What is Advantage West Midlands?
It was inevitable that the question would eventually be asked. What exactly is Advantage West Midlands anyway?
I'm not going to try and give an answer to that but the BBC's Politics Show is having a go, leaning on the angle that it's an unelected body and too Birmingham centric whilst having control over a huge budget. Which are all valid comments. I guess the real issue is whether or not that's a problem.
There's a campaigning group called West Midlands NO! who are pushing for the abolition of "regional assemblies, regional development agencies, regional observatories and the new city regions" and for control to be given back to elected local councils. They're not based in Birmingham and have a Tory MP and UKIP MEP on board. They're not happy.
I think the big problem is that agencies like AWM don't explain themselves very well. They're full of seemingly empty phrases and jargon which cause normal eyes to glaze over. Things like "Developing a diverse and dynamic business base" which sound good but what does it mean?
Of course, doing a job on this sort of scale is very complicated and, like particle physics, maybe it can't be broken down into layman's terms. Maybe an agency, staffed by people who, while unelected, actually know what they're doing, is rather a good thing.
Or maybe it isn't. Like I say, I'm not going to give an answer. But I reckon as the great West Midlands Economic Strategy kicks into gear you're going to hearing a lot more questions about this.
I'm not going to try and give an answer to that but the BBC's Politics Show is having a go, leaning on the angle that it's an unelected body and too Birmingham centric whilst having control over a huge budget. Which are all valid comments. I guess the real issue is whether or not that's a problem.
There's a campaigning group called West Midlands NO! who are pushing for the abolition of "regional assemblies, regional development agencies, regional observatories and the new city regions" and for control to be given back to elected local councils. They're not based in Birmingham and have a Tory MP and UKIP MEP on board. They're not happy.
I think the big problem is that agencies like AWM don't explain themselves very well. They're full of seemingly empty phrases and jargon which cause normal eyes to glaze over. Things like "Developing a diverse and dynamic business base" which sound good but what does it mean?
Of course, doing a job on this sort of scale is very complicated and, like particle physics, maybe it can't be broken down into layman's terms. Maybe an agency, staffed by people who, while unelected, actually know what they're doing, is rather a good thing.
Or maybe it isn't. Like I say, I'm not going to give an answer. But I reckon as the great West Midlands Economic Strategy kicks into gear you're going to hearing a lot more questions about this.
3 Comments:
Is AWM staffed by experts? Try and find out. The actual "expert" work - consultancy, engineers, etc. - is all done by outside companies at the traditional sky-high consultants rates.
What they are supposed to do can easily be put in laymans terms. AWM are a regional development agency whose job is to bring jobs and investment into the West Midlands.
The problem here is that, being based in Birmingham, you are commenting on a Birmingham-centric organisation. To my knowledge there has been one project funded in the last couple of years in Telford where I live. I don't know of any for the rest of Shropshire. I know of one in Hereford and that shouldn't have been finded in the first place because the DfT had turned it down many times because it wasn't needed. I had email alerts for about 3 different projects AWM are supporting in Birmingham yesterday.
AWM is an unelected body with a budget of £300m and control of millions (maybe even billions) of pounds of assets. We, as members of the public, fund AWM but we don't have a say in where the money goes. If we think AWM is spending the money inappropriately - as West Midlands NO! does on a lot of occassions - we are unable to hold AWM to account. They do not answer to the public and there is no mechanism in place for objections or reviews of funding decisions that members of the public can instigate.
Wonkotsane - try this little test to see if AWM is a Birmingham-centric organisation. I just gave it a go and was surprised by the results. However, having seen your website I suspect that you have absolutely no interest in anything that may influence your view.
Go to www.advantagewm.co.uk. Go to the search engine in the corner and type in 'Shropshire'. See what comes up.
Then, you'll come on here and admit you're wrong, like you did on you site with their budget.
Try using their website instead of Google alerts, I just did and it gave a totally different picture.
I happen to run an AWM funded project for the development of the Media and Music industries in the West Midlands. It's called Digital Central (www.digital-central.co.uk). I'm one of those people who oftens gets a bit of stick for hanging on to an aspect of the public purse but we do try to make a difference to a sector that gets very little investment when compared to transport, manufacturing and ICT. I actually have a handle on the tortuous language that AWM and other public bodies use but that's my job I guess isn't it? I talk the lingo so that the sector I represent gets the dosh. No harm in that is there? AWM is indeed a large and complex quango but I think there are some projects out there (like mine I like to think) that do make some kind of difference and help create jobs and dosh for the region....
Dave Harte
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