Government Expenditure and Revenue Wales

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Up in Scotland they have the GERS report. It stands for Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland. It is published on the Scottish Governments website and based on UK Public Sector Finance Statistics that are published in January.


In Wales we have no such thing. So we have no idea how well or how badly our Labour run government is doing. There must be a reason for us not having such a report I wondered. So I asked MP Jonathon Edwards if we were allowed to have one.

So it's that simple? As First Minister, all Carwyn Jones has to do is contact the Office of National Statistics and ask them for the data? Surely if it was that simple then he'd already have done that? Wouldn't he?

Maybe he doesn't want to know the figures?
Maybe he doesn't want us to know the figures?

Surely no matter how bad the figures are, it is better to know than to not know. At the moment all we have is a blank piece of paper.

This is why I created the e-Petition: Government Expenditure and Revenue Wales.

Let's tell Carwyn and his chums that we want our own report, we want to see the books and we want to know how well or how badly they are doing because we want to know how well or how badly WE are doing. What kind of an employer let's his employees turn up for work with no targets set or even knowledge of results obtained. We need to realise that as voters we are the employers and we need to start acting like employers if we want these politicians to start acting like our employees!

We pay their wages and we control who gets hired and fired. So let's start demanding to see the results, so that we know if our employees are worth giving a new contract to come the next election.

If you agree then Please sign and share.

Update - 28/4/2013
The Welsh Fnance Minister has dismissed the need for a GERW report in her letter (pdf) stating that they have no plans to produce a new report as they already publish expenditure reports. I will update again when the petition is officially dismissed. But I suspect they have completely missed the point of the usage of the word "revenue" in the title.

You can of course look at the info in full here

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