The latest débâcle to appear from the WAG is the scandal of the unspent millions from the Communities First initiative, in which it was revealed that £140m had gone to partnerships, mainly to employ staff and run projects. The WAG was also roundly criticised for a lack of clarity and guidance from the Assembly Government.
The PAC committee stated: “Our conclusions are that, overall, the Communities First programme has not delivered good value for the significant amount of public money spent on it, and that this is largely because of weaknesses in the Welsh Government’s construction and management of the programme.”
Hmmm. Well, there's probably more than a grain of truth there. But without wishing to defend the frequently incompetent WAG it has to be said that giving out money is a fraught process, and asking civil servants to monitor the process and not expect them to spend most of the money on themselves reveals a worrying lack of awareness on the part of the politicos.
It's not that civil servants are dishonest as individuals. It's simply that they work within a self-perpetuating system in which to gain your badge of honour you have to create a bigger administration team than your rivals. What our WAG members fail to realise is that administration is not a means to accomplish something - it's the end result. You are judged by the size of the department in which you work, and thus the incentive to spend more on staff, offices, nice chairs and lots of paper clips is irresistible to the well-trained Mandarin.
But look at it this way: all those little local offices and people mean they have to eat somewhere, so the local chippy is probably doing quite well.
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