Letter submitted by the East Midlands
Development Agency
Yorkshire Forward, the English Regional Development
Agency which leads on Treasury matters on behalf of all RDAs,
has recently extended an invitation to other RDAs to contribute
material to the above Inquiry. emda, the East Midlands
Development Agency, would like to take this opportunity to submit
the following evidence to the Committee in support of your deliberations.
This material is not specifically written for the Committee, and
we understand that this is acceptable to you.
(1) The Impact of Investment on Productivity—An
East Midlands Perspective (not printed)
(2) A Forward by Derek Mapp, emda
Chairman, to a longer paper considering issues of regional delivery
and its contribution to Productivity (not printed)
The first of these papers was originally written
for the emda Board on 19 June 2003. It addresses two of
the issues which the Committee will be looking at, in particular,
the reasons for the productivity differentials between regions,
providing an East Midlands perspective.
The second paper is the Forward to a longer
paper entitled "England's Economy, Harnessing the Power of
the Regions" . This paper has been commissioned by emda,
during our period as "Chair of Chairs" of the English
RDAs (a lead role on behalf of all the RDAs,—our tenure
in this role concludes in March of this year). Derek Mapp, as
lead Chairman, has been particularly keen to stimulate a debate
amongst RDAs, but more specifically amongst leading thinkers,
policy makers and politicians, around the extent to which the
institutional infrastructure in the English regions might be reformed
or revitalised to enable it to more fully contribute to the Government's
ambitions to improve productivity and efficiency in the regions.
In particular, this work looks at the extent to which we could
better harness the overall contribution of public investment to
regional and national economic growth. This work is ongoing and
we expect to publish further work on this in due course.
Given that the Committee intends to consider
the effect on productivity of flows of domestic and EU funds in
the region, the ideas stimulated by this debate—where they
are around delivery rather than political accountability—may
well be of interest in your deliberations. Please note the Foreword
was originally drafted as a press piece and is written in that
style. We would be happy to share the full document with the Committee
should it be of interest
We would be happy to answer any questions raised
by the attached.
26 January 2004
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