Oh what a tangled web they weave!

6 March 2005
Ms Christine Randall,
Committee Assistant,
Committee of Public Accounts.

Dear Ms Randall,

South West Regional Assembly

I refer to your helpful letter H1372/24/647 of the 16th November 2004. I feel that you would most certainly want to know of an error that it contains.

You say, presumably from advice from the National Audit Office which you mention early in your letter, that the accountable body for the South West Regional Assembly is the South West Regional Assembly Board as an employers association under S122 of the TU and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. However, it has emerged that this is not the case owing to the SWRA Board failing to certificate itself as required under this Act. This position has persisted for at least four years. I expect that the National Audit would want this brought to their attention. I understand that much overdue discussions are now in hand between the Certification Office and the SWRA Board.

Matters are further complicated by the SWRA apparently representing itself to the Certificating Officer as an associated body, the SW Provincial Employers Organisation, which is indeed certificated. In fact the SWPEO has it’s own constitution. Again, the SWRA Board has lately changed its name to the SW Region Board. All this conflicts with the 1992 Act’s insistence that there be no ambiguities in naming of an association.

Since the SWRA has not been operating under S122, the legal status of the staff appointments appears uncertain. You note that if I have any concerns over such matters I should take them up with the SWRA. I cannot believe that it is up to me to sort out such things, and I don’t think the SWRA is a reliable arbiter in them. One has to wonder whether the National Audit is either. The PAC or other appropriate authority may well wish to investigate further this extraordinary state of affairs.

Yours sincerely,



Peter Martin-Kaye