Call to watchdog on assembly cash

Mar 4 2005
By Ross Smith, The Journal


Government watchdogs are being called on to investigate the funding of the North-East Assembly.

Anti-assembly campaigner Neil Herron yesterday lodged a complaint against his own local council for paying public money to the unelected body.

His complaint coincided with proposals to divert almost all £880,000 paid by local authorities away from the assembly.

In future, lobbying body the Association of North East Councils will receive £800,000 of the cash when it splits from the assembly later this year. The bulk of the assembly's funding will be made up by Government grants.

However, Mr Herron yesterday delivered his complaint about the present system to Sunderland Council, the district auditor and the Standards Board for England and Wales.
The complaint is in two parts. The first rests on a section of the Local Government Act which gives local authorities power to use money to promote the economic, social or environmental well-being of an entire region. Mr Herron says disputes over the assembly's regional masterplan demonstrate that it does not always do this: counties say housing allocations in the plan would benefit urban areas at their expense.

His second claim is that members of the assembly should declare a financial interest in it when making decisions about whether to continue funding.

He also says the assembly is an "unincorporated association" and has no legal personality of its own, so the individual members are liable for contracts with its 32 staff.

Mr Herron said: "We are talking about considerable sums of hard-earned ratepayers' money being paid to an unelected version of a regional assembly which was overwhelmingly and emphatically rejected by the North-East public in the referendum."

The assembly - 70pc of which is made up of councillors - has continued to function although voters in November rejected an elected chamber by a massive majority.
A spokesman for the assembly said of the complain last night: "It would not be appropriate to comment at this stage."

A Sunderland Council spokesman said: "It is confirmed that a letter of complaint has been received from Mr Herron, in which he has requested a considerable amount of information.
"He will receive a substantive reply in due course."

The proposed change to the funding system was put forward last week by the leader of the Liberal Democrats on the assembly, Chris Foote Wood.

He said: "This should clarify the situation. I now hope we end the nonsense of the two organisations having the same chair and vice-chairs."