Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR NEIL
KINGHAN, PROFESSOR
MARK KLEINMAN,
MR ANDREW
CAMPBELL, MR
BOB LINNARD
AND MR
STEPHEN SPEED
13 MARCH 2006
Q1 Chair: Can I welcome you to this first
evidence session of the Committee's inquiry into the future for
regional government. Obviously, the referendum result in the North
East in November 2004 left a rather large hole in the Government's
policy towards the English regions. Could you outline how that
vacuum has been filled so far and what changes are being planned
for the future?
Mr Kinghan: Would it be helpful
to the Committee if we started by introducing ourselves?
Q2 Chair: It would, and obviously,
I will leave it entirely to you which one of you answers which
question.
Mr Kinghan: I will start, if I
may. Let me introduce my two colleagues at the same time. I am
Neil Kinghan. I am the Director General for Local and Regional
Governance in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. On my left
is Andrew Campbell.
Mr Campbell: I am Director of
the Regional Co-ordination Unit, which is the bit of government
that looks after Government Offices, and I also now have responsibility
for regional assemblies too.
Professor Kleinman: I am Director
of Urban Policy at ODPM.
Mr Kinghan: As you say, Chair,
in November 2004 the referendum in the North East region was defeated.
The DPM then said that the Government would not be going ahead
with the referenda in the other two northern regions. At the same
time, he made a commitment that the Government would maintain
a strong regional presence in the North East and that the Government
would continue to strengthen its regional dimension and the regional
institutions that we use. Since then, the main points I would
make are that the Northern Way has been taken forward, which is
an amalgam of the three northern regions getting together to work
more closely to improve opportunities for business and the community
in the North. In June 2005 the Northern Way group published its
business plan, which set out how the eight city regions in the
North would contribute to closing the productivity gap between
them and the South East. It also announced investment of £100
million in projects which will demonstrate how the North can use
its assets to become more prosperous, competitive and dynamic.
We have also strengthened our support for the regional assemblies
through increased funding to reflect their new statutory planning
responsibilities, and we will be transferring to them, to take
the forward-looking part of your question, responsibility for
the regional housing boards, which will give them responsibility
to produce a regional housing strategy. We have been consulting
on how to do that and the intention is to announce that soon.
We have also strengthened the Government Offices, which now represent
10 Whitehall departments. The most recent strengthening has involved
the appointment of new Directors of Children and Learning on behalf
of the DfES. We have recently carried out a regional funding allocation
exercise, asking the regions to provide advice on how spending
in the regions should be taken forward, both in the next two years
and through the Comprehensive Spending Review, looking further
forward.
Q3 Chair: Presumably, all of those
announcements would have been made whatever the result of the
North East referendum. Has there been any change in thinking as
a result of that?
Mr Kinghan: This is a "what
if" type of question, is it not? If the referendum had gone
a different way, we would have seen referenda in the other regions
as well, and actually, that would have started a process going
forward. It is very difficult to answer "What if the results
had been different?" as a question. The point of the examples
I was giving was to demonstrate the Government's continuing commitment
to regional institutions, as it were, despite the referendum result.
Q4 Sir Paul Beresford: Of course,
the other question is, to turn it back the other way, the result
was a resounding, and probably the most dramatically resounding
defeat for regionalism. There was a feeling that it should in
fact go the other way. Why is the Government not going in the
opposite direction? Why is it not recognising that there is a
need for elected representation, perhaps, but in a different way
from the non-elected organisation with people on there who have
not been elected in many instances even to the local authority?
Mr Kinghan: If you are talking
about the existing regional assemblies, 70% of members of the
existing regional assemblies are local authority members, though
obviously they are not directly elected; I recognise that. The
Deputy Prime Minister obviously accepted that the referendum result
was a defeat, as you say, and he was quite clear about that and
that we would not go forward with the elected regional assembly
process in the North, though he did also make the point that in
1979 referenda on Scotland and Wales were lost, and 20 years later
they returned.
Q5 Sir Paul Beresford: I do not think
he is going to be here in 20 years, fortunately. He made that
sort of point to us when he saw us the other day. The other question
was that, looking forward, it looks as though he is intending
to demolish local government in the two-tier region down to one,
and move powers up to the non-elected assembly. Is this correct?
What are you anticipating will happen?
Mr Kinghan: I do not recognise
that description at all. We do have a debate going on about the
possibility of reorganisation of the two-tier areas but, as I
am sure you know, the Government has not made a decision on whether
to go ahead with that. That is about whether or not it would be
more efficient or effective, better for local democracy, if there
were a single tier in the present two-tier areas, but I do not
think there has been any suggestion that that would be accompanied
by a return to the proposition that we should have elected regional
assemblies in the short term.
Q6 Sir Paul Beresford: What has already
happened is that powers have already gone from the counties to
the non-elected authorities. If you remove the counties altogether,
there is the prospect, in the minds of those of us who are somewhat
concerned, that we will have more powers going to the non-elected
assemblies.
Mr Kinghan: The powers you are
talking about as having changed are in relation to planning, where
the role of the regional bodies has been clarified to produce
regional spatial strategies, but they have not taken over the
powers of the counties. The planning-making at local authority
level is now at district level. What the Government did there
was to take out a tier on the grounds that that would be a more
efficient way of organising things.
Q7 Sir Paul Beresford: So recommendations
to the Deputy Prime Minister on housing numbers, for example,
in the South East, just to choose one area, done by the assembly
actually is not a power?
Mr Kinghan: They produce regional
spatial strategies.
Q8 Sir Paul Beresford: That has been
taken away from the counties, who used to do it as a group of
elected members.
Mr Kinghan: The counties used
to produce structure plans, but the role of the regions is not
to produce structure plans; it is to produce spatial strategies
for the regions, and indeed, it is my understanding that the counties
are consulted as part of that process as well.
Q9 Mr Olner: A quick question on
what Mr Kinghan said when he spoke about strengthening the regions.
Did you mean strengthening the Government Office of the regions
or actually strengthening the regions themselves in making their
own decisions? There is a world of difference.
Mr Kinghan: I understand the point.
We have, I think, strengthened the role of the regional assemblies
in the way that I described, which is strengthening another regional
institution. We have also strengthened the Government Offices.
There is another point about improving the economic performance
of the regions, which I suspect you will come on to in the context
of our PSA target, but as far as institutions are concerned, what
I was trying to say was that we have strengthened both the existing
regional assemblies and the Government Offices.
Q10 Alison Seabeck: If we can move
on to the effectiveness of the three main agencies, do you think
that the regional assemblies, the regional development agencies
and the Government Offices are working well? If so, on what would
you base that judgment?
Mr Kinghan: I think they are all
doing a good job in their own area. We do assess the performance
of the regional assemblies as regional planning bodies, and they
come out well through that process. Obviously, the reason why
we are giving them the housing responsibility is because we think
it makes sense to put the two together, which was one of the recommendations
of Kate Barker's inquiry two years ago, so we have taken that
forward. As far as the Government Offices are concerned, we keep
them under review all the time, their performance is kept under
review all the time, the regional directors of the Government
Offices report to me, and I am accountable for their performance.
We have recently reviewed the Government Offices and will be publishing
the results of that review, I hope, later this month, which will
have proposals in it for taking forward the Government Offices.
As far as the RDAs are concerned, you might want to return to
this when my colleague from the DTI joins us, but they have had
a number of successes, including 270,000 jobs created or protected,
17,500 new businesses started, and another set of opportunities.
We do think that each of the bodies has made an important contribution,
but obviously we want to keep them under review and not be complacent
about their performance.
Q11 Alison Seabeck: On the review
that has been carried out by your Unit and the Treasury—you
helpfully answered one of my questions, which was when that would
be made public—will each of the individual organisations
be looked at not only in the round, as to how they deliver collectively
for a region, but their own performance and their interaction
with the other agencies as well as with government? There are
concerns that there are weaknesses, particularly in policy development
within Government Offices, for example, and from people on the
ground in the South West and other regions there is a feeling
that perhaps they are not arguing the South West case in terms
of policy strongly enough—just taking the South West as
an example, because it is one I am familiar with.
Mr Kinghan: I understand the question.
I will ask Andrew to join in the answer, if I may. The GO review
does not compare the Government Offices. It is not that sort of
review.
Q12 Alison Seabeck: Sorry. I am talking
about the Regional Co-ordination Unit, which we have been led
to understand will be looking at not only the Government Offices
but some of the other organisations in the regions. Is that correct
or incorrect? I may have it wrong.
Mr Campbell: That is incorrect.
Our responsibility is as the corporate centre of the Government
Office network, so some of what you say is our responsibility.
The assessment of how well the GOs are able to influence policy
development in Whitehall is very much in my bailiwick, but I do
not get involved with seeking to assess RDA performance, for example.
One of the features of the review and the emerging conclusions
which were published a year or so ago, but will be there, I am
sure in the final review, is seeking to further strengthen the
links between GOs and Whitehall, so that as policy is developed
nationally, there is input from the Government Offices about how
policies can best be implemented. So that angle will be in the
review. I am aware of the general comment sometimes about the
GO role in lobbying of regional issues. There is a lot of traffic,
but that tends to be behind the scenes, government to government,
rather than more visible lobbying from a particular region on
a particular issue.
Alison Seabeck: Obviously, if you are
moving additional civil servants down into the regions, what we
do not want to see in the regions is that we have an unaccountable
body that is effectively a mini-national government in a region,
that is telling us how to do things. We want to feel that there
is two-way traffic. The review will certainly be interesting.
Q13 Chair: How will you assess how
a regional office is affecting national policy?
Mr Campbell: From feedback from
departments. What we have been keen to do over the last year is
within each region, a regional director has a policy lead on a
particular issue. In East Midlands, for example, the regional
director there has lead relationships with the Home Office; the
North East with the Department of Trade & Industry. So we
rely on feedback from those Whitehall departments, and indeed,
talking to the regional directors themselves, to get a sense of
how well or otherwise policy is being influenced to take account
of regional concerns. The other thing we do is we have instituted
a system of peer reviews over the last couple of years, that is,
talking to departments and regional and local stakeholders about
what they perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of GOs,
which, again, helps pick up how well-regarded they are on policy
issues too.
Q14 Alison Seabeck: I can understand
why you might want to have specialists for the different departments
around the country, but how much inter-linking is there, so from
the South East, the East Midlands, up to the North East for Trade
and Industry? There is a real risk you will get a slightly skewed
view of things unless there are really good communication links.
Mr Kinghan: I absolutely agree;
it is really important to have good communication links. I meet
the Government Office regional directors every month, and we consider
a range of issues, but that includes interactions between them
and Whitehall departments. Andrew chairs a group which involves
departments as well. I quite take the point. The point of the
pairing exercise is to give a particular emphasis to each regional
director, but it is, as you rightly say, very important that all
of them are seen to be influential in their key departments. That
is one thing that we are keen to not only maintain standards on
but develop them.
Q15 Alison Seabeck: Which regional
director is responsible for transport link to the DfT?
Mr Campbell: It was until very
recently Paul Martin in the South East but given some recent regional
director changes, it is Brian Hackland in GO-East. In transport,
for example, when Paul did it, he was supported by someone within
his office, but in order to avoid a solely South East perspective
on transport, there is another what we call twin, who is based
in Yorkshire & Humber, ie deliberately trying to get more
than one regional perspective, which is fed through the lead RD.
Alison Seabeck: It all seems terribly
complex.
Q16 Dr Pugh: the Deputy Prime Minister,
in a splendid statement to this Committee, said, "What I
do not like, and inevitably it is happening more and more, is
regional decisions being taken which are less and less accountable."
He then went on to say, "I belong to the school that believes
there should be democratic accountability." Obviously, he
would prefer regional government in one form or another. What
plans though has the Department to make such regional government
as we have at the moment more accountable to the stakeholders
and communities that they allegedly serve?
Mr Kinghan: As you say, the Deputy
Prime Minister was seeking to establish elected regional assemblies.
That option is no longer available to us, at least for the moment.
The regional bodies, the RDAs and the Government Offices in particular,
are accountable through Ministers to Parliament, and that is their
main accountability, but the RDAs in particular are also held
to account in practice by the regional assemblies, and do meet
with them regularly and are scrutinised by them. That is the main
form of accountability at regional level as far as the RDAs are
concerned.
Q17 Dr Pugh: In terms of that scrutiny,
the development agencies produce a lot of documents, and I have
been scouring their websites today looking at some of those documents,
huge things, called "strategies" and "corporate
documents" and "mission statements" and so on.
One thing that is missing from most of them is something which
I think they call their strategic investment plan, which tells
you what particular projects their cash actually goes on—not
their cash; the public's cash. These are somewhat elusive documents,
not easily obtained. Is that a satisfactory situation, where we
cannot tell very easily precisely in which places the development
agencies spend their money?
Mr Kinghan: I am afraid that we
do not at the moment have the people who can answer that question.
A colleague from the DTI will be joining us—in fact, he
is already in the room—in the second half of this session,
and I think I had better leave that question for him to answer,
because it is the DTI which sponsors the RDAs, if you will forgive
me.
Q18 Dr Pugh: But you can understand
the issue, can you not? If, for example, you are Bentley and you
are looking for money from the North West Development Agency and
they happen to have spent it on museums, you are interested to
know why, you are interested to have a debate about whether the
money should be spent in one place rather than another, but you
have to be able to tell, do you not?
Mr Kinghan: I understand the point
you are making but you are going to draw me into something which
I would be better to leave to my colleague.
Q19 Dr Pugh: Can we briefly touch
on what you did mention, which is the degree of scrutiny exercised
by the assemblies over the regional development agencies. Are
you aware if they do have a painstaking analysis of money spent
or do they just simply receive documents, look at them broadly
and nod acceptance?
Mr Kinghan: Again, I think I should
leave that to my colleague. I am not trying to be unhelpful. It
is just that he is better able to answer questions about the RDAs
than I am.
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