Advantage West Midlands praised, but RDAs lose set and match

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With the new government looking to abolish regional development agencies, Advantage West Midlands (AWM) has called for 326 voluntary redundancies, on the day it was told it had been assessed as the best performing Regional Development Agency (RDA) in the UK.

Regional Development Agencies have been some of the biggest drivers for investment in venues and destination marketing in recent years, but the picture is set for radical change.

Even the best performers are not immune: the National Audit Office said AWM had achieved a maximum performance score for the second time in its history. EMDA - its equivalent body in the East Midlands - also got top marks.

The review of all regional development agencies by the Government spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), was commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

This result comes after recent independent evaluations showed the agency’s return on investment had gone up nine per cent in the past year to £8.14 in economic benefits for the region for every £1 invested.

AWM is to be replaced by a number of local enterprise partnerships with significantly smaller budgets and chief executive Mick Laverty held face-to-face meetings with all staff at the agency to tell them that they could apply for voluntary redundancy on standard civil service terms. The deadline for applications is early August, and staff could leave as early as October.

AWM chairman Sir Roy McNulty said his organisation was run “in a very lean and efficient way. Contrary to what some commentators would say about RDAs, Advantage West Midlands is really focused on keeping costs down. This is evidenced by a Treasury review which confirmed RDAs as the most cost-effective of all the public bodies with administration costs of only 7p in every £1”.

“We hope and believe that these findings should inform whatever future structures for economic development finally emerge,” McNulty added.

26 July 10

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