Time running out for Welsh jobs

Feb 28 2008 by Tomos Livingstone, Western Mail

SENIOR MPs are urging Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy to put last-minute pressure on the Treasury to save hundreds of well-paid jobs in Wales’ poorest areas.

The Government wants to cut more than 700 Welsh posts in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as part of an efficiency drive, and is due to announce the final totals in some areas – including Cardiff and Swansea – tomorrow.

There are also job cuts planned at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) offices. But many of the threatened jobs are in the Objective One areas of West Wales and the South Wales Valleys, where £1.4bn of EU cash is being spent to attract new employment.

This has prompted claims of a lack of joined-up thinking. The Wales Office has suggested “co-location”, the practice of moving the jobs to offices used by other government departments rather than cutting them altogether, as a compromise option.

The plans have caused consternation across the political spectrum. Nick Ainger, the Labour MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire and a former minister, said yesterday, “I do think the Treasury need further pressure to consider co-location and joined-up government.

“They could share with other departments... the NHS or even the private sector, so we can secure these very important jobs.”

Other Labour MPs representing Objective One areas, including Llanelli’s Nia Griffith, have also raised concerns about the possible job cuts. Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru’s parliamentary leader, said, “Twenty-eight of the 33 DWP offices to close in Wales are within the Objective One area, as are 550 of the 750 jobs to disappear from the HMRC sector.

“More must be done, not tinkering with buildings, but acting to secure those jobs.”

Stephen Crabb, the Conservative MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire, said it was “unacceptable” that 60 people working for HMRC in Haverfordwest had been waiting 18 months to learn whether their jobs would be cut.

Mr Murphy’s deputy, Huw Irranca-Davies, told MPs, “Wales Office Ministers have suggested options – co-location, for example – in meetings and in correspondence with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and others. We have also raised the matter with the First Minister.

“WAG officials have discussed the option of co-locating offices with HMRC officials, but opportunities for co-location are limited, because HMRC is focused on achieving cost savings and is not taking on new premises.

“However, co-location may well be a possibility where a building housing an inquiry centre is given up and an alternative building has to be found nearby.”

He said Wales had gained 2,700 extra jobs as a result of the Government’s programme to relocate civil servants from Whitehall.

Meanwhile local authorities in Wales say they are “frustrated” at the slow start made to the latest programme of EU funding.

West Wales and the Valleys have qualified for £1.4bn of EU funds between 2007 and 2013, likely to be the last large-scale investment from Brussels as attention shifts to poorer, newer members states in Eastern Europe. Each pound needs to be matched by investment from the Assembly Government, local authorities or the private sector but the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) says the programme has “got off to a very slow start”.

The Objective One programme that ran from 2000-07 was bedeviled by arguments that the money was not reaching the areas where it was most needed.

Chris Holley, the leader of Swansea Council who speaks for the WLGA on European Affairs, said, “This will be the last time we can expect to receive such high levels of funding from Europe and it is extremely important Wales gets to see the maximum benefit of it.

“We are concerned at delays in the programme’s delivery and implementation and the overall lack of progress. Latest advice from the Welsh European Funding Office suggests that it will potentially take between six and nine months for some projects to be approved and there remains real confusion about how some of these new programmes will even work.

“There is need for better communication, transparency, proper engagement and collaboration with all key partners including the Welsh Assembly Government when developing project ideas.”