Regional development agencies have a place
Criticising what regional development agencies do is easy but doing without the RDAs may still be hard. The Conservatives are pledged to axing the state agencies but should their powers be passed up to central government or passed down to an even more local level?
Business may lead the critics of the nine regional agencies but it wants to keep them. It is wary of seeing Whitehall take control of decisions made in the North-west or East Midlands, but it also fears that local councils cannot make the strategic decisions that affect planning or transport. Some regions comprise more than three dozen local authorities of different political colours and conflicting agendas.
The RDAs consume £2.3bn of cash but the Department of Business reckons every pound spent adds £4.50 to the regional economy. That may include an element of accounting spin, but having a champion for each region does produce a local pride, an element of competition and the force to fight for landmark projects.
Inevitably an area like London (whose development agency was established by Labour mayor Ken Livingstone but will survive under the Tory plans now conservative Boris Johnson is mayor) spends almost the least and adds the most to the economy while the North-east and Yorkshire are among the regions consuming most cash but providing the lowest gains. But so long as all add some value there is some value is keeping them.
All the big business organisations – the CBI, British Chambers of Commerce and EEF – are united in wanting to keep the RDAs. The suspicion is the Tories want to axe them because Labour created them 10 years ago.
A change of government risks much such “kitchen sinking” – chucking out projects simply because they were the previous administration’s ideas. It will mean throwing out a lot of healthy babies with the bathwater, however. The RDAs are not perfect but it is better to reform them than to abolish them.
