It would take InvestNI staff over 18 hours to retrieve information on the effectiveness of just a few of their grants, it has emerged.
A Freedom of Information request by the Conservatives drew a blank, with the quango stating that information on Return on Investment was too expensive to dig out.
Guidance in relation to FOI requests state that organisations do not have to answer if the request would take more than £450 to answer, assuming that staff earn £25 an hour.
This means that it would take over 18 hours to dig out answers to questions like: “Northern Ireland Screen were given grants of £64.3M between May 2011 and April 2014. Could you tell me, how this grant was deployed by NI Screen, what your key performance indicators are for measuring success and your evaluation of the benefits of the investment?”
Neil Wilson, Conservative Candidate for East Belfast, said: “We are constantly bombarded with news of how much money InvestNI are ‘investing’ in creating jobs here, yet it would take more than two days of staff time to tell us how many of the jobs they gave grants for still exist and what their value to the economy is.
“If such a simple request is incapable of being fulfilled within 18 hours, we can only conclude that the information is buried and that this is an organisation without a clear focus on outcomes.
“The truth of the matter is that the money InvestNI gives away comes out of the economy in the first place in the form of taxation – we deserve to know whether our money is being wisely spent.
“The question must be asked, just what is going on at InvestNI?”