Memorandum by District of Easington (RG
35)
INTRODUCTION
1. Easington District Council is one of
seven District Councils in County Durham situated in the North
East of England. The District is located along the coastal strip
between the more urban centres of Sunderland to the north and
Hartlepool to the south and has a population of some 94,000. The
economic base for the area was previously associated with coalmining
and has been the subject of considerable regeneration activity
over the last 10 years to address the economic, social and environmental
legacies of the loss of this sector of employment as well employment
in the textiles sector. As a consequence of this structural economic
change, the district has chronic levels of deprivation and disadvantage
and is ranked as the 7th worst district (Rank worst for all shire
districts) on the ODPM's IMD 2004.
2. The Council has sought to provide a strong
leadership capacity to advocate for actions to address the area's
regeneration and to provide the communities of Easington with
a more certain and sustainable economic future. Through this role
the Council has recognised its future prospects will in part be
shaped by actively contributing in policy debates at the regional
and sub regional levels so as to inform others of the needs of
Easington and to also influence their decisions to bring about
a positive impact for the communities of Easington. The Council
was strongly in favour of the establishment of a Regional Assembly
for the North East, but in the light of the Referendum decision
has moved on to work with others to deliver and play its part
in the agreed "Vision" for the North East of England:
"the North East will be a region where present
and future generations have a high quality of life. It will be
a vibrant, self-reliant, ambitious and outward-looking region
featuring a dynamic economy, a healthy environment and a distinctive
culture. Everyone will have the opportunity to realise his or
her full potential."
3. The Council welcomes the Select Committee's
Inquiry at a time of debate and change around public service structures
and governance arrangements at the regional level and the emergence
of the City Region concept as means to achieve greater economic
performance and productivity for the Northern Regions with resultant
greater prosperity for our communities. However the Council would
through its evidence to the Committee invite it to carefully examine
the economic case for, and how, City Regions might be used as
a policy tool to become the driving force for economic development
and the consequences and implications of this for Local Government
in terms of strategic relationships between various elements of
government at the regional level; democratic accountability; and
relationship to the neighbourhood level agenda.
4. In summary the Council's view is that
any regional or city region structure should add value, deliver
improved outcomes for local communities and assist the delivery
of an improved quality of life and better prospect for the next
generation. This should however be underpinned by a strong local
authority involvement and engagement in associated decision making
process as well as review to ensure delivery accountability and
democratic accountability.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
5. Easington Council would argue that within
any framework of regional, sub regional or City Region based arrangements
for the governance of public policy decision making there should
be:
— A strong role for the local authority
sector to maintain democratic accountability and to allow for
local representation on strategic issues. The Council believes
Local Authorities are uniquely placed to provide the accountable
local leadership to assist the translation of regional/sub regional
policy frameworks into local delivery arrangements to achieve
the desired outcomes set within wider spatial and partnership
arrangements.
— Appropriate partnership structures
to permit firstly, agreed goals determined jointly by users and
delivers of public services to achieve more tailored and responsive
services. The potential within Local Strategic Partnerships to
achieve this should be maximised. Secondly, for other governmental
organisations (such as Regional Government Offices, Regional Development
Agencies and Regional Learning and Skills Councils for example)
there should be a strong scrutiny role for the local authority
sector to maintain an effective degree of accountability to local
people for their decisions and actions taken on behalf of those
communities.
— An inclusive approach to any governance
or partnership arrangements so that all interests are appropriately
represented and there are open and transparent consultative and
decision making arrangements that are firmly evidenced based.
Experience of the current arrangements for the above within regions
is that too often the time for effective consultation and deliberation
on policy options is curtailed and as a result is often concentrated
amongst a few limited regional stakeholders. This is seen as detrimental
to effective regionally owned policy formulation and decision
making and is unsustainable if real change is to be delivered
through a shared and consensus based approach towards prioritisation
of critical strategic interventions.
TREND TOWARDS
REGIONALISATION
6. Post the North East Referendum there
has been a strong re-organisational shift towards more sub regional
and regional level structures, as the Committee will be aware,
evidenced by proposals within the North East for changes to Regional
Health Authorities (and Primary Care Trusts), Police Authorities,
Learning and Skills Councils, Job Centre Plus. This serves to
widen the gap between strategic decision making and local communities.
In the Council's view this "gap" must be lessened through
appropriate representational and consultative arrangements with
local authorities.
7. The Council therefore feels that such
arrangements need to be complemented and underpinned by appropriate
locality arrangements so that regionally directed services are
responsive to locality needs and can be connected to local communities
in an effective and joined up way. Local Strategic Partnerships
supported by Local Authorities as "advocative" community
leaders need to be clearly given this role as part of the arrangements
to balance regional governmental structures with local neighbourhood
based delivery. This would assist to overcome what the Council
believes is a widening democratic deficit, lack of effective accountability
for regional governmental organisations and an emerging dislocation
of policy development and service commissioning form local community
needs, requirements and indeed aspirations—all critical
factors for a healthy and vibrant democratic system.
8. In part, as a response to dealing with
critical policy issues at a greater spatial scale than an individual
local authority area a greater use of sub regional partnership
arrangements has emerged and come into play. One NorthEast with
their decision to devolve 75% of their budgets to Sub Regional
Partnerships is a welcomed approach. However in the Council's
view this essentially financial allocation delegation needs to
be accompanied by greater subsidarity in decision making to engender
greater ownership for decision and to permit local resolution
to difficult issues of prioritisation and the resultant hard choices.
At present there is a too heavy control of decision making by
the introduction of policy "musts" and low levels of
delegation on actual decision making. However it is accepted that
in order for regional level objectives and priorities to be delivered
some degree of policy direction is needed. This would however
be better achieved by the development of an agreed policy framework
with specified outcomes within which any sub regional partnership
or arrangement of local authorities would have to operate, but
how the required targets and outcomes linked to achievement of
regional goals are delivered should be left far more for to local
determination through discussion and challenge. Such a process
will engender stronger partnerships and ownership of the process
of change than a more top down directional approach.
9. The second round of Pilot Local Area
Agreements in which County Durham is engaged should help to further
test the notion of effective sub regional working and the Council
welcomes the ODPM's commitment to let local authorities in consultation
with key service partners determine their own future priorities
and targets for certain improved key public services outcomes.
The Council feel that this working at a sub regional level needs
to be driven by local priorities and choices responsive to community
aspirations and needs and solely determined around centrally imposed
must dos. The Council however feels the opportunity was not seized
by the ODPM in looking for new ways of working with local communities
across districts the trialling of a sub county level Local Area
Agreement model in County Durham.
CITY REGIONS—THE
CONCEPT
10. City Regions has emerged as the new
preferred methodology or policy framework to govern economic development
within regions. Based on the principal that 90% of the population
of the Northern Way live within the eight defined city regions
and that these areas account for 90% of the North's economic activity.
The policy drive has shifted to the promotion of city regions
and indeed core cities. It does however run a risk of marginalising
the mix of medium sized urban communities and rural areas that
characterise County Durham.
11. The Council is concerned that the emerging
economic policy analysis based around the concept of City Regions
as drivers of economic growth is often some what simply translated
into a categorisation of core urban centres and conurbations as
city regions and the remainder within the sphere of economic influence
of a city region are rural areas and some how their needs are
subservient to the promote of city centric economic growth. This
approach has major implications for access to employment and services,
commuting distances and environmental sustainability and the future
of less attractive market locations that can often have more disadvantaged
neighbourhood with poor connectivity and public transport.
12. The City Region concept is however based
on "real world" observations of economic patterns of
activity and flows that extend over greater areas than the metropolitan/conurbation
boundaries. The Council would argue that the City Region concept
should be:
— Recognised as an "area"
based on economic analysis representing flows of economic activity
(labour markets, travel to work areas etc) and not an administrative
area linked to metropolitan authorities.
— The extent of a city region will
change over time as economic patterns change.
— Seen as being substantially more
than a focus on the needs of the core city within a city region.
In the case of the Tyne and Wear City Region
Area (within which Easington District is situated) this should
be more correctly seen as a "polynuclear" as opposed
to a "polycentric" city region area, comprising a number
of economic centres, though acknowledging amongst these component
centres there is a hierarchy of centres. Each of the centres offers
a contribution to the economic well being of the overall City
Region area. This city region scale of economic influence includes
core urban centres, inner city areas, outer suburbs, small and
medium sized towns, as well as more outer lying rural areas. All
of these centres contribute to the economic performance to some
degree of the city region, and all have an interrelationship and
interdependence with each other.
13. The relationship between urban and rural
should be seen as a continuum and the focus should be on the interrelationship
between threes areas core urban centres—urban towns—rural
areas rather than being portrayed a separate and distinct policy
areas. As a consequence of the above, there is a risk in the Council's
opinion that the City Region concept could be implemented in a
way that underplays key issues linked with economic development
related to connectivity between communities and centres of economic
activity, accessibility and housing market issues in terms of
spatial extent, low demand, affordability and the promotion of
sustainable communities in these wider range of settlement areas
in different spatial setting within and adjacent to a City Region
area.
14. As an example of this interrelationship
between intra city region parts, is the issue of the regeneration
of former coalfield areas, a key ODPM policy priority. In the
case of Easington at the heart of the former East Durham Coalfield,
the area is situated within the economic labour market of Tyne
and Wear and the economic regeneration of the area is positively
contributing to the region's economic performance as research
by the Coalfield Communities Campaign has demonstrated.
15. The ambition for the Region should not
be to focus all growth in the main core urban centres at the expense
of other locations and to maximise their accepted growth potential
by at the same time disenfranchise the less economically attractive
locations. It should not be about accelerating economic growth
in urban centres by de-accelerating economic investment elsewhere.
The policy framework under a City Region approach should support
economic investment in appropriate locations. To do otherwise,
such as having a solely core urban growth led policy approach
would lead to a widen gap between economically attractive areas
and the most disadvantaged communities.
16. To achieve an economically successful
region there is a need to ensure that the economic latent potential
of all the communities within a city region area is maximised
and this has to include the small and medium sized communities
such as those in County Durham that economically have a relationship
to the either the Tyne and Wear City Region or the Tees Valley
City Region.
17. The Council therefore on this basis
supports the contention that there are a number of activities
that are best co-ordinated at a City Region scale such as strategic
economic development and regeneration, spatial planning and transport,
housing and skills development. These policy areas are seen to
require effective co-ordination if the economic performance of
the Northern Regions is to be improved in line with the goals
of the Northern Way Growth Strategy and to help close the £30
billion productivity gap.
18. However, such arrangements need to be
inclusive if the economic contribution that can be played by all
areas is to be effectively harnessed. Decisions taken at a city
region scale should add value to policy delivery in local communities
and take place within the context of a whole region approach so
that the relationship to remoter urban and rural areas is articulated.
The City Region implications and relationship with other regional
arrangements and organisations such as the Regional Development
Agencies and Regional Learning and Skills Councils for example
also need to be clearly expressed. In all of this, the principle
of decisions being taken at the right level for the issue and
subsidiary should be applied and local authorities need to be,
and should be effectively engaged at each level.
CITY REGIONS—GOVERNANCE
AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
RENEWAL
19. In taking the city region approach forward
there will need to be due attention given to related issues of
governance models and the relationship of a city region approach
to the policy agenda for neighbourhoods and local delivery. In
respect to governance it is the Council's view that this needs
to be firmly embedded with local authorities but also inclusive
of other key regional stakeholders. There should also be appropriate
representation for all local authority areas with an interest
in the economic well being of a City Region area and not one whereby
the urban centre authorities are placed in a position that can
lead to the more peripheral areas such as District Councils being
seen as having a more subservient or secondary role in respect
to leadership and direction, decision making and partnership working.
Leaders of District Councils are able to equally contribute effectively
to a process of leading a city region based "economic"'
growth programme.
20. Implementation of the City Region agenda
should though be advanced in partnership with the ODPM's commitment
to local delivery and neighbourhood renewal. In this way city
region scale issues will remain at the right spatial level and
indeed could assist to set clear priorities within which neighbourhood
renewal can be advanced as well as ensuring strategic investment
is connected with, and benefits the more disadvantage communities
within a city region area. It should also ensure more strategic
decisions are taken in ways that are responsive to local delivery
local and neighbourhood based and community owned solutions.
| 
