Part of the $1 million of taxpayers’ money allocated to set up three Sirolli Institutes in regions hit hard by the forestry downturn will be spent on independent consultants to assess how many new jobs they have created.
Net Balance has been hired to review the effectiveness of three enterprise facilitators who have been working with businesses since the start of the year with the aim of generating employment at George Town and Scottsdale, Smithton and the Huon Valley.
A wine bar in the Huon region, opened last month, is the only new project attributed to the Sirolli Institute so far.
Premier Lara Giddings announced in March last year that her government would provide $950,000 for the institute to carry out the two-year pilot without going to tender.
A third of that goes to Dr Ernesto Sirolli himself, with the remaining $600,000 split between the organisations.
Out of this it is expected about $25,000 will be paid to Net Balance to carry out the assessment, but a government spokesman …
