverted into public sector projects?

Surely the Mole cannot be right that millions of pounds allocated to business support through the Single Investment Fund in a recession is not reaching those for whom it is intended?

Surely the Mole cannot be right that relationship managers are not having meaningful relations with businesses?

Surely the Mole cannot be right that EU funds are being handed back unspent?

Surely the Mole cannot be right that a cock up has been made of  expensive IT projects?

We await the publication of WAGs rebuttal with bated breath or rather we won’t be holding our breath. Can the WAG at least come up with a list of businesses that have been supported in a way that wasn’t available before the recession through the usual channels?

This is a matter of public interest. Publication of case studies, success stories  and examples  would allow the WAG to rebut these (probably Tory initiated) allegations. We would be only too happy to post these success stories. No-one wants stories and rumours about the Welsh economy to be mole-driven. These rats must be driven out into the open and exposed for all to see that, in fact, the WAG  and its dedicated staff in the Department for Economy and Transport is doing ahem … a great job.

Hat tip- Miss Wagstaff

Update: Much vaunted ProACT scheme not applicable to businesses like JCB in Wrexham. JCB said it had examined the scheme and had not applied because the wage subsidies are only paid for employees in training. Prof.Dylan-Jones Evans says that training support has been available under other schemes for years. So what is new?