North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood yesterday called for a Welsh Government Statement on funding for a Social Enterprise Accelerator in North Wales following “unacceptable delays” from the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO), part of the Welsh Government, which could “cost the economies of North and West Wales over £1.7 million in funding”.

Social enterprise accelerator programmes are specifically designed to help social entrepreneurs create and grow sustainable for-purpose businesses.

Speaking in Tuesday’s Business Statement, Mr Isherwood expressed concern that repeated delays from WEFO are putting plans for a Social Enterprise Accelerator programme in North Wales in jeopardy.     

He said:

“I call for a Statement on funding for a Social Enterprise Accelerator in North Wales. For the past five years work involving Bangor University and colleagues in Wales and Ireland has been ongoing to develop a Social Enterprise Accelerator. They've been told several times over the last two years that €3.4 million of INTERREG funding has been ring-fenced for their project. However, repeated delays from the Welsh European Funding Office, part of the Welsh Government, have now led to a situation where the ring-fenced funding could possibly be returned to Europe unspent.

“They say that if WEFO had decided there were better projects to fund, that would be understood, but the Social Enterprise Accelerator has already had its initial application and its stage 1 Business Plan approved. But the process of approving the project has taken so long that it looks like they could now run out of time, when there were times when they were waiting three months even to receive a response to correspondence. They say that if nothing can be done, the unacceptable delays from WEFO will have cost the economies of North and West Wales over £1.7 million in funding, when a similar project in the south-West of England has already delivered over £16 million of economic value and supported the creation of over 1,000 jobs.

“So, will you provide a Statement, noting that they've said to me that if we're now not too late, they 'would be grateful if you could see whether anything can still be done to ensure the project proposal is assessed in time to secure this ring-fenced funding’?”

The Trefnydd, Rebecca Evans AM, told Mr Isherwood she would look into the matter and then try to get to the bottom of what the delay is.