Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600-619)
MR CHRIS
LESLIE
16 OCTOBER 2006
Q600 Chair: Can we begin the session
and welcome Mr Leslie, on behalf of the New Local Government Network,
and your fascinating pamphlet. Can I start by probing your apparent
scepticism about the value of city-regions? Do you believe that
better performing city-regions would help the economic development
of under-performing regions or not?
Mr Leslie: I should thank the
Committee first of all for inviting me and conducting this inquiry.
I need to preface my comments on city-regions to make a distinction
because I think city-regions, like cities, exist. Whether you
see them as travel-to-work areas or amalgamations of authorities,
they are a fact of geography and of demography. Our scepticism
as set out in the pamphlet produced over the summer was much more
directed at the concept of political institutions forming around
the notion of city-regions. I am, in a way, very pro city-regions,
working in collaboration, in federations, the idea that various
local authorities within what might be described as a city-region
can come together to work successfully. I am more sceptical about
the concept of fitting everywhere an additional layer above local
authority level just in what might be known as the city-regions.
I hope that helps clarify.
Q601 Chair: To a certain extent,
although part of the idea expressed in the publication appears
to suggest that the city-region model might weaken RDAs and therefore
presumably disadvantage those parts of a region that were not
within the city-region.
Mr Leslie: The basic premise of
the argument is that all corners of England deserve and need powers
in order to generate economic growth, prosperity, decent-quality
public services, and we are at a point in the development of the
British constitution where we now have Scottish and Welsh devolution;
London governance, because London is a particular case; and yet,
in the rest of England we have this debate going on about what
form of devolution we are heading towards. Whereas I think there
are strong arguments around certain of the core city conurbations—Greater
Manchester, Birmingham—where people naturally see a concentric
so-called urban area, the city-region institutional model does
not necessarily fit as readily on other parts of the country:
the North East, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire in particular.
We know quite a lot about the question of the comparison, how
a lot of people in London, for instance, will see themselves as
Londoners rather than Islingtonites or Camdenites or Lambethites,
whereas in West Yorkshire, for example, people will not see themselves
as a Leeds City-Regioner; they will see themselves as from Bradford
or from Wakefield or from Leeds itself. This question of identity
does matter. We are in a constitution with a great history that
goes back a long way. You cannot fit a neat administrative model
of a particular institutional design everywhere across the whole
of the country. It was for that reason that we wanted to voice
a note of caution about having one model of governance that would
apply to all areas in that way.
Q602 Mr Betts: Is the reality not
that even outside London the cities are the powerhouse for economic
growth? Is it not more realistic to build governmental structures
on the basis of an economic footprint which actually relates to
the way that people live their lives, when you might look at regional
boundaries and say that, very largely, they are a government convenience?
Sheffield has precious little in common with Whitby, and one end
of the South West is certainly an awfully long way from the other
end of the South West, and people really do not relate to those
sorts of ways of administering government at all.
Mr Leslie: No, and I think some
of the argument about the Government Offices for the regions design
has perhaps put some of the rationale behind the "no"
vote in the North East back in 2004, why in the South East there
is a disjoint between what the public feel is the relevant salience
of governance to the way that the Government will administer issues
on a Government Office region basis. The problem with city-region
institutions is that, whereas there may well in reality be city-regions,
where you draw the boundary is of course less clear-cut. To simply
draw a boundary around a Greater Sheffield or a Greater Leeds
would invariably mean somebody being on the other side of that
boundary, and a lot of debate and discussion about structures,
institutions, who is in, who is out. Those are the sorts of discussions
that I think can be quite a distraction from some of the more
important work about what actual policies you are going to pursue
in order to boost economic prosperity and improve public services.
If we get into a whole argument about regions versus city-regions,
I think that is quite a distraction and I worry slightly that
if we end up drawing boundaries for new institutions around part
of England but not including all of England, in some respects,
we are going to just perpetuate another disagreement about who
is in, who is out, why one area has certain powers, why another
area does not.
Q603 Mr Hands: A follow-up question.
You are sceptical about the need, if I heard you correctly, to
have an additional layer of government. Is that informed by an
experience with the North East referendum two years ago? Secondly,
what if there is not an additional tier of government, and the
city-region government effectively replaces one of the existing
tiers of government?
Mr Leslie: In the pamphlet we
argue that really, as far as the public are concerned, the clearest
identity, relationship within a constitution, will either rest
with the national Parliament at Westminster or with local government.
Any institutions that have ever tried to be established in between
those two primary poles, even to a certain extent past-national
at the European end, have always slightly struggled to gain popular
salience and recognition. I do not think it is impossible to have
strong, good governance in between those. I think the Greater
London Assembly model of the mayor in London does work because
of the nature of London; it relates to the actual place, but in
a lot of areas we would struggle to see anything stronger than
the local authority lead really garnering much public support.
I would not say in one part of the country it would not be possible
to have strong regional government or city regional government.
It may well be possible for Greater Manchester or for the North
East. All I am saying is that we should not assume we can impose
a uniform model or a layer everywhere across all of England.
Q604 Lyn Brown: Can I ask you a really
straight question: is it that you simply do not like the idea
of city-regions governed by elected mayors?
Mr Leslie: No. I believe—and
this relates to Mr Hands' question—if you have strong local
authorities, if you know what the institution is, what it does,
what its purpose is, then you can decide what sort of leadership
you want for that institution. So a strong local authority can
have an elected mayor and be successful, if it works and people
are happy with that. So too, I do not see why in a Greater London
city-region you cannot have a mayoral arrangement on top of that.
What I think we have done, for some reason, is had a discussion
about governance that puts the leadership question before deciding
what sort of institution we need, what reason we need institutions
for, what the purpose of them will be, if you see what I mean.
You need to draw a conclusion about why you need a governance
institution before you then decide what sort of leadership it
should have. I am not against elected mayors per se.
I just think we have to be careful about the way we design our
constitution, so that it has as much public support and relevance
as possible.
Q605 Lyn Brown: You suggest that
outside London there is a natural identity with large cities which
would make it difficult to create city-regions. First of all,
I would take issue with what you said about being a Londoner:
I never call myself a Londoner; I am always an East Londoner;
I am a West Hammer. There are also issues outside of London. I
just wonder whether or not the model you have created is OK for
Yorkshire perhaps but not for the West Midlands.
Mr Leslie: I am fairly relaxed.
We put a chapter in the report about variable geometry, that rather
clunky term think-tankers use to basically explain that there
is a case to be made for having a different governance arrangement
in some parts of the country to others. I can imagine a Greater
Manchester, for instance, that would say "Yes, we do have
a common interest." It should arguably have a city-region
institution above the local authorities. I can only question,
though I suspect most of those local authorities might be a little
wary of that layer, because people in local government are quite
naturally and rightly jealous of the powers that they have because
they are the primary local democratic institution in that area.
It is possible that we could end up with the Manchester leaders
coming together so frequently that they want to form an assembly,
that they want to have a single mayor, but I am slightly sceptical
that that will happen voluntarily.
Q606 Lyn Brown: You mean turkeys
do not vote for Christmas. But do you not think that in a situation
where perhaps something like that was imposed upon Manchester,
with a Greater Manchester happening, that over time people would
begin to identify themselves with Manchester as the tier of government
became more powerful and more prevalent?
Mr Leslie: Sometimes having these
institutions put in place by legislation, the public, who are
not as interested in the detail as we are, will accept but my
feeling about constitutional development is that it is far better
to do these things by persuasion and through evolution rather
than having the centre always impose a model which will potentially
have elements that need unpicking years afterwards. I would not
want to intrude on the London experience, but I think if you look
at the design of the Greater London Assembly, whatever people
feel about it, the fact that there has been a very charismatic,
strong leader in London has actually taken the media and the public
view away from some of the constitutional discussions going on
between the borough councils and the GLA, where I think there
is a lot of question about how settled those arrangements are.
Q607 Anne Main: I do not want a long
answer because I am conscious that we have a lot of topics to
cover. I struggle a little bit when you say it will work in some
areas and not in others. I am beginning to get a picture of a
mosaic of what you like in some places and what you do not like
in others. My concern is where these boundaries start to overlap,
where you would get a city-region that would be quite large intruding
into perhaps the county structure as we have it now or the regional
area structure as we have it now. Can you not see that, unless
you make your mind up to have a model that works in a fairly strong
fashion, you will end up with a rag-tag of structures?
Mr Leslie: I think going down
a route which is always about new institutional layers is probably
the wrong route. We live in an era of partnerships and networks
and teams working together.
Q608 Anne Main: That is my answer
then. That is enough. Thank you.
Mr Leslie: That would be better,
to get that right.
Q609 Martin Horwood: Representing
a large town midway between two cities, in Cheltenham and halfway
between Bristol and Birmingham, a lot of what you say about identity
and the need for a variable geometry seems very sensible, very
good critique, but I am less clear about what you are actually
suggesting in place of what we have now or the city-region model.
Are you suggesting anything at regional level other than city-regions?
Mr Leslie: Yes. I think the regional
development agencies, the regional assemblies, the Government
Office arrangements that we have had for the last decade, some
going back even further than that, have gradually developed to
a point where the Comprehensive Spending Review in future needs
to grasp issues and move that next step forward. We have an accountability
deficit with RDAs and with others. The regional assemblies, representing
local authorities, are supposed to fill that gap, but I think
there is still more work to be done. The reason why I like and
prefer a whole-England approach that makes sure all corners of
the country have at least a say in the shaping of big, strategic
policy decisions—
Q610 Martin Horwood: You are actually
quite fond of the current regional structure?
Mr Leslie: I believe that the
current regional arrangements need a lot of improvement but they
are about inclusivity, about making sure that nobody is left behind,
making sure that if they break into smaller sub-regions, city-regions,
they can all relate to one another. What you do not get with the
existing regional framework is this idea of castles being built
around particular areas and those outside being left behind or
having different opportunities. I like the inclusive approach
and I think we need to build on the regions we already have.
Q611 Mr Olner: The Committee went
to Lille to have a look at their regional government and the way
they expand their regional process. In France the commune is still
really the gene that causes it all. I just wondered: if you are
going to give this freedom to regions to see what is best for
them, to see what is best where they form their regional boundaries,
what incentives are you thinking of giving to local authorities,
whether it be at city level, shire level or whatever, to come
together to form a city-region or a regional area?
Mr Leslie: I think local government
has to be the key component here in driving forward basically
most aspects of local public service delivery and economic development.
I think we need to excite and engage the leadership of those local
authorities to recognise that their destiny lies in pooling together,
working jointly and fighting for their own patch, whether it is
a sub-region or a region, much more strongly than currently takes
place. I think government could do a lot more by transforming
the way decisions are taken, pushing those out to regions, to
local government, a lot more, because if the carrot is there for
local authority leaders to grab by working together jointly with
each other, they will be more likely to do that. A lot longer
answer about the current sort of quasi-dependency culture we have
with local authorities in in relation to Ministers, where the
grant regime and other things mean that local authorities are
still too supplicant sometimes to Ministers and to Whitehall.
I think that needs bouncing radically but that is another part
of your inquiry elsewhere. There is a lot government can do to
really motivate and excite local leaders to take an interest in
the strategic policy opportunities.
Q612 Lyn Brown: I enjoyed your thesis
around local government being really important and possibly having
additional powers. To tease that out a bit more, what would you
think of? Probation service? Health service? Do you think that
would help to strengthen local government and make it more relevant
to people and, if so, given the situation that we have in London,
should it go to the big capital city, or would it be better spent
locally, in boroughs, for instance?
Mr Leslie: Again, London is a
very special place but typically I believe the default assumption
should be for local leadership over local public services. Certainly
national government has a right to set minimum standards of quality
and expectation, but we should be much more relaxed about local
variation above those minimum standards and have stronger local
leadership for most of these things. There are lots of issues
on skills, on transport, policing and health, where we could have
a lot more of a democratic impetus to spur on better delivery,
which is, I believe, one of the biggest pieces of unfinished constitutional
business.
Q613 Alison Seabeck: You talked about
the current inclusive approach of RDAs. Are you absolutely convinced
that they are inclusive? There is experience that RDAs do tend
to focus on those towns and cities that will deliver the targets
they seek to achieve and that will not necessarily mean all the
significant towns and cities in their region. Is that an experience
you recognise?
Mr Leslie: There are plenty of
failings in the existing system. I do not deny that, but I think
that route, having the opportunity for every Cheltenham or Bradford
or Plymouth or wherever to take part in the discussion about spatial
strategies, economic strategies, development and so forth, rather
than feel that they are excluded from those opportunities, is
a better foundation for policy rather than going down a fragmented
route.
Q614 Alison Seabeck: So you would
say the city-region option is potentially weakening the role of
RDAs and therefore being less inclusive?
Mr Leslie: As I said at the beginning,
I am not against city-region working on a voluntary basis, grass
roots evolving. What I query is the concept of formal legislative
statutory institutions as the alternative and the only model to
devolution as an alternative to regionalism.
Q615 Alison Seabeck: What about the
role of the RDAs therefore in reducing inequalities between regions?
Are they not actually competing with each other and therefore
how do they ensure that there is a much more level playing field
and that some of the inequalities that currently exist are ironed
out?
Mr Leslie: There is a lesser spotted
PSA2, Public Service Agreement 2, which many people often overlook,
which is one of the tougher public service agreements that the
Government has set out, and it gives a lot of that challenge to
the regional development agencies, which is to narrow the rate
of growth between the fastest and less fast areas of the country.
That is a big job and it requires serious effort. I would be very
worried if that target were to be reduced or diminished. That
really is needed much more. It does mean different parts of the
country shouting for their own corners. I do not think that is
a bad thing. Having a bit more energy and enthusiasm to persuade
inward investment to come in, whatever it takes, is a good thing.
That is another reason why a regional approach still has a lot
of legs to it.
Q616 Alison Seabeck: Your pamphlet
says that it is vital we ensure RDAs are given the freedoms that
encourage new and innovative ways of working and confidence in
the people they serve, and this means looking at how best to give
clarity to who is responsible for their work. What does it mean?
What is your evidence that the general public are exercised about
this particular issue, or is it just elected authorities and elected
members that are exercised about this?
Mr Leslie: I would not claim that
there is massive public excitement about regionalism. A lot of
it is the hard-wiring bits of governance and management within
the public service between national government and local government.
But it is a vital bit of the picture, for economy of scale reasons,
inter-city working, the specialist investment that you need. All
of these reasons drive a regional approach which you cannot do
without.
Q617 Alison Seabeck: RDAs are seen
as not accountable, something you touched on earlier, and the
inter-relationship between regional assemblies and RDAs. In producing
your pamphlet, what evidence did you get that RDAs are not being
scrutinised or are not responding to scrutiny issues raised by
regional assemblies? Certainly, we had evidence from the South
West that they really felt that some of the things they were putting
into the RDA were not being listened to. Is that something that
came out when you were doing your research for the pamphlet? If
so, how do you address it?
Mr Leslie: There is quite good
scrutiny that goes on via the regional assemblies of the RDAs
but I think it needs a lot more.
Q618 Alison Seabeck: It varies from
region to region.
Mr Leslie: It does vary from region
to region.
Q619 Alison Seabeck: Where would
you say there is best practice? I am sorry to interrupt you.
Mr Leslie: I know Yorkshire best.
I think there is a relatively good dialogue that goes on there
between the regional assembly and the RDA. The point I would like
to make though is that I believe accountability has a certain
number of prerequisites. First of all, I think you need the disinfectant
of sunlight to come on through the media or through other forms
of communication so that people know outside what is going on.
People do not truly feel as though the public can access some
of this sometimes quite esoteric regional debate. One of the ways
around this—this is why we talked about local government,
national Parliament as the two primary poles—local leaders
should take a stronger role in the scrutiny process, but national
Parliament should take a much stronger role too.
Alison Seabeck: I think we are coming
to that later.
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