EEDA rapped over £230 million investing in communities scheme

1.35.31pm GMT Fri 10th Nov 2006

The East of England Regional Assembly Executive yesterday demanded changes in the way EEDA's flagship £230 million Investing in Communities (IiC) programme is delivered, following a detailed scrutiny report on its operations over the past three years.

Members heard that

• The implementation of the programme had been sporadic

• The 'sub-regional' programme had been 'problematic'

• EEDA had not given consistent advice

• The capacity of county and sub-regional partnerships to participate in the IiC varied greatly

• There had been doubts about the robustness of the statistics produced in support of the scheme's successes.

The Executive also felt, however, that IiC had been innovative and should generally be supported.

Chris White, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the Regional Assembly said: 'We need to have EEDA's reaction to the recommendations - which we hope will be positive. The Assembly must continue to take a close interest in this scheme over the next twelve months to see that improvements are made.'

He added that there were also issues over the general effectiveness of EEDA, over which the Assembly should take an interest: 'One criticism was the effect of reorganisations within EEDA on the effectiveness of the programme. The Assembly needs to challenge EEDA more robustly as an institution to ensure that it is effective in delivering its work programme as a whole - not just IiC.'

ENDS