Someone should take the blame
Copyright 2000 Newcastle Chronicle & Journal Ltd
THE JOURNAL (Newcastle, UK)
June 26, 2000, Monday
Editorial
TODAY'S report by two Oxford academics revealing how deprived regions of the United Kingdom have lost out on vital European funds is deeply worrying.
It seems that a basic blunder more than 20 years ago has cost the North-East dearly.
Indeed, if academics Gavin Cameron and John Muellbauer are right, then we could have missed out on a staggering amount of money - hundreds of millions of pounds over a period of many years.
We can only speculate what effect extra EU grants on that scale could have had.
Thousands of jobs created. Thousands more protected. Perhaps the future of whole industries safeguarded.
You only have to look at the row that developed after the last round of EU funding to know how important this particular cash lifeline is, especially to the poorer regions.
What is worse is that the North-East and the other deprived regions of the United Kingdom missed out because of what appears to be desperately skimpy practice at the Inland Revenue way back in the 1970s.
It appears that, unable to source 12pc of its salary figures, the Revenue rounded it all up neatly and produced a nationwide average.
This may have given them nice, tidy figures, but it had the effect of overestimating figures in poorer areas and underestimating those in richer areas.
For this, we have reaped the whirlwind in the shape of missed grants, hundreds of lost jobs and lost opportunities.
Somebody must be held accountable.
You can email me at Gavin.Cameron@economics.ox.ac.uk
Last updated: 9 November 2003.
