Memorandum submitted by the County Councils
Network
The County Councils Network is pleased to provide
evidence to the Select Committee Inquiry into the Role of Regional
Development Agencies. The County Councils Network represents all
37 English Shire Counties, which in turn represent 48% of the
population and provide services over 87% of the land mass of England.
In June 2008, the CCN submitted a response to
the Government's consultation "Prosperous Places: taking
forward the review of Sub National Economic Development and Regeneration".
In this, the CCN welcomed the intention to:
— strengthen the role of local authorities
in leading and shaping economic development and regeneration in
their areas and at sub regional and regional level;
— streamline regional governance arrangements;
and
— integrate regional strategies to
derive efficiencies and a more effective and joined up policy
approach.
However, the CCN also expressed concern that
the proposals in the consultation document would not help achieve
these outcomes. We set out a number of points of principle that
underpinned our response. Several of these related to the proposals
for RDAs:
— The consultation document refers
to "strengthening the connection between citizens and the
decisions being made to help chieve prosperity and quality of
life in the areas where they live and work". However, the
proposals would weaken this connection by transferring key powers
and functions to unelected RDAs, marginalising locally elected
politicians.
— The proposals to transfer key powers
and functions to RDAs (principally but not exclusively planning
functions) would lead to an unacceptable democratic deficit. Moreover,
the functions in question are not ones in which RDAs have any
experience. The skills to produce regional strategies currently
lie with local government and regional assemblies, and RDAs have
no experience of the legal implications of the Examination in
Public.
— If one of the aims of the SNR is
to streamline regional governance arrangements, the proposals
would not achieve that. Each region would have an enhanced RDA,
Leader's Forum, local authority scrutiny arrangements, separate
arrangements for stakeholders, a regional select committee, and
new, potentially statutory, sub regional arrangements. Such arrangements
would not result in any degree of streamlining or reduction in
cost from the current regional landscape.
— The SNR should recognise that all
regions are different. There should be no "one size fits
all" solution either to local government structures in the
region, or to the wider strategic economic development issues.
The options proposed for regional flexibility appear to be almost
entirely confined to the organisation of local government representation
within fixed structures. There was no discussion of the potential
for flexibility in responsibilities.
— Despite the stated intentions around
devolution to local government, the proposals would not lead to
any significant increase in local government functions and responsibilities.
It could conversely lead to a decrease in those functions and
responsibility. In practice it is difficult to discern what is
being devolved to the local level.
— The language of devolution in previous
documents has been replaced by the language of delegation in the
latest consultation. These terms are not synonymous and CCN considers
that there should be devolution to local government, not simply
delegation.
These principles also form the basis of this
submission. Below we address the areas of the inquiry's focus
to which these
principles apply.
THE NEED
FOR A
LEVEL OF
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/
BUSINESS/ REGENERATION
POLICY DELIVERY
BETWEEN CENTRAL
AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
CCN believes that, wherever possible, resources
and responsibilities should be devolved—not delegated—to
elected local authority level. We welcome the proposals in the
SNR Consultation that local authorities will play an increasing
role in delivering economic development. However, the wording
in the consultation paper is ambiguous with regard to the local
authority role and does not provide a firm statement that local
authorities will be responsible for the delivery of programmes.
In our response to the SNR Consultation, we
argued strongly that there should be a clear presumption of subsidiarity,
with a duty on the RDA to devolve (not simply to delegate) with
non-devolvement only in very exceptional cases where an authority
or area has been judged to be performing weakly through the existing
Comprehensive Performance Assessment and future Comprehensive
Area Assessment process. Feedback from one region indicates that
the RDA is spending time setting out ways in which it will judge
the competency and capacity of councils. In our view, it should
not be part of the RDAs' role to assess local authorities—there
are plenty of existing process and bodies to do this; RDAs should
instead be putting their efforts into achieving genuine devolution.
We also believe that funding devolved to local
government should be devolved to upper tier authorities, as these
authorities retain the strategic overview for economic development
in their area and would provide one rather than multiple layers
of programme management. Programmes would be more easily commissioned
and co-ordinated at this strategic level.
When funding is devolved to local government,
it should be done with minimum bureaucracy. One of our member
authorities, for instance, has found that the delegation of the
Investing in Communities funding has generated levels of legal
documentation disproportionate to the amount being spent. Such
bureaucracy can cause resentment and detract from service provision,
and is unnecessary when there are already processes in place to
ensure local authority compliance.
We are disappointed that the earlier proposal
to create a statutory economic development duty for upper
tier authorities appears in the latest consultation paper to be
limited to an economic assessment duty. The economic assessment
duty appears to be simply to "inform" the integrated
regional strategy; we believe it would be considerably strengthened
by being set within the context of a duty for upper tier authorities
to lead, promote and deliver economic development and regeneration
more generally in their areas, in partnership with other authorities
and partners.
RDA EXPERTISE
CCN believes that, at this time, not all RDAs
have the expertise or the capacity to take on the new functions
proposed in the SNR Consultation.
— The skills sets required to develop
the integrated regional strategies currently reside within local
government and regional assemblies, and not with the RDAs. Considerable
additional resource is expended by local authorities (including
county councils) to support the existing process. RDAs do not
have experience, for instance, in the Examination in Public process.
This will entail having regard to legal processes, including human
rights legislation, to a much greater degree than in the preparation
of the regional economic strategies.
There should be flexibility for regions to agree
the arrangements for ensuring effective specialist capacity under
any new arrangements (for example one possibility could be the
establishment of a regional technical secretariat drawn from existing
sources to achieve a genuinely integrated single strategy, integrating
environmental, social and economic
aspects).
We are also concerned about RDAs' lack of experience
in democratic engagement. Under the proposed arrangements, RDAs
would have to work closely with elected national and local politicians,
including the new leaders' forums. This is a new role for them—in
the past they have been accountable through their sponsoring ministers
to parliament—and is an area where they would need to build
capacity.
THE CONSEQUENCES
OF EXPANDING
RDA REMIT TO
INCLUDE NEW
FUNCTIONS, AS
PROPOSED BY
THE SUB
NATIONAL REVIEW,
INCLUDING THE
DELIVERY OF
EU FUNDING
We believe as a point of principle that powers
and functions should transfer to elected local government, not
unelected
RDAs.
We strongly believe that the consequence of
transferring powers and functions to RDAs will be a democratic
deficit, leaving elected politicians marginalised and weakening
citizens' connection to decision-making. This is in addition to
our concerns about the RDAs' lack of capacity and expertise to
take on the new functions (see above).
THE ACCOUNTABILITY
OF RDAS
AND THE
PROPOSALS FOR
FUTURE MEASUREMENT
OF RDA PERFORMANCE
Should the powers and functions transfer from
regional assemblies to RDAs—a move the CCN does not support—then
the accountability arrangements must be at least as good as under
the current system. In particular:
— Preparation of the regional strategy
is not an end in itself and local government will play a key role
in implementation. Local councils, with their partners, already
determine economic development priorities for their areas through
Sustainable Community Strategies and Local and Multi Area Agreements.
It is important that these priorities inform both the RDAs' support
activity and the development of the regional strategy. The strategy
must therefore be owned by local government; the current proposals
are not sufficient to guarantee this ownership.
— Democratic involvement in the exercise
of planning functions is vital. Planning needs to be anchored
in democratic processes.
— We reject the suggestion that RDAs
should be allowed to submit a draft strategy for Ministerial agreement
even where this has not been agreed with local authorities in
the region. This would undermine the incentive on the RDA to reach
full agreement and would undermine effective implementation.
— The duty to prepare and agree the
integrated regional strategy should be placed equally on the RDA
and Local Government in the region, and strategies should be submitted
to Ministers only when they are jointly agreed.
— The RDAs should be accountable to
Local Government in the region. This accountability to local government
should be at least as important as the accountability to the Secretary
of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform which
the consultation paper suggests is the principal way that RDAs
will be held to account. Given the wider role envisaged for RDAs
they also need to be accountable to the Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government.
— The skills sets required to develop
the integrated regional strategies currently reside within local
government and regional assemblies, and not with the RDA. Considerable
additional resource is expended by local authorities (including
county councils) to support the existing process. There should
be flexibility for regions to agree the arrangements for ensuring
effective specialist capacity under any new arrangements (for
example one possibility could be the establishment of a regional
technical secretariat drawn from existing sources to achieve a
genuinely integrated single strategy, integrating environmental,
social and economic aspects).
— The arrangements set out in the SNR
Consultation for the involvement of Social, Economic and Environmental
stakeholders (including the third sector) are undeveloped, and
are far from equivalent to the role which they currently play
in the regional assembly arrangements. The consultation effectively
leaves the issue of how to engage the sub regional economic partnerships
to the RDAs, which do not have a history of engagement of this
nature.
— The scrutiny arrangements set out
in the consultation document are inappropriate. They reflect a
lack of awareness of the principles underpinning scrutiny in local
government, and of the considerable expertise that has been built
up in this area. A great deal of expertise already exists both
within local authorities and regional assemblies. Arrangements
for scrutiny of regional level activity should be separate from
the executive function (the Leaders' forum cannot be involved
both in decision making and in scrutiny of those decisions). Arrangements
should allow for scrutiny of the role of local authorities as
well as the RDA in agreeing and implementing the regional strategy.
— Effective scrutiny requires time
and resource in support. Regional scrutiny is currently funded
through the Regional Assemblies. However, it is not clear how
the government intends to fund such effective scrutiny of the
regional level by local government. The funding issue must be
fully addressed.
— The future performance framework
for RDAs, as set out briefly in the SNR Consultation, does not
appear to provide sufficient balance between economic, social
& environmental objectives to enable comprehensive scrutiny
of the work.
19 September 2008
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