REGIONAL REVIEW NEEDED TO STOP BONFIRE OF QUANGOS TURNING INTO BARBEQUE
LIVERPOOL’S plans to break its addiction to quangos is doomed to failure without more help from the Northwest Development Agency.

As Liverpool City Council ends a consultation period on plans to merge the city’s three biggest agencies, DLIB have called upon the NWDA to launch an urgent review of all the organisations currently involved in the city-region.

Of course we welcome the merger of Liverpool Vision, Liverpool Land Development Company and Business Liverpool,It is a step in the right direction. But already the role of Business Liverpool and how it will interact with the Mersey Partnership has caused debate and confusion.

Without a radical, strategic approach such as was carried out in Cumbria, this huge bonfire of quangos we have been promised will become no more than a small barbeque . Instead we have challenged the NWDA to undertake a comprehensive review of all 82 organisations currently involved in the governance of the city.

A piecemeal approach to the problem of Merseyside’s addiction to quangos is unacceptable. The City Council’s actions are welcome, but there is only so much the council alone can achieve. We need a strategic review, similar to that carried out in Cumbria, where the NWDA took the lead role.

We think they have a duty to do likewise in Liverpool. Only they can explore all the possible options objectively, and deliver an unbiased vision for the future structure of Merseyside’s governance, something which is so desperately needed.