Is Be Birmingham thinktank an expensive talking shop?
Mar 19 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Post
Eight years after the Birmingham City Strategic Partnership was founded, with a remit to corral chief executives from public and private sector organisations into a mega think tank, those who claimed the result would be yet more expenditure of taxpayers’ money by an unaccountable quango are beginning to see their fears come true.
This body, now re-named Be Birmingham, has no executive powers of its own.
It relies in fact on reaching agreement between a colourful list of participants – the city council, learning and skills council, regional development agency, the police and chamber of commerce to name but a few – to get things done. Each of these organisations has its own vast bureaucracy, certainly in the case of public sector partners, so how then can Be Birmingham possibly justify spending £2.5 million a year on administration including hiring 35 well-paid members of staff?
The city council regeneration scrutiny committee has its teeth into this issue, as well it might.
Members are demanding to know whether they have the right to look in detail at Be Birmingham’s accounts. It is a good question, since city strategic partnerships have always operated on the margins of public accountability since being founded by the government in 2001.
Be Birmingham increasingly has its fingers in a number of juicy pies.
It helps to co-ordinate the Sustainable Community Strategy, runs the Local Area Agreement between government and Birmingham City Council and has recently been handed responsibility for administering the £115 million Working Neighbourhoods Fund.
Yet most of its work takes place in the shadows. Who can say with any certainty how decisions are reached? Who, even, can name the board members of Be Birmingham, given that the organisation’s own website does not bother to do so?
Be Birmingham’s chairman, deputy city council leader Paul Tilsley, talks about the need to maintain the organisation’s independence from the local authority – a somewhat strange stance by a Liberal Democrat, it could be argued.
But Coun Tilsley must know that a great deal of cynicism exists about the performance of Be Birmingham, in particular the question of democratic accountability.
The most obvious accusation is that Coun Tilsley chairs a very expensive talking shop, but perhaps that is an unfair allegation.
The council could usefully undertake an in-depth scrutiny investigation into Be Birmingham, drawing out how decisions are taken and by whom.
Assuming, of course, that the council has the powers to do so.
