Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
SEEDA
11 MAY 2009
Chairman: Welcome to the first public
evidence-taking session of the South East Regional Select Committee.
Welcome to our guests. Would you like to start off by introducing
yourselves?
Jim Brathwaite:
I am the Chairman of the South East England Development Agency
(SEEDA).
Pam Alexander: I am the Chief
Executive of SEEDA.
Paul Lovejoy: I am the Executive
Director of Strategy and Communications at SEEDA.
Q1 Chairman: It is good to see
you all. Thank you for coming. Thank you for submitting evidence
to us. Do you want to start off by making a statement or would
you rather just go into questions?
Jim Brathwaite: We are happy to
go into questions. The only thing I would say is that I am really
delighted to be sitting here in front of some of our local MPs.
It has been one part of the architecture where we needed more
accountability. It would be better if there were more from other
parties. As we know, that is not to be. SEEDA is here to serve.
Q2 Chairman: You will not get
any argument from us. Maybe that is a place for me to start. I
will come to your responsibilities in the region in just a moment.
In the evidence we have received there have clearly been mixed
feelings. Some authorities said that SEEDA is dreadful, they do
not like it at all and they do not want to have anything to do
with it. Others have said that it is a wonderful organisation.
There seems to be a party political split there. How are you trying
to overcome that split? Do you find that some councils will not
have anything to do with you and others are only too happy to
see you, or are even the ones that are publicly antagonistic privately
helpful?
Jim Brathwaite: I think you have
really summed it up. We have 74 different councils in the South
East. That makes us quite special as a region. We have district
councils, unitary councils and we have county councils. We try
to be a bridge between our councils and central Government in
the things which the whole country is trying to achieve in terms
of the growth of the economy. We have spent a long time working
with hostile councils who did not want anything to do with regional
architecture. But here in Kent, for instance, we have been able
to work with councils of all different shapes and sizes to achieve
the end. If you look at the results we have been able to achieve,
they are pretty pleased even though they may moan on the sidelines.
Those of a different political persuasion can still be very pleased.
I am happy with that.
Pam Alexander: One of the things
we have seen through our work with the Regional Assembly which
unites us all is our understanding that the South East is both
the engine of the UK economy and a hugely diverse region and that
we have something to bring by working together will those of all
persuasions in all sectors. I would agree absolutely with what
the Chairman said. Clearly sometimes we disappoint those of all
complexions as well. For us the main thing is to get across our
focus and ensure that we are working to enable partners as well
as to support them.
Q3 Chairman: We will come back
to the sub-national review and how you are going to engage with
people a little later on. Maybe that just leads us into the question
of just how you see your key responsibilities. We know what it
says on the brief and on paper, but what is the role of SEEDA
in the South East region? How do you see it might differ in this
region from in other regions?
Jim Brathwaite: We are the largest
region, with over 8 million people, and we have a very diverse
economy. As Pam has just said, we are the leading economy in the
UK, the real locomotive. Sometimes that is challenged by London
because of the City, but you can see that when the City has a
downturn we still have to keep going. We provide 400,000 people
who go into London every day, a very important part of their work
force, but our job is to get the economy of the South East. We
help with the planning; what we are trying to do is to work with
business organisations to improve their performance, to work with
central government to let them know what the South East needs,
and to work with our local councils to deliver on the economy.
That is even more important now that local councils are being
tasked with making their local economies grow.
Pam Alexander: If I may add to
that, I would draw out two differences between us and some of
the other regions. First, we have a very, very, very small budget
in the context of a very, very large economy. Therefore, it is
really important that we do not just see ourselves as a bank to
support projects, but that actually we are about working to create
partnerships that draw mainstream funding and, through such things
as the regional funding advice and the money that we draw in from
Europe, actually leverage more public sector and private funds
into the work that we do. Secondly, because we have such high
economic activity rates in the South East we are not simply looking
to create jobs, we are looking to create high-value jobs and to
increase the skills of people, particularly in those parts of
the region that are under-performing in comparison with the average.
In a sense, we are a microcosm of the whole of the UK in that
there is as much diversity between the richest and most deprived
parts of the South East, as there is between the greater South
East and the north of the country.
Q4 Chairman: So would you say
that the South East is unique, or are there things that you can
learn with other Regional Development Agencies? Do you have discussions
with other Regional Development Agencies about best practice?
Jim Brathwaite: Yes, we do. One
the strengths of the RDA movement is that we have always had a
very close working relationship with other regions and we look
to co-operate, we look to have best practice. In fact, I will
not speak for chief executives, but I know that one of the topics
that is always on the agenda at chairs' meetings is best practice.
Each region at each meeting has an opportunity to present to the
other eight exactly what they have done which is worth looking
at and worth copying. We have had some very good co-operation
between ourselves and the north-west, for instance, on energy
policy; and with Yorkshire and the north-east on science. So we
do try to work together. London, ourselves and the eastern region
are very strong; the greater South East works very closely together.
Q5 Chairman: You have painted
this picture—as I imagine we all have around this table—of
the South East as the economic powerhouse and a key part of the
UK economy, but equally it has areas of severe deprivation, as
we can see here in Aylesham, which is hardly a wealthy community—not
far from my own constituency, large parts of Thanet, Hastings
and Brighton. What are the challenges in dealing with those sorts
of issues? In your evidence, as well, you have suggested that
the polarisation is becoming greater and not smaller.
Jim Brathwaite: One of the things
that I am most proud of is the growth that we are beginning to
see in deprived areas in the South East. You have them in Oxford,
sitting right where Andrew lives in Blackbird Leys. Also, we think
of Surrey as being leafy and wealthy, but I have visited some
estates there that have got the same deprivation problems. Unfortunately,
when you are poor in the South East in relation to the rest of
the economy, it is a lot worse. I am from the North West and have
visited areas of the North East and you do see a vast contrast.
SEEDA has tried to focus on that, and one of the tenets during
the first five or six years of our existence has been to try to
raise the economic game of those poorer areas to at least the
average of the South East. SEEDA'S board felt that that was the
most important thing for us to do, but it is a difficult trick,
particularly if you do not have all the tools that are needed.
As a comparison, Kent, East Sussex and the Isle of Wight have
together got around 2.4 million people, which is about the same
size as the whole north-east region. We have £200 million
on average to spend on 8 million people, but I would suggest that
the North East has a lot more to spend on its 2.4 million people.
Q6 Chairman: We will come to some
questions about budget in a moment, but are you consciously trying
to focus your existing budget on areas of deprivation, and have
you done any analysis of how your investment pattern merges with
the deprivation pattern in the South East?
Pam Alexander: I think it is quite
hard to do that because, as Jim has already said, a lot of the
deprivation is actually dotted around areas that appear to have
great prosperity. Parts of Oxford and urban south Hampshire, for
example, are diamonds that contain great diversity within them.
I think that the different regional economic strategies that we
have had over the past 10 years have had different approaches
to the issue. We started off with a very clear identification
of priority regeneration areas across the South East, and much
of our physical regeneration investment has been directed at the
coastal areas and some of those particular pockets of deprivation
in our cities. As we have taken the second and the third RES further
forward, we have focused increasingly on how we make our mainstream
programmes. Business support, for example, reaches out to hard-to-reach
groups to create enterprises in deprived areas and look at ways
of using our skills to upskill the work force who already have
jobs there, so that there is an opportunity to increase average
incomes and bring higher-income jobs into those areas. One of
the biggest lessons that we focused on—of which Hastings
is a good example—is the importance of treating skills as
the first route to better jobs before trying to bring in better
businesses, so that local people can actually achieve those jobs.
During the five years that we have been working in Hastings, the
average incomes have risen from 69% of the regional average to
74%. Although the index of deprivation still shows that there
are still very serious problems there, that is the sort of trend
that we hope to see.
Q7 Chairman: I presume that you
do not do that sort of work in isolation, so who are your key
partners, and how do you identify the partners that you need to
work with? Are they third sector partners or council partners?
How do you pull all those strings together to get that sort of
project moving?
Pam Alexander: We always look
first to the local authority, because we would not go to an area
without having a collaboration of willing partners in the local
authorities. We then look to be business-driven, because that
is the nature of our own ability to bring to an area links to
the private sector and, working with the community, the voluntary
sector. We always try to put that together. One of the key characteristics
of our approach to regeneration has been to try to look across
to a comprehensive approach. In the early days, it was very much
about building physical infrastructure, but it is now very much
more about working with all of the public, private and voluntary
sector partners who can increase an area's well-being.
Q8 Chairman: You said you would
only work with willing partners, which brings me back to the councils
that just don't like you on political grounds. Are they short-changing
their citizens because you cannot work with them?
Jim Brathwaite: I don't think
so. I think that when we were first on the ground, over 10 years
ago, there was a great deal of suspicion from everybody about
why we needed a regional development agency. As a businessman
in Sussex, I had been very engaged with the TEC movement, and
I remember thinking, "Why do we need yet another grouping?".
There was suspicion and everybody suffered from that. However,
SEEDA has made itself very useful. Although it did not have a
large budget, when it had money it could spend it without fear
of contradiction, and it was very good on its promises and made
itself useful. Pulling together an economic strategy for the region
was one of the first things that it did. People started to look
at that and to see how ambitious we could really get. I think
that because of that we made ourselves useful to councils both
hostile and friendly. If the Board looked at what it has done
over the past 10 years, you would hear quite a debate going on
around the table—"We have spent half our budget in
the east of the region, in the Kent area and the Sussex area,
why is that?" It is because they were the deprived areas
of the region, but then we see how we have balanced that by investing
in science and innovation to the west of the region, where they
do not need as much direct help from the Agency, but do need help
for businesses to find new markets or bring on new products. That
is what we have tried to do.
Q9 Chairman: To what extent do
you look at national priorities when you are trying to decide
regional priorities?
Jim Brathwaite: I always say that
we are a bit like Janus, we have to look in both directions—up
to Government and down to the region. For a long time we led the
RDAs on science and innovation, and we still do. What was very
apparent was that the Government were very keen to increase the
amount of economic development that we got out of our science
budget and to look at how we were spending on things. There was
a national policy that had to be translated into the regions.
In the South East, we have tried to make sure that research and
development were not just something that we did but was a business
that could produce the GVA—the growth—that we were
looking for. We have tried to do those types of things and to
work with the Government to translate policies into local activities.
Q10 Chairman: Could you do us
a little note about the efforts that you have made in terms of
science? You said that you are the lead agency in the country
on science. I would be interested to read a little more about
what you have done in that respect.
Jim Brathwaite: Delighted.
Pam Alexander: We can cover both
angles. We lead for the Department for Innovation, Universities
and Skills now, and, clearly, there are priorities set by Government
that we are linking into for the RDAs. Of course, we also have
our own Science, Engineering and Technology Advisory Council,
SESETAC, for the South East, which advises us on how best to focus
our work.
Chairman: On these general issues, does
anybody else want to come in before we move on to questions of
budget?
Q11 David Lepper: In the early
days of the RDAs there was a criticism that they would only focus
on urban areas and rural areas would miss out. Is that a criticism
that you still hear and what would you say about that early criticism
in terms of SEEDA's work?
Jim Brathwaite: Yes, I think that
there was this idea that business people don't understand rural
areas. On every committee that I have served on, before and since
I became Chairman, there has always been somebody from the rural
side and we have always had big discussions. In fact, the RDAs
fought tooth and nail to make rural things a main part of what
they did. I remember Lord Haskins producing a report that eventually
gave the economic performance for the regions in their rural states
to the RDAs. It was a great celebration at the time. We used to
hear a lot of complaints about rural policy from the Government.
I do not think that you hear those complaints now, given the economic
side of things. Farming goes up and down. If you are in livestock
farming at the moment, you are up. This time last year, the cereal
farmers were in good voice. In our region, however, farming is
very, very small, compared to the business that goes on in the
rural areas. We have more than 100,000 businesses that are in
rural areas. That is the way we live. Our housing is very much
the same. It is part of that mainstream activity. So I don't think
we have short-changed rural life at all. I think that we have
done very well by it and we continue to do so.
Pam Alexander: It might be worth
mentioning that there are several substantial programmes that
have focused specifically on rural areas, for example the market
towns initiative. We also work with Europe on its rural development
programme. Of course, even in terms of our sector consortia, which
are the seven groups that cover 25% of the businesses in the South
East and are focused on driving new products and new markets through
our most high-growth sectors, we are working very closely with
the land-based sector, to see how we can support it in terms of
diversifying rural economies. Alongside some of our physical programmes
for investing in rural buildings, that has enabled quite a large
impact to be made in small ways that trickle out into the surrounding
economies.
Q12 Mr Smith: In terms of the
overall impact and the overall difference that SEEDA can make,
partly because our region is so diffuse and so large, with a very
big economy, and you are a relatively small body, SEEDA may seem
somewhat remote and perhaps marginal to many people's everyday
concerns. To our constituents, if they were here and able to ask
you in the round what difference you have made, how would you
sum up the difference that you have made to the region?
Jim Brathwaite: In Oxford, for
instance, we have been very much concerned with the skills levels
in some of our more deprived areas, such as Blackbird Leys. We
had very early investment just in reading and writing. One of
the first surveys that SEEDA did on the skills of the region showed
that some of our basic skills were not there. That was not something
that was being addressed very well by the Government at the time.
Those skills have improved since then. SEEDA invested a lot of
money to do that. Why was that? It was because we could see the
jobs that were going to be needed in the Oxfordshire area. BMW
had come to us to talk about the expansion of the Mini and about
what they were going to invest; the local people had to rise to
that. Those were some of the things that we have done. We have
the same situation here in the coalfields, where we are looking
not only at skills but at business opportunities, including new
places where people can set up their own business. One of the
business parks that we have developed just outside Canterbury
is full now, and you would never have guessed that there would
even be a demand for something like that. However, it is there.
Pam Alexander: If we are looking
at it more generally, we would say that, whether you are a business,
an individual, a local authority or a group, we are here to help
you to improve your performance, in terms of economic growth,
and to do it in a way that gives due respect to quality of life
and all of the things that make us value living in the South East.
So we would point to the number of jobs that have been created
as a result of our programmes, the skills that have been improved
and the employment that is being created through physical regeneration
projects, which have changed the infrastructure of places to enable
them to perform better. All of those projects add to opportunity
and capacity; we believe we have added to those things. The impact
evaluation report, which was recently published, suggests that
you can translate all of that activity in the last five years
into about an additional £2.6 billion to the economy. However,
I think that that sum is quite remote from individual people.
It is actually the story in terms of new businesses, new jobs
and new skills that is really relevant to individuals in the South
East.
Q13 Gwyn Prosser: On the issue
of supporting new business, you do most of the work through Business
Links and so on. The anecdotal evidence that other MPs and I get
in meeting business people who are venturing into a new area or
starting up a new business is that so many times when they have
had their first interviews or meetings with Business Link, your
agency, they say, "We didn't quite meet the criteria,"
or: "All I was offered was a training course," or: "There
was no actual real support to fill the gap that I have."
Usually, the gap includes some measure of funding. What is your
response to that?
Jim Brathwaite: The problem with
businesses is that you cannot please them all the time. Sometimes,
the act of saying, "You need to do a bit more homework on
this business idea before you get investment" doesn't go
down too well. We have tried to improve the performance of Business
Links. They have been under the direct control of the RDAs for
a couple of years now. Although the budgets have not gone up,
the performance of the Business Links certainly has. We are trying
to see more businesses than ever before. When we do our surveys,
both nationally and locally, of how Business Links are perceived,
we get responses in the high 80s, percentage-wise. The average
is in the 90s. That is much better than Marks & Spencer gets
and other national organisations would be delighted with it, but
I am always disappointed when I hear that we have not pleased
everybody. As a businessman, I feel that we should be doing better,
but we are not always able to meet the needs of companies. We
try to review that and work as hard with the FSB and local chambers.
In fact, a local chamber will be opening up in Dover soon. I will
go along personally and talk to local businesses to ensure that
we are trying to meet their needs. You are not always able to
meet those needs, but we try our best.
Q14 Ms Barlow: You mentioned Business
Links. There have been criticisms in Brighton and Hove of Business
Links taking a lead in ways that are virtually competing with
other local business. What criteria do you use for Business Links?
Do you work only with people who come and ask for your help?
Jim Brathwaite: I have not heard
that criticism in Sussex—I know a little bit about the architecture
in Sussex, as you would expect. The core chamber down there is
also the contractor for the Business Link. It has always been
very integrated in Sussex. Whether it competes with other business
organisations is always up for grabs—they are businesses
in their own right. SEEDA has to be very careful that it contracts
the right people to deliver the Business Link service and that
they deliver good value for money. I believe that Sussex, so far,
has been one of the better-performing Business Links, but we are
always interested to hear what people have to say. We have recently
had some conversations that we can do better at to ensure that
other business organisations are supported, but I go back to what
I said to Gwyn. It is sometimes hard to please business. You are
sitting in Government at the moment so you know what it is like:
even when you are doing the right things, businesses can often
find a reason to complain.
Pam Alexander: If I may add, it
might be relevant that the task of Business Links has changed
substantially through the new business support simplification
programme. They are now focused on being a signposting service
of information and diagnostics. They then broker those into the
companies that will provide the services. Over the last few years,
since 2005, they have extended their reach to about a fifth of
the businesses in the region and more than doubled their intensive
assist to those businesses. Your particular question was how they
reach businesses. At the moment, there is a strong campaign to
try to get businesses to go to their Business Links, particularly
to get the free health checks which will enable them to take a
view of what other support they then need to go further. We are
very pleased, actually, that a campaign that they ran increased
the people coming to them by 70% over that period. They have already
given over 8,000 health checks since October. We believe this
is absolutely fundamental to helping businesses to survive the
current difficulties. If they can then be brokered on to those
who can provide them with the services, whether it is for creating
business plans or knowing where to go for finance, it is very
important. We have never worried very much about SEEDA getting
credit for the work that we do through other organisations, whether
Business Link or Finance South East. One thing that we have probably
realised is that that regional architecture needs to be more transparent
so that people know where to go for what. Finance South East is
a very important part of that picture, because it now has a funding
escalator of £20 million that can enable businesses to access
finance at any stage of development. That is a particular signpost
that we are very keen to encourage Business Link to give.
Jim Brathwaite: It reminds me
of another point on reaching out to people. In Brighton, for instance,
the Business Link set up a desk in the Western Road shopping centre
to ask people to have their free recruitment diagnostic check.
It took people several visits to believe that the service was
free. When they eventually realised, it worked. We have completed
many thousands of those in the Brighton area and they have been
well received.
Chairman: Since you are giving away things
for free, I will ask Celia to ask you some questions about the
budget.
Q15 Ms Barlow: That leads in quite
nicely. On the overall budget, you are funded by several Departments,
and the money goes into one large pot. Does this mean that you
can be completely flexible about how you use your money, or does
each Department give you specific requirements so that you have
got to spend money on what we are giving it to you for?
Jim Brathwaite: That is a knotty
question. I think that in the original idea of RDAs, there was
no extra budget, so the budget had to come from Departments. Each
Department was asked to contribute and the ones which did so were
largely the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which is now
CLG, and DTI, which is now BERR. Business and community budgets
came in and some of the other spending Departments gave some budget,
but it was very difficult, because civil servants like to give
you lots and lots of reasons how they want the money spent and
delivered, but they didn't take account of what we were seeing
in the regions and how we would like to see the money. I remember
that, when I became Chairman, I used to walk around to meetings
with Ministers and civil servants with two boxes of foolscap paper,
which were the briefings that we got on how the money should be
spent. I remember that I gave it to Mark Gibson, who was the Director
General in charge of RDAs and managing our relationship with Government—he
is retired now. I gave them to him, and when he picked them up,
I think he got the point. It then got a lot simpler and we got
a single pot. The money goes into it, but then the RDAs are allowed
to take on the targets and to spend the money where we feel that
we could make it work.
Pam Alexander: There is a two-way
process too, because, increasingly now, with the single pot, our
contract with Departments is that we will help to support them
to achieve their PSA targets. That means that we have the opportunity
to feed into those policies about how we feel that the PSA targets
need to be developed in order to support us. For example, our
region has one of the highest research and development in the
country. If we want to support that and if we want the country's
investment in R and D to increase, we need to do it in ways that
work for our businesses. One of the areas where we have gained
most in flexibility recently—in theory at least, although
we still have to test the practice—is skills, where we really
need to be able to invest in higher-level skills, not just in
level 2 and below. We were very pleased to get the Train to Gain
flexibilities that enable us to give level 2 performers who already
have a level 2 the opportunity to change their focus and retrain.
We need even more flexibility to invest in higher-level skills,
but we have been able to feed into that policy and identify how
the PSAs need to be changed, if they are to deliver for the country's
broader objectives.
Q16 Ms Barlow: The overall budget—the
single pot—is decreasing over 2007-10. Do you have plans
to compensate for this lack of funding?
Pam Alexander: May I explain first
why it is decreasing and then what we are doing about it? There
are four relevant points regarding the cuts that we are facing.
First, all RDAs faced cumulative 5% per annum cuts in the
last comprehensive spending round, so our corporate plan starts
with reductions on our previous levels of spend. We have had money
taken from our budgets to fund some of the Government's investment
in the needs of the recession, in terms of housing and business
support. We have lost about £27.5 million to those programmes.
We have a very substantial shortfall in our capital receipts,
and—frankly—planning forward we are not anticipating
planning receipts over the next two years. Hopefully, we can perform
better than that, but in terms of prudence, we take the view that
we should assume that we shall not. So that is £17 million
of our corporate plan budget, and then another £8 million
that we were hoping that we would get anyway.
Q17 Chairman: Just for the sake
of the recording, you said £27.5 billion?
Pam Alexander: Million. I would
love it, Chairman, if it were billions, but sadly it is not. We
have lost about £52 million off the corporate plan budget;
and at the moment we are working out how we should address that.
In the past six months, we have also refocused our budget very
substantially to ensure that we really are putting the necessary
focus on helping businesses struggling through the recession.
In particular, we are investing in coming out of the recession
ready for the upturn. That has required much refocusing of our
business support budgets and some very substantial cuts across
the board in the budget. We are very clear that we will not renege
on legal commitments to our partners, but we are having to face
serious disappointment in some projects and programmes that, in
all good faith, we have been discussing for quite some time. The
board has been discussing that over the past few months. It will
take a revised corporate plan to the Department at the end of
this month.
Jim Brathwaite: Sometimes you
can see where councils might be disappointed with us; we have
had to make some really tough decisions. I feel very bad about
Southampton, for instance, which has a major impact on some of
the things that it would like to do and that we encouraged it
to do. However, we cannot meet the ongoing commitment, because
we do not have the budget. There will also be things that we used
to do—involving small amounts of money that were within
our gift and area teams that would find little projects to do—that
we can do no longer. We must focus very much on major strategic
input, where we can have the biggest bang for our buck. That affects
people's view of SEEDA. I hope that it is the right thing for
us to do, but it does have an impact.
Q18 Ms Barlow: Can you say a little
more about the decreasing commitment—£115 million last
year to £33 million next year? You mentioned Southampton.
What is the decrease made up of? What were the expectations of
the people you planned to support? Why does that not meet up with
your corporate plan, and how will you manage the disappointments
or meet the expectations?
Pam Alexander: I didn't quite
recognise those figures, so perhaps we could clarify them with
you later. We had a three-year plan, and we planned ahead. With
the sort of long-term investment that SEEDA has always tried to
make, we have been heavily committed to projects. The extent to
which other projects can be brought forward will be reduced substantially
by cuts if we do not intend to cut into commitments already made.
We are looking at projects that have not yet been committed but
which we may have been working on for some time. Our focus is
on ensuring that we invest in bringing businesses through this
recession and in a successful upturn. That may mean that some
of the more community-based projects are no longer able to be
a priority. As the Chairman has just said, we are also very focused
on those programmes that will have a transformational impact.
In other words, we want to get as much bang as we possibly can
for our buck. That includes those projects that can leverage in
substantial funds from Europe. Those are the sorts of criteria
that we would be applying as we consider the priorities. We will
look at investing in the upturn and in keeping businesses going,
and ensuring that we can improve their productivity to see them
through the recession and that our programmes have transformational
impact.
Q19 Ms Barlow: In 2007-08, your
other funding came from the DCLG. The previous year it came from
a variety of sources. Is this funding unpredictable?
Pam Alexander: From Departments?
Ms Barlow: Yes, and how unpredictable
is the funding? You say that you work on a three-year plan.
Pam Alexander: The single pot
is allocated through the comprehensive spending review, so, like
most other Government agencies, we get the three-year programme.
I think that it would be true to say that the BERR Select Committee
commented that our funding has been targeted by various Departments.
Perhaps that is because we are less their children than some of
their other direct agencies. We have quite regularly faced cuts
in our budget that have been difficult to predict. We hope very
much that it is recognised generally—I believe that Chairs
in their meetings with Ministers feel it is—that we have
faced too many cuts and it is important that we are able to focus
our budgets on the tasks in hand. We do not have to negotiate
which part comes from which Department; that is done centrally.
The difficulty is that each individual Department, as it makes
its own difficult decisions in the current circumstances, may
look to that as marginal spending.
Jim Brathwaite: I think that for
a long time, RDA budgets, once they became this single part-time
deal, were ring-fenced. In the last couple of years, we have managed
our budgets very well. We have never overspent—even between
ourselves—and we have put the money where it is needed.
We have seen some people who can manage. We are business led so,
whatever the budget is, we have managed to make it work. That
meant that when these cuts came along, they were painful but we
tried to redress what we were doing to meet the budget. It is
not always the right thing to do in my opinion. When the Committee
is considering other things that go on in the region, as it will
do from time to time, it can look at the impact of what we do
and what we could have done if we had the money, particularly
in the South East; that is very important.
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