Staff from Birmingham City Council seconded to work for a £90 million local government quango cannot be named because doing so would breach the Data Protection Act, a town hall official has claimed.
Members of a scrutiny committee probing the affairs of Be Birmingham, the city strategic partnership, ran into a brick wall when they demanded more information about 29 council workers transferred to the organisation.
Some councillors have criticised the council-led Be Birmingham for being an over-staffed talking shop, but regeneration scrutiny committee clerk Steve Vickers ruled that identities of the employees would have to remain secret.
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His ruling appeared to fly in the face of the annual council diary, distributed to newspapers and media organisations, which names more than 100 top council officers with job descriptions and telephone numbers.
Be Birmingham, a high-powered amalgamation of executive officers from the council, the police, health trusts, Learning and Skills Council, universities, voluntary sector and Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, has a £92 million budget and is responsible for delivering government priorities on unemployment, poverty and crime.
Staffing and administration costs total £2.3 million and are paid by Birmingham City Council and government grant.
Crucially, the organisation has the task of administering the £39 million Working Neighbourhoods Fund – a three year project to improve living standards in the poorest parts of Birmingham.
Be Birmingham was unable to say exactly how much of the programme has been spent since April 2008, although one committee member insisted only a tiny fraction of available funding had so far been handed over to individual projects across the city.
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Coun Jerry Evans (Lib Dem Springfield) said a £1 million emergency grant to “stop the third sector from collapsing” had been agreed but little else.
Be Birmingham was in danger of having to go to the government in 2011 and ask for more time to spend the money it had been allocated, he claimed.
Committee member Philip Parkin said he couldn’t be sure what Be Birmingham did to justify its existence.
Coun Parkin (Con Sutton Trinity) added: “There is a huge bureaucracy here with people working hard I am sure, but what are they doing that could not be done by people already working for the Be Birmingham partners?”
Be Birmingham chairman Paul Tilsley, who is deputy leader of the city council, admitted he was having talks with Communities Secretary Hazel Blear about the possibility of extending the time period for spending the Working Neighbourhoods Fund.
He said the slower than expected progress could partly be accounted for by a need to take time to select worthwhile projects rather than a “dash for trash”.
Coun Tilsley (Lib Dem Sheldon) expects about half of the £39 million fund to be spent by next April.
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However, he added: “Perhaps we haven’t done the job of portraying what we are about as effectively as we could have done.
“Perhaps we need to spend more on marketing.”