I’m not sure
the comments are all entirely convincing however, although the suggestion that
the organisation “lost its way” after
the LG debacle has a ring of truth to it, as does the other comment about it
becoming less effective when the money ran out.
Perhaps he
thought all of this at the time but was simply reluctant to say so.
Total
abolition, however, seemed to be a bit like throwing the baby out with the
bathwater. The earlier success of the
organisation led to a certain amount of jealousy from other parts of the UK; so
it must have been doing something right for part of the time at least. I never really understood why the choice of a
way forward had to be quite as binary is the way it was presented – either an
arm’s-length quango run by the great and the good appointed by the government,
or full integration into the civil service.
No effort was made to try and keep the successful elements whilst
closing the democratic deficit – a compromise which could have been a better
way forward than drowning the organisation in the civil service culture.
(As an aside, it was interesting to read on the weekend that Plaid are looking to create a new body to fill the gap left by the WDA. I
remember being surprised, and not a little disappointed, a few years ago when Plaid’s
leader in the Assembly announced the party’s full support for merging the WDA
into the civil service. I knew that I wasn’t alone
in that surprise, although it was only several years later that I discovered
that the party’s spokesperson on the economy had, apparently, been equally
surprised.)
Abolition of quango-land
– a system of government where the great and the good are appointed by
mysterious processes to run major aspects of our national life – is something I’ve
long supported. So I have a lot of
sympathy with Carwyn’s position when he says “I do not agree that setting up a quango for your mates is the best way
of dealing with the Welsh economy”.
I do wonder though whether he’s told the other Carwyn Jones about this –
you know: the Carwyn Jones who recently set up new quangos to run Wales’ two “city
regions”?
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