Memorandum by the Yorkshire and Humber
Assembly (DRA 27)
SUMMARY
1. This evidence provides information in
the following areas:
— The principles that should underpin
proposals to establish an ERA;
— The effectiveness of the wide-ranging
role envisaged by the general purpose power;
— Support for the proposed "regional
scheme" and evidence of current practice in our region;
— Comments on and support for the proposals
for stakeholder engagement;
— Comments on how the powers of an
ERA might be exercised given current experience in our region
including some of the essential ingredients needed for successful
delivery; and
— Two gaps we have identified in the
draft Bill relating to regional intelligence and the relationship
with Government departments.
BACKGROUND
2. The Yorkshire and Humber Assembly is
a regional chamber made up of the 22 local authorities in the
region, together with other stakeholder representatives from across
all sectors. The Assembly has been constituted in its current
form since November 2001. It has four main functions:
— to act as the voice of the region;
— to provide the context for sustainable
development through our regional framework document, Advancing
Together and to monitor progress;
— to scrutinise delivery of the Regional
Economic Strategy; and
— to be the Regional Planning Body
responsible for preparation of the Regional Spatial Strategy which
also includes the regional transport strategy and the regional
waste strategy.
OUR POSITION
ON ELECTED
REGIONAL ASSEMBLIES
3. The Yorkshire and Humber Assembly takes
a neutral view of the introduction of an Elected Regional Assembly
(ERA), believing that the decision on whether or not to support
this development should be made by the electorate. In support
of this position, we lobbied hard for clear, accessible and comprehensive
information to be provided by Government so that there could be
informed debate. At that time and whilst maintaining our objectivity,
we set out key principles that should be prerequisites for the
introduction of an ERA. These are:
— That the powers of an ERA should
be drawn down from central government and not up from local government;
— That the strong partnership arrangements
characteristic of our existing regional assembly should be maintained
and built upon through strong engagement of stakeholders in an
ERA; and
— That the powers of any ERA should
enable better, value for money, progress towards sustainable development,
delivery of services, responsive to the region's needs and accountable
to its people.
COMMENTS ON
THE PROPOSALS
IN THE
DRAFT REGIONAL
ASSEMBLIES BILL
4. Below we make some general comments about
what constitutes effective regional governance. These reflect
the current experience of the Assembly and are relevant for any
future arrangements under an ERA.
The Statement of General Purpose
5. Regional consensus has allowed the Yorkshire
and Humber Assembly to develop some aspects of the wide-ranging
role envisaged by the general purpose power. Our focus on facilitating,
influencing and supporting the work of a range of agencies in
the region has maximised opportunities to align activity and has
enabled us to successfully address a wide range of economic, social
and environmental issues.
A framework for Regional Action
6. The proposal to develop a regional scheme
builds on our approach to strategic alignment and integration.
Here our overarching strategic framework, Advancing Together,
provides the context for regional action and the delivery of sustainable
development. Although Advancing Together was only published earlier
this year in its revised form, it has been widely welcomed by
the region as the means to join up action in an unbureaucratic
and helpful way. By providing an agreed set of common goals and
clearly setting out the responsibilities of the various strategies
and organisations at regional, sub regional and local level, priorities
can be identified and effective delivery supported using our sustainability
appraisal tool kit to help resolve "crunch" issues.
(A copy of Advancing Together and the sustainability appraisal
can be found on our web site: www.yhassembly.gov.uk)
Stakeholder engagement
7. Yorkshire and Humber is rightly acknowledged
for the strength of its partnership working. Key to this has been
the active and growing involvement of stakeholders in all aspects
of the work of the Assembly. Based on this experience, we appreciate
that:
— The draft bill states that assemblies
must make arrangements to encourage and facilitate stakeholder
participation, and that
— Any elected assembly would be required
to include in its annual report an assessment of the involvement
of assembly stakeholders.
However, we would wish to see more detail in
the draft bill about:
— How stakeholders will be involved
in the development and review of policy. Increased commitment
would reassure stakeholders about their role and value within
a developing ERA.
— The responsibility of elected assemblies
to adequately fund and support stakeholders to perform their functions
effectively.
— The ability of elected assemblies
to create and develop stakeholder arrangements that suit their
particular regional circumstances.
Effective working
8. The draft Bill proposes a range of working
methods for an ERA, some direct and others more focused on influence
and joint working. These fall into four categories:
— Establishing functional bodies that
are accountable to the assembly (through sponsorship and funding)
and through them direct influence over the delivery of a wide
range of services. (eg the RDA, the Cultural Consortium, museums,
archives and libraries, fire and rescue, business support and
rural development);
— Shaping and influencing delivery
through partnership. (eg skills, tourism, arts and sports, environment,
crime and disorder);
— Developing and implementing strategies
and delivery plans, sometimes with funding and other times with
influence over national funding bodies including Government. (eg
planning, transport, waste, housing and biodiversity); and
— Ensuring cross cutting issues are
addressed. (eg public health and sustainable development).
9. With the obvious exception of responsibility
for functional bodies, the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly has experience
of each of these ways of working that may be helpful to the Committee
when considering the effectiveness of the proposals in the draft
Bill. They are discussed in turn below.
10. Shaping and influencing delivery—An
ERA will depend heavily on delivery by others, in particular public
agencies and local authorities. Our experience shows that for
this influencing role to be effective, strong partnerships are
required from the start. These partnerships need to be based on
a common understanding of what is to be achieved, the way this
is to be done and the resources available. It is also important
that the partners are able to relate the results of partnership
working at regional level to local outcomes where it is likely
they will be most accountable. An ERA will need to command the
respect of its delivery partners and demonstrate clearly the added
value arising from joint working. Government will be crucial to
this and will need to provide an appropriately supportive national
policy framework that is flexible enough to allow agencies to
respond to regional needs, through alignment of activity and funding.
11. Developing and implementing strategies—Many
of the same issues apply to the development and implementation
of strategies. Once again there is a need to be explicit about
delivery mechanisms, resources and responsibilities. It is interesting
that the suite of strategies proposed by the draft Bill mirrors
current arrangements. We are already aware of some significant
strategic gaps in the region, specifically around the area of
social inclusion where lead responsibility is currently unclear
and resources from central government fragmented. Crucially however
the proposals retain a requirement for a suite of strategies set
within the context of an overall strategic framework or scheme.
In our experience this enables effective strategic alignment without
the need to produce an unwieldy document that tries (and usually
fails) to list all activity to be undertaken by all agencies.
12. Ensuring cross cutting issues are addressed—addressing
cross cutting issues is one of the most difficult areas for an
ERA. Despite widespread commitment in our region to ensuring sustainable
development, the inevitable pressure to deliver progress in the
short-term means that full account is not always taken of the
longer-term implications of action. The need to deliver also means
that we sometimes also fail to take advantage of opportunities
to address wider issues, such as improvements in public health,
inclusion issues or environmental concerns. A key task of the
ERA must be to raise awareness of these issues and ensure their
status in all strategies, plans and action. They must enable early
stage consideration of cross cutting issues and provide clear
guidance on how these should be addressed. Again a supportive
national policy framework will be crucial to the success of this
work.
Consideration should be given to setting sustainable
development as a purpose of elected Assemblies, akin to the statutory
duty of the National Assembly of Wales. Towards this end the draft
bill could then require that Assemblies:
— adopt and promote sustainable development
objectives, linked to targets and indicators, to which all regional,
sub-regional and local strategies should conform, and
— consider the sustainability of all
decisions taken using and that sustainability appraisals should
be employed for all strategies (not just for RSSs). This could
be achieved by requiring Assemblies to adopt and keep under review
a Regional Sustainable Development Framework or corresponding
Integrated Regional Framework or Strategy that includes regional
sustainability objectives and a sustainability appraisal and for
it to be a statutory requirement for regional, sub-regional and
local strategies to have regard to this.
GAPS IN
THE DRAFT
BILL
13. Our evidence does not consider the appropriateness
of the range of powers provided by the draft Bill but rather has
confined itself to discussion of the way those powers might be
exercised, given our current experience. In considering the proposals,
we have identified two significant gaps. These are regional research
and monitoring and the relationship between Government departments
and an ERA. Both are discussed below.
14. Regional research and monitoring arrangements—work
in the region depends to a large extent on have a common understanding
of the issues that need to be addressed and an agreed view about
the policy interventions to tackle them. In Yorkshire and Humber
we are currently involved in the early stages of developing the
new Regional Spatial Strategy, revising and updating the Regional
Housing Strategy and about to start a major review of the Regional
Economic Strategy. We have taken the view that this work must
be underpinned by a common research base if we are to have any
hope of successfully aligning our activity and reaching a common
view of policy priorities. Additionally, we also have, as part
of our strategic framework document, Advancing Together, an agreed
suite of 32 regional indicators that are monitored centrally by
our regional observatory, Yorkshire Futures.
15. Yorkshire Futures is currently managed
by a Steering Group of regional partners and funded, in the main,
by the RDA with a contribution from the Assembly towards the annual
research programme. Recently we have started to consider how we
can develop Yorkshire Futures as an independent intelligence unit
and think-tank for the region. This reflects the findings of the
Allsopp Review which called for better statistics to support policy
development in the regions. The draft Bill fails to address this
need and Government should consider including in the Bill proposals
for an ERA to establish and fund an independent regional observatory
as a common source of intelligence for the region.
16. Relationship with Government departments—As
mentioned a number of times above, the success of an ERA will
depend in part on Government providing a supportive and flexible
policy framework that enables regions to develop and deliver policies
that address their specific issues. The draft Bill refers on a
number of occasions to bodies that will be required to consult
the ERA about their strategies and plans. This is not extended
to Government departments. Interestingly, in Chapter Two of the
White Paper Your Region, Your Choice there are a number
of specific references to the relationship between government
departments and regions. For example, the Treasury consults the
regions in the run up to the Comprehensive Spending Review. It
would be helpful if the draft Bill could make clear where Government
departments should consult and take account of the views of an
ERA.
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