Talk:Welsh Development Agency

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Article needs meat!

Is there anyone out there who'se an expert on the WDA? Perhaps a former insider, or of course just anyone who knows something. This body was pretty central in Welsh Public Life- and certainly in the 1980s and 90s under the Tory Secs of State it was prominent. Indeed it would be interesting if we could have something here on it's history under different Governments, Secs of State and of course the coming of the assembly, didn't it merge with other QUANGOs in about 1990s, (DBRW, and the Land Authority??), and of course the relationship between it and the Assembly/WAG and it's eventual abolition and intergration into the Civil Service. There's quite a dramatic story really!

Seems to me the article is a bit POV, (unintentionally I would say) in it's use of superficially neutral language, and not mentioning the controversies over it's time.

WDA was in fact a very controversial body, (well not so much the existance of the organisation itself, (at least not until devolution)- but it certainly attracted controversy for much of it's history)- I suppose it was always going to be because of it's central place in Welsh Public Life- that really should be reflected in the article.

Weren't there corruption scandals, I vaguely recal something to do with Holiday Homes and Concorde flights in the 1980s?????

The political controversy about it's place in the Quango state, of course I would argue needs to be mentioned- this was part of the debate about why we needed an Assembly.

Indeed describing it as an ASPB is of course only partly true since it of course for most of it's existence it was Welsh Office Quango. I wonder if anyone knows where we could some good images. One thing I remember was a big semi electronic advert in Paddington Station where a display showed the amount of money being invested in Wales that changed every second! Of course the removal of the Website by the WAG doesn't help from that point of view!

Comentate (talk) 22:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)