Why the Net has the advantage in the ‘Undies world’
- Shopping blogger Emma Iannarilli
All aboard the gravy train
Wednesday 30th December 2009, 11:30AM GMT.
A quango set up to bring investment into the West Midlands has spent £75,000 of taxpayers’ money letting its staff fly business class, it was revealed today.
Advantage West Midlands also spent £31,000 on first class rail travel but claimed today the costs were justified so that staff can “arrive fresh” for meetings.
Figures obtained by the Express & Star reveal that AWM spent a total of £352,000 on travel and hotel costs for its staff between 2006 and 2009.
As well as the cost of business class flights, more than £31,000 was spent on first class train travel.
A further £60,172.77 was spent between 2007 and 2009 on economy class flights and £135,123.95 on standard class rail.
It spent £3,909.22 on taxis between 2006 and 2009 and spent £11,225.37 hiring cars. And hotel accommodation cost £111,053.68 between April 2006 and April 2009. The expense was today criticised as “astronomical” by lobby group the Taxpayers’ Alliance.
Alliance member Fiona McEvoy said: “These figures are all the more astonishing as we’re still in a recession.
“It really says a lot about the spendthrift attitude of these public sector executives that they’ll brazenly fly business class and stay in the best hotels without a thought for the taxpayer.”
But AWM spokesman Will Harpur today defended the luxury travel, saying: “Board members and staff travel on business to promote the region and attract foreign investment.
“Business class flights are only permitted on long haul flights outside Europe, in order to help the traveller to arrive as fresh and fit as possible for work and to allow them to work effectively during long journeys.
“First class rail travel is permitted where necessary, again in order to allow travellers to work effectively during journeys.”
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Shut. It. Down. We don’t need advantage west midlands. Close it.
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The former West Midlands Metropolitan County Council caused massive decay and dereliction. (On another thread people bemoan the state of Wolverhampton. That state is entirely due to the antics of the former Brum based and Brum orientated setup). WMMCC was abolished. It lingers on bureaucratically in the form of Advantage West Midlands.. contuining to cause the damage that any Brum dominated entity will inevitably cause to the region.
“Regional” government is neither appropriate nor cost effective. I agree with Superwolf. Shut it down. Regional Government is why traditional routes are no longer signposted etc… Only one place seems worthy of a signpost and no-one really wants to go there.
The hidden effect of AWM is that Brum continues to collect money intended for the regions as a whole by pretending it is the capital of a region. It is not. It spends its money on itself. It will spend any other money it obtains ON ITSELF!
Meanwhile is it not time, now, to de-recognise the so called West Midlands and revert to identifying the Staffordshire towns and City as such? I understand the Post Office recommended this some years ago. There is actually no such place as a West Midlands County.
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Figures obtained by the Express & Star reveal that AWM spent a total of £352,000 on travel and hotel costs for its staff between 2006 and 2009.
That’s a pittance!!!!
Recent headline “Work begins on gateway island”
Work on the £450K transformation of the gateway Birchley Island in Oldbury is well underway.
It then goes onto detail how “Officers from the councils communities unit, highways and grounds maintenance departments have joined cabinet member for neighbourhoods and housing Cllr Mahboob Hussain to drive forward £459.000 worth of council – funded improvements”
NOOOOOOOOO the council doesn’t have any money of it own; it’s our money that they are wasting on that traffic island!!!!! And what did it end up with???? A load of boulders and a few plants that has cost us £450.000!!!!!!
Cllr Mahboob Hussain, you could cover the traffic island in gold leaf and it would still be a traffic island, how can you possibly justify spending £450.000 of our money on a traffic island????? Grass it over it’s a traffic island for god’s sake.
This is just another example of the utter contempt Councillors have for us the Council taxpayer!!!!! Not content with wasting £72 million on “the Public” they now continue to load the taxpayer with even more debt.
I don’t buy anything on credit, I don’t have debts, if I cant afford to pay for it I don’t buy it, but here we have another example of Councillors forcing us the electorate into debts that we wouldn’t have in our own homes, Cllr Mahboob Hussain just who is Sandwell council purporting to represent?????
Jim Gull, Bearwood.
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So EXACTLY how much investment have the brought to the area?
Let’s see the figures!
How about E&S request them under FOI!
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AWM spokesman, Will Harpur states “Board members and staff travel on business to promote the region and attract foreign investment” then its easy give the public the breakdown of all this foreign investment we have received, then you can justify this expenditure.
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Another waste of money, full of people who swan around and do absolutely nothing for the region. Shut the quango down, and all the others. Can the E&S please start investigating more, the readers would like more indepth investigations into where the money is being wasted.
Undercover ops would be good!!!
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A.W.M= ANOTHER WASTE of MONEY
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Disadvantage West Midlands more like.
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All council authorities should issue accounts like MPs. So much of tax payers money is wasted on yearly basis. Wouldn’t it be nice if our council tax was cut for a change? End of financial years see councils and council funded services wasting money from budgets so money is not lost for the following years. Its about time tax payer became savvy about what our council £’s actually pay for each year!
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