Supplementary memorandum by the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minister (RG 32(a))
1. I am writing in response to the Committee's
request for further information from the DTI, Transport and ODPM
officials who gave evidence to the above enquiry on 13 March;
and in reply to the subsequent questions in your letter of 27
March.
2. On Q94 from that evidence session, I
understand DTI are responding directly on the question of how
Regional Development Agencies' (RDAs) functions and spending am
subject to scrutiny by Regional Assemblies (RAs).
3. As far as Q114 is concerned, there are
a range of issues on which ideas born in the region have been
taken up and developed elsewhere—for example Supply Chain
Groups, initiated in the West Midlands to help firms in the chain
for a single component work together to improve efficiency generalised
across the regions; then launched in April 2004 as a £15
million national DTI programme for the automotive sector as a
whole. The boxed example on page 13 of the ODPM Memorandum of
the Impact of the West Midlands Regional Housing Board on national
priorities for affordable housing and stock improvement is a further
illustration. But as officials indicated on the day, it is important
to bear in mind that regional stakeholders, the Government Offices,
Whitehall Departments and Ministers interact continually—and
stakeholders engage both directly with public bodies and with
one another in an overall organic process.
4. But we have also since the general election
made a step change with the government's decision explicitly to
seek advice from regional institutions on priorities for their
Regional Funding Allocations across the linked areas of transport,
housing and economic development. All regions provided advice
by the end of January 2006, and the last in a series of follow-up
meetings between Assembly and RDA representatives and the four
Departments involved (DTI, Transport, Treasury and ODPM) takes
place on 2 May. These discussions have been very productive, and
we are confident the Committee will find this view confirmed by
regional stakeholders as their enquiry progresses.
5. The next step will be formal responses,
including announcements on transport priorities. We can assure
the Committee that decisions on these will be strongly influenced
by the RFA consultation exercise.
6. On your further queries, on Q13 we suggest—as
it is visiting the region as part of Its work—the Committee
looks at the South West Government Office peer review. The review
and the GO's response can be found on Its website (www.gosw.gov.uk)
in the "About us" section.
7. On Q72, the Committee ask the basis on
which the Government determined 2003 (rather than 1997 or 2001)
as the start of the economic cycle. The answer is first, that
the Regional Economic Performance PSA target was set out in its
current form in SR2002, following a process of evidence gathering
around the causes of regional disparities (the target in 8R2000
did not include a commitment to narrowing the growth rate gap).
8. Success is to be measured by comparing
regional growth rates in a target period to those in a base period.
The base period was set as 1990-2001 as that represents the full
regional Gross Value Added (GVA) data set available at 8R02, and
corresponds roughly to one economic cycle. So the target period
started In 2003 to ensure measurement of progress on the REP PSA
captured the impact of policies introduced as a result of the
commitment to narrowing GVA growth rate gaps set out in SR02.
9. The Committee ask how ODPM, DfT and DTI
ensure our associated public bodies and agencies are equally committed
to promoting regional solutions. We are unsure quite what the
Committee are getting at here—a commitment to regional solutions
is part of ODPM's mission and is reflected in our Public Service
Agreement targets. As we said in our evidence, all the Departments
with a presence In the Government Offices regard that presence
as central to their business, and seek to ensure that the bodies
they sponsor reflect and promote the governments regional agenda.
10. The Committee ask (following up paragraph
31 of our written memorandum) what steps the Government is taking
to promote more effective leadership within the existing institutions.
Again, we are not sure whether there is a suggestion there is
more Departments should be doing, but there are a wide range of
programmes and bodies in place to enhance leadership capacity
at local and regional level. Each Government Office has a Regional
Director of Local Government Practice working closely with local
leaders and we have encouraged Regional Assemblies to streamline
their systems and procedures in order to enhance their leadership
capacity.
11. As the Committee note, the ODPM/Treasury
review of the Government Offices suggested more staff are needed
in the regions with "professional skills and delivery experience".
The Government Office network are engaged in an extensive change
programme to achieve this, including consulting with Unions representing
the staff affected. Its overarching objective is to move to a
smaller, more strategic network, and where particular skills are
missing this will be addressed by a combination of developing
internal talent and recruitment of external staff with the necessary
expertise.
12. Finally on the Committee's request that
we provide for the eight core cities an equivalent to the Institute
for Public Policy Research's hypothetical calculation of devolved
budgets for the Birmingham and Manchester "city regions",
our response is as follows.
13. Ministers visited the eight English
Core Cities late last year in a series of city summits. Following
these, the Core Cities have been developing business cases, setting
out their vision and challenges alongside their case for change
to address barriers and enablers to economic growth for their
city-region. Discussions with the eight Core Cities on their business
cases are ongoing, and will inform the Government's thinking ahead
of the forthcoming Local Government White Paper.
14. Options may include devolving some funding
streams to a city-regional scale. However, no decisions have yet
been taken. The boundaries of city-regional areas are fluid, and
will evolve through a "bottom-up" process of discussion
between the Gore Cities and their regional partners. It is not
for ODPM to impose city-regional boundaries. It is therefore not
possible at this stage to arrive at a commonly accepted definition
of the city-regional area for all eight English Core Cities, and
obtain the required data to estimate devolved budgets.
15. The ODPM undertook an analysis of Government
funding streams going to the Core Cities in the 2005-06 financial
year as part of preparatory work for the Gore City Summits. The
attached table shows figures for the main ODPM programmes, along
with Revenue Support Grant (RSG) and some OGD programmes including
Learning and Skills Councils, Police, Regional Development Agencies
and selected education and Home Office programmes. The Select
Committee may find this information useful in giving an indication
of the scale of ODPM and other Government funding that is currently
provided to the eight Core Cities. It should be noted that the
data applies to the core municipal city, and not any wider city-regional
area. Data on funding from Other Government Departments for some
of the Core Cities is not currently available.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING GOING TO THE ENGLISH CORE CITIES BUDGET 2005-06
(£million)
| Programme and Department |
Birmingham |
Bristol |
Leeds |
Liverpool |
Manchester |
Newcastle |
Nottingham |
Sheffield |
Core
Cities
total |
Total
ODPM
Programme |
Proportion of
programme |
| ODPM |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| Neighbourhood Renewal Fund
| 22 | |
8.4 | 34.4
| 35.2 | 6.84
| 15.8 | 9.71
| 133 | 525
| 25% |
| Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF)
| 1.5 | |
0.63 | 0.81
| 1.6 | 0.55
| 0.67 | 0.69
| 6.5 | 69
| 9% |
| Street Crime Wardens—(part of SSCF)
| | | 0.28
| | | |
| 0.23 | 0.5
| 7 | 7%
|
| Single Community Project (part of SSCF)
| | 0.39 |
| | |
| | | 0.4
| 37 | 1%
|
| New Deal for Communities
| 11 | 5.5
| | 8 |
1.7 | 7.5
| 7.2 | 10
| 51 | 273
| 19% |
| Market Renewal Pathfinders
| 24 | |
24.8 | 30
| 25 | 0
| 43.6 | 148
| 284 | 52%
| |
| Regional Housing Board Capital Inv To Las
| 35 | |
12.55 | 19.6
| 24.1 | 6.3
| 7.7 | 8.6
| 114 | 838
| 14% |
| RDA (ODPM) estimate
| 12 | |
5 | 85.7
| 55.2 | 42.1
| 7.1 | 12
| 219 | 1,487
| 18% |
| Housing Corporation ADP
| 22 | |
7.99 | 40.5
| 44.9 | 4.9
| 1.8 | 7.12
| 129 | 1,676
| 8% |
| Housing Major Repairs Allowance
| | | |
| | | 16.4
| | 16
| 1,377 | 1%
|
| ALMO funding |
| | | |
| 48 | |
| 48 |
956 | 5%
|
| HRA Subsidy | 15
| | | |
| | -8 |
| 7 |
223 | 3%
|
| SRB (residual funding) |
8 | | 4
| | 2.5 |
1.6 | 3.5
| 6 | 26
| | |
| Supporting People
| 53 |
| | | | 19.4
| 26.9 |
| 99 | 1,765
| 6% |
| Planning Delivery Grant
| 1 | |
0.36 | 0.86
| 0.78 | 0.46
| 0.75 | 0.86
| 5 | 170
| 3% |
| Revenue Support Grant (RSG)
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| RSG | 834
| 170 | 354
| 367 | 378
| 170 | 178
| 300 | |
| |
| National Non-Domestic Rates (net of contribution)
| 27 | |
| | | 88.84
| 91 | |
| | |
| OGDs |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| Learning and Skills Council
| 210 | |
| | | 10.73
| 84.4 | |
| | |
| Police | 133
| | | 0.65
| | | 133 (County)
| | | |
|
| RDAs (non-ODPM) estimate
| 5.5 | |
| | 1
| | 2.9 |
| | |
|
| Children's Fund/Children's centres/Sure Start
| 87.7 | |
| | 25.8
| 23.8 | 7.2
| | | |
|
| Standards Fund (education)
| 51.9 | |
| | 21.2
| 1.3 | 32.6
| | | |
|
| Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (Home Office)
| 1.8 | |
| | 2
| 4.1 | 0.83
| | | |
|
| EU Structural Funds |
17 | |
| 56.6 | 11
| 21.47 | 15.4 (County) |
| | |
|
| Total ODPM Programmes
| £m |
| | | |
| | | |
| |
| Main DEL | 8,949
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| Local Government DEL
| 46, 621 |
| | | |
| | | |
| |
| |
| | | |
| | | |
| |
| 
