Tuesday 4 February 2014

Further evidence that government and investment don't mix...

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Via the fabulous Leeds Citizen blog:

An investment fund set up by local councils to overcome “market failure” in the banking system and help kickstart the region’s economy looks like it’s having difficulties of its own.

And the difficulties are that, a year on from starting the fund:

...while there has been “a degree of interest”, no funding applications have been approved yet.

So the Councils in West Yorkshire who run the fund are trying to recruit expertise from the banking sector to try and make the fund work. The budget is £120,000 - the good investment bankers aren't going to spend time in Leeds for that sort of pittance!

Another 'we can do better than the private sector' scheme. And another failure!

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2 comments:

Frances Coppola said...

I would suggest that the problem is not the fact that it is a local government initiative, but the pitifully small amount of money. £120,000 to "kickstart the local economy"? Please. That wouldn't even kickstart the local pub.

Simon Cooke said...

To be fair the fund is £10m - the £120k is for the bankers they haven't employed yet.