Around the middle of 2010 the Welsh Management launched its Genesis Cymru Wales 2 programme. Yet another ‘back to work’ scheme, this one aimed at female single parents, NEETS and others; the programme partly funded by the European Social Fund and administered by local authorities. Here’s a link to the scheme in Pembrokeshire. Reading the blurb brings on an attack of deja vu because I’ve read it so many times before: the usual mix of pious hopes, unattainable objectives and Third Sector jargon designed solely to justify wasting spending EU funding.

Genesis never delivered what it promised and so it was no surprise when, in January, it was announced that the scheme was closing early after failing to meet its targets. This brought on a Freedom of Information request  in which I asked:

• How many groups, bodies, schemes etc in Wales are being funded by the Welsh Government or other bodies to ‘help people back into employment’?

• How many people are employed by these organisations?

• How many of these running and employed by ‘back to work’ agencies are Labour Party members?

The reply may be found below (click to enlarge). In the 2007 – 2013 Programme the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) funded no less than 30 schemes across Wales. Genesis was targeting: “females”, “lone parents (male and female)”, “individuals who find it difficult to find or access work due to health problems”, “16 – 18 olds who are not studying, training or working”, “individuals over the age of 50”, and “black and ethnic minority groups”. Fairly comprehensive – so who were the other 29 schemes targeting? And why do we pay taxes for Jobcentres and other government agencies to do the same work?

In fairness, I didn’t expect an answer to question 3 (though I bet it could quite easily be calculated). But the answer to question 2 is rather worrying. We are dealing here with large amounts of EU funding administered by the Welsh Management. This money has to be accounted for. The EU will want to know how it was spent; this I know from having dealt with WEFO myself. Yet I’m being told that, ” . . . the Welsh Government does not hold information on how many people are employed by these organisations . . . If this cavalier approach to using someone else’s money is typical of how things are done then it explains a lot.

First, it helps us understand the chronic duplication in these ‘back to work’ schemes, and explains their abject failure to deliver. Next, distributing funding after the manner of an inebriated seafarer is why Wales is so attractive to charlatan brothers and sisters from over the border. Then, after reading this, doesn’t it become easier to explain Awema and other rip-offs? Finally, what the Genesis episode shows us yet again is how EU funding has been squandered on Labour’s cronies and Leftist or New Age ‘schemes’ that have done nothing to improve the condition of of our people.

Footnote: Consider also this scheme, targeting exactly the same groups as Genesis. Is it a successor to Genesis, or was it running simultaneously? And is this the same group in an earlier incarnation? If so, how did a bunch of holistic ‘healers’, helping victims of sexual abuse, graduate to the big time and the ‘back to work’ racket?