Quango will lose £670k in funding

Saturday 25th September 2010, 11:31AM BST.

Quango will lose £670k in funding

An office in Brussels, which costs West Midland taxpayers £670,000-a-year, is to lose its funding and will have to sell its services to keep going.

The West Midlands European Service has already lost four of its eight staff working in the Belgian capital.

Its aim is to attract funding from the European Union for businesses, universities and councils.

An office in Edward Street, Birmingham, and the Brussels office have been merged into one organisation as part of the changes to the West Midlands Leaders’ Board.

The quango brought all 33 council leaders of the West Midlands together but had its funding scrapped by the coalition after the General Election.

Just 16 out of 50 people working for the Leaders’ Board are still based in Edward Street employed by the new organisation called West Midlands Councils.

Six of those work for the European Service.


  1. 1
    Andrew

    Good news. Why spend £670,000 on a body that brings in ten times that amount to one borough? Well done Dave and Gideon!

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  2. 2
    Karen

    Let’s here of more of these Quangos going. The cost to the British taxpayers is excessive, and most don’t provide anything of any use, and cause more issues than they are worth

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  3. 3
    Dan

    Andrew good point!

    This story does not fail to hide the poltical bias of this paper. Basically the format of the story is worded to influence you the reader to think “our” 670k of tax money is been wasted in Brussels.

    No details of how much funding this organization has raised is provided. This thus disables you the reader from making a fair unbiased decsion regarding the issue of this been a waste of money.

    Let us not forget that it was not Quango’s that wasted mine and your money but the arrogance of unregulated bankers.

    Quango’s employ workers just like you and I and most are not as well paid as you might think. Just more unforunate people thrown onto the scrap heap.

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    • Ray

      How quaint.

      Having already been stung for the £118 billion a year it costs to fund Britain’s membership of the European Union (including the costs to British business of complying with the reams and reams of bureaucratic regulations it churns out each year), the British people are also having to stump up the costs of quangoes opening ‘offices’ in Brussels in order to try and beg for a few million quid of it back.

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      • Dan

        Firstly your reply i am afraid is slightly off topic.

        Secondly if this is an avenue you wish to debate would you care to break down how you interpret that £118 billion you mentioned is a) spent and b) on what? Then this can be discussed.

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  4. 4
    BRUCE

    Thank you West Midlands !
    All the more for the IDF – Paris region !
    In the East End of Paris where I am today we will soon be loving the jobs you lost out on ?

    Report abuse



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