19 July 2007
CSS responds to Government’s announcement
CSS, CEDOS and the LGA have already identified that sub-regional areas are more influential than Regions in shaping economic activity.
In April this year, CSS called for a fresh look at economic policy and delivery. It was felt then that the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review would provide a unique opportunity to set a new framework to enable councils to make a step-change in regional and national economic performance. CSS argued that the Government and the regional agencies should not be prescriptive. They must devolve real responsibility to local and sub-regional partnerships to take action that meets the needs of their areas.
President of CSS, Richard Wills, broadly welcomed the Government’s announcement:
“The joint CSS/CEDOS report, ‘Making the Most of Our Economic Potential – Looking Beyond the Core Cities’, has demonstrated the importance of involving strategic councils in economic regeneration. The Government’s proposals have the potential to ensure that money made available regionally is used to enable sub-regional areas contribute to the UK economy more effectively.”
CSS welcomes the duty that will be placed on local authorities to prepare economic plans and the reform of relationships of central government with regions and local authorities.
Richard Wills added:
“CSS looks forward to the details that will emerge in the consultations on options for LABGI and the new duties.” Expressing a cautious note, he added: “In particular, we will wish to examine closely the precise role played by the RDAs in planning and transport strategy development. We do not want to see further diminution of strategic councils roles in these matters. We shall be contributing fully to the debate.”
The appointment of Ministers for the Regions may well provide the political link that has been missing in providing a legitimate democratic basis for the regional tier of governance. However, CSS believes in the primacy of local government in delivering services and in shaping the places where people live. Indeed, the introduction of Regional Funding Allocations has demonstrated that leaders of local authorities have to be fully involved in signing-off the recommendations. Although this may not have been formally part of the process, the reality was that the recommendations would not have been agreed by Regional Assemblies without Leaders playing a major part.
Miles Butler, Chairman of the CSS Planning & Regeneration Committee, has been promoting the CSS case for greater devolution to local government for some time. He said:
“It does appear that the Government is taking seriously the need to join up thinking at the regional level for economic, environmental and social plans. Local authorities have taken a broader perspective of these factors for some time, albeit within a statutory framework that has required a plethora of different plans. The integration of regional economic and spatial strategies at a regional level is an obvious step forward.”
ends
Media contact
Barrie Hedges, Daybreak Communications office 0845 644 3845; mobile 07899 923756; barrie.hedges@daybreakcomm.co.uk
Notes for editors
- CSS represents local authority chief officers who manage some of the most pressing issues facing the UK today. Membership is drawn from all four corners of the United Kingdom with members responsible for three-quarters of the road network, two thirds of the land area and just under half of the population of England and Wales.
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