Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
MR NEIL
KINGHAN, PROFESSOR
MARK KLEINMAN,
MR ANDREW
CAMPBELL, MR
BOB LINNARD
AND MR
STEPHEN SPEED
13 MARCH 2006
Q40 Mr Olner: Do you mean no consistency
on your part or no consistent model?
Mr Campbell: There is no consistent
model to suggest that one way of structuring is better than the
other.
Q41 Mr Olner: Could I perhaps put
it to you that you have now moved on to Plan B, you are forgetting
the regions and you are starting to talk about city regions as
an alternative? What are your thoughts behind that?
Professor Kleinman: It is not
a question of Plan B; it is question of recognising the contribution
that city regions can make. For some time there has been a variety
both of academic and research evidence, but also to some extent
policy initiatives coming up from local authorities and the regions
themselves.
Q42 Mr Olner: So you are saying to
us that the local authorities asked for the formation of city
regions?
Professor Kleinman: Yes, certainly
many of the local authorities are interested in city regions,
because they are increasingly recognising that, in terms of their
economic performance and strengthening their economic performance,
that is the appropriate level at which they need to act.
Q43 Mr Olner: That is not what I
recognise, coming from my region in the West Midlands. It is being
driven by your Department.
Professor Kleinman: I have had
a series of meetings with representatives from Birmingham and
the other seven metropolitan districts in the area, and the impression—and
it is only an impression I have . . .
Q44 Mr Olner: How many more local
authorities does that leave after you have spoken to them?
Professor Kleinman: Sorry. You
were just asking me specifically about city regions and I was
saying I detect a huge degree of enthusiasm.
Q45 Mr Olner: What I want to get
down to, Professor Kleinman, is that you seem to have dangled
a carrot in front of the cities that is going to say to the cities,
"You can now be a city region and envelope all of the local
authorities around it." Who put that idea into their minds?
Where did it come from? Did it come from the Department, the Deputy
Prime Minister or who?
Professor Kleinman: The idea of
city regions and local authorities collaborating together is not
a carrot that has been dangled by this or any other Government.
It is a carrot, if you like, that has been around for a very long
time. It is an established pattern of metropolitan development
right across North America and Europe. It is a major component,
for example, of the Northern Way in the UK, which is an RDA-led
initiative across the three regions of the North West, Yorkshire
& Humberside and the North East, which has at its heart eight
city region development plans. I would like to claim credit for
inventing this but this is not a new idea at all, and we are responding
both to the developments which have occurred from the RDAs and,
as I say, from the cities themselves, and also from the overwhelming
bulk of the academic and research evidence.
Q46 Mr Olner: You obviously have
a strategic view on this. How many city regions are there going
to be in the United Kingdom?
Mr Kinghan: Before Mark answers
that, there is a slight danger that we are talking about two different
things here. You may have in mind a particular government model.
We start from the premise that city regions are an essentially
economic proposition, so the reason why it makes sense for Birmingham
and the other metropolitan areas in the West Midlands to work
together on a city region is to deliver economic improvements
in that part of the country, and indeed, that those benefits should
go to the rest of the West Midlands as well; indeed, the rest
of the country.
Q47 Mr Olner: Mr Kinghan, we already
work together in partnership in the West Midlands, because we
have a West Midlands Regional Development Agency, and the Government
Office for the West Midlands. We all work together within that.
Now, all of a sudden, there is this new kid on the block called
city regions, and I want to know what the difference is between
that and the regional government you were proposing beforehand,
which by your own admission died in the water after the vote on
it.
Mr Kinghan: As I said, the primary
emphasis in the discussions that we have been having is about
economics. It is not about a new form of governance. You say that
the areas in the West Midlands work together, and I do not think
we would deny that, but they themselves see the strength of working
together more effectively in the future and like Mark, I have
been talking to people in the West Midlands, and there is a real
enthusiasm for wanting to work together, put together packages
of proposals for the Government and others to consider.
Q48 Sir Paul Beresford: It is a great
relief to hear that you are listening to local government. If
local government in the South West and the South East said, "We
want to work at city and county regions," would you take
notice of that? They do not particularly want regional authorities.
Mr Kinghan: Sir Paul knows that
I and the Deputy Prime Minister are always very keen to listen
to what local government has to suggest, so we will of course
listen to ideas people come forward with.
Q49 Mr Betts: Coming on to city regions,
given that the electorate in the North East eventually decided
that trying to inject a bit of democratic accountability into
what essentially was a government administrative unit, and they
did not like the idea, do you think there is any chance the public
are going to embrace the concept of city regions with a bit more
enthusiasm?
Professor Kleinman: Following
on from what Neil said, a city region is essentially an economic
concept, and while there may be governance implications for that,
I think it is very important that you start from understanding
the economic reality and work towards ways in which the existing
local authorities within a city region, and, crucially, their
partners, which means the RDA, other regional institutions, business
in particular, can actually work together to raise economic performance.
The question of governance, how that is structured and to whom
it is accountable, is some way down the line from that.
Q50 Mr Betts: So at this stage are
you saying that you do not have any definite ideas about how city
regions might be comprised, how they might actually operate? Are
you willing to look for ideas coming up from city regions themselves
or do you have ideas which you think may eventually develop down
the line that you are committed to?
Professor Kleinman: We are very
much in the listening mode at the moment, and we are digesting,
for example, the State of the Cities report, which we published
last week, which is probably the largest study of urban conditions
in England ever, and we are also digesting the results from the
first round of eight city summits which David Miliband and other
Ministers carried out in the second half of last year. We have
just embarked on a second round of summits with towns and cities,
and there are a lot of ideas that are coming up, as you say, from
local government, from the towns and cities themselves.
Q51 Mr Betts: How did you react to
the IPPR report?
Professor Kleinman: It was an
interesting contribution to the debate.
Q52 Mr Betts: Would you rule out
the possibility of elected mayors for city regions?
Mr Kinghan: No, we do not rule
it out, but we do want to discuss with the cities and those coming
forward the business cases, as Mark has described, how best to
help them take things forward, primarily on an economic level,
but no, we do not rule out changes to governance.
Q53 Mr Betts: One of the aims, surely,
must be to get some real powers and some real tax revenue into
organisations at city regional level to make them work. The Treasury
is not going to give powers to a body unless there is some sort
of constitution there which gives them accountability and responsibility,
is it? A loose federation is not going to get the Treasury signing
off large sums of money for people to spend.
Mr Kinghan: I think you are inviting
us to speculate on what the Treasury might or might not do. You
will know that Michael Lyons has been asked to look at the future
of local government finance and I have no doubt that he will be
looking at the possibilities about economic powers in city regions
as well as the other things he is looking at.
Q54 Mr Betts: If all they are going
to do is get better local working within the framework of the
RDAs, what happens to city regions that cross regional boundaries?
Mr Kinghan: If we see them primarily
as an economic force, then it will be important in those city
regions where people do see links across regional boundaries that
people do work together. When David Miliband had a city summit
in Sheffield towards the end of last year, and I went with him
to attend that, it was very interesting that the local authorities
which came to that discussion included authorities in Derbyshire,
which, of course, are from a different region, because they wanted
to work with Sheffield and the other South Yorkshire authorities
in thinking about the prospects for that city region.
Q55 Mr Betts: Are we actually going
to have some proposals for city regions in the White Paper?
Mr Kinghan: That depends on the
discussions that happen between now and when the White Paper is
published. It depends on how the discussions about the business
cases go forward. Possibly.
Q56 Mr Betts: If we do not have it
in the White Paper, we will have to have it some time soon. Might
we have it in a separate White Paper?
Mr Kinghan: No. I think you are
asking us to anticipate what might be in the White Paper. We cannot
do that at this stage, but obviously, city regions are an issue
that is likely to be covered in the White Paper, yes.
Q57 Chair: Can I clarify, at the
moment in the Department's thinking about city regions, is there
a clear definition in your mind of what a city region is, or is
it a concept with a variety of different possible interpretations?
Professor Kleinman: I think as
a concept we have a very clear idea of what we mean by a city
region, and our thinking is to separate at least three distinct
meanings of the word "city". One is what you might call
the municipal city, which is the local authority boundary, so
in the case of Manchester that would be Manchester City Council
which is clearly only a part of the built-up area. We would then
talk about the metropolitan city, which is the built-up boundary,
the area covered in the case of Manchester by the Association
of Greater Manchester Authorities, and then a third concept, the
city region, which is the economic footprint, if you like, of
the city which is much larger, and which in the case of Sheffield
spreads out into Derbyshire and in the case of Manchester spreads
out into Cheshire. So we have a clear conceptual view. How that
should be taken forward and how that relates to existing arrangements
is something where we are much more in the listening mode at the
moment listening both to what comes up from the city sides and
also from the body of research evidence, some of which we have
commissioned ourselves.
Alison Seabeck: There seems to be an
altogether much more fluid dynamic about what a city region is.
In a sense you are throwing all the boundaries up in the air and
seeing how they come down again because, whilst there is good
cross boundary, cross departmental working in a number of areas,
city regions in a sense cross all of that in quite a significant
way and I would be incredibly interested to see how it all pans
out. In this report they are talking about suggesting there should
be fewer strategic interventions into city regions from government.
I think Parkinson's proposal is just as a starting point—
Chair: Have you got a question?
Q58 Alison Seabeck: Yes. Would you
be nervous with a sweeping statement saying "Let's have fewer
intervention with the nine bigger cities", given the difference
in delivery and efficiency of the nine bigger cities?
Professor Kleinman: When you said
earlier on that we are throwing everything up in the air, we need
to be clear about this. We are saying city region is an important
way of thinking about the city as an economic unit. It is much
less relevant for thinking about the city in terms of service
delivery and neighbourhoods and what people identify with. So
we are talking there about probably a limited number of strategic
type interventions like transport, skills and so on, which have
a direct connection with economic performance. But in response
to your question, that is a very clear recommendation from Parkinson's
team and it is something we will take seriously and think through
but we have not yet formulated a response to that. It is very
clear from the recommendation from the report that there should
be a smaller number of interventions but those interventions at
that level should be more strategic.
Q59 Martin Horwood: One of the problems
with city regions, surely, is what happens in the bits that are
not cities and, for instance, if you taken the economic drivers
around Bristol as justifying city region status there, what happens
if Cornwall and Gloucestershire then decide they like the look
of that model and decide they have very little in common economically
with each other and therefore each wants the equivalent of city
region powers over economic planning, for instance, to be taken
back down from regional level to county level. Would you support
that?
Professor Kleinman: The point
you make is very important particularly in the relationship between
cities or city regions and regional institutions. Regional institutions,
particularly the Regional Development Agency, are the level for
taking that broader view of what is the balance between the greater
Bristol or the Bristol city region as an economic driver, if that
is what it is, and the very different needs of Cornwall or rural
parts of the South West. That is a very important point because
this agenda is sometimes presented as if it is cities versus regions,
whereas it is clear from the analysis that you need interventions
at both level. The crucial question is getting the interventions
right at each level and the balance between them.
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