In one of the first quango appointments of the new Government, Welsh Secretary Ron Davies has announced that Brian Willott will head up the Welsh Development Agency.
Last October former chief executive of the quango Barry Hartop left to head up the Millennium Commission. Since then Labour has been critical of the Conservative’s delay in making a new appointment at a time when major decisions needed to be made on the support structures for the Lucky Goldstar investment.
Willott is currently chief executive of the Exports Credits Guarantee Department, Britain’s official export credit agency. But in his new role as chief executive of the development quango he will be expected to oversee major changes Government changes.
These were highlighted yesterday by Welsh Office Minister Win Griffiths who said anew Welsh Assembly would have the powers to reform the “quango state”.
In a thinly veiled attack on the proliferation of unaccountable semi-public bodies in the principality, the Minister told the Welsh Local Government Association’s annual conference in Cardiff yesterday: “Apart from the ability to make secondary legislation, an Assembly would have the powers to reform the Quango state.”
He added: “Too much power has been centralised in the hands of too few people -many of them unelected – and with too little freedom for local communities to decide their own priorities.”
Griffiths also confirmed that a number of the existing organisations would be merged or wound up. He said there was no place in Wales for competing, ill-focused organisations falling over each other in their attempts to carry out overlapping and unclear functions.
According to a Welsh Office spokesman, the office is looking specifically at overlapping functions at the WDA, the Development Board for Rural Wales and the Land Authority for Wales.
However the Government is understood to be commited to retaining the operational independence of the WDA.
EGi News 02/06/97
