Regeneration & Renewal,
30 May 2008
With the Conservatives well ahead in the polls, David Cameron's vow to scrap regional development agencies that fail to deliver is just the latest announcement shedding light on what a Tory government would mean for the sector.
David Cameron is unlikely to be popular in the hallways of England's nine regional development agencies. His announcement last week that underperforming RDAs would be scrapped comes at a time when the Tories appear to be edging closer to power.
May has been a successful month for the Tories. With significant council gains across the country, Boris Johnson elected as London's mayor, and an impressive by-election win in Crewe and Nantwich, it's fair to say that the party is finally a serious contender for government. And that means their policy ideas need close consideration.
The most recent announcement on RDAs is not an empty warning. Cameron made his threat at the launch of the Richard Report, a wide-ranging and heavily critical study for the Tories of the Government's business support network (R&R, 16 May, p1).
It is perhaps unsurprising that the report was critical. Its author, Doug Richard, is well known as a hard-nosed serial entrepreneur and a former Dragons' Den panellist. Flanked by a range of experienced business people and venture capitalists, the view from the outset was that business support is something which should be done by business people, not public officials.
The Richard Report shows that the Tories are beginning to stitch together a set of ideas across the fields of regeneration and local government. The direction of travel suggests a move to greater electoral accountability and more localised service delivery.
First, the emphasis will move away from executive agency delivery. The Conservatives have long been suspicious of RDAs. The party sees them as distant and unaccountable, and so, along with national regeneration agency English Partnerships and the learning and skills councils, they have become political cannon fodder for the Conservative front bench.
RDAs slot awkwardly into the public sector landscape, making them easy targets. They were originally designed as delivery agencies for regional politicians, but when plans for elected regional assemblies were abandoned, the rug was pulled from beneath them. It also hampers their case that they are a favourite of former Treasury official and Brownite loyalist, Ed Balls. This has encouraged the Conservatives to look at how they can be reshaped.
Second, the Conservatives are in favour of handing control over regeneration and strategic planning back to local politicians. However, there is no detailed framework for this. In part, this may be because Cameron is aware of the dangers of promising wholesale devolution. Questions remain in the higher echelons of his party as to whether councils have the capacity to deliver. It was the Tories, after all, who were the original centralisers.
There are other wrinkles that need to be ironed out. For instance, the Conservatives have criticised the Government's review of sub-national regeneration and economic development, but would their approach be that different? The party believes town halls are sometimes too parochial in their outlook to undertake strategic planning and regeneration responsibilities. So what would the Tories do if RDAs were scrapped?
One option is reflected in the 2007 report by Lord Heseltine's Cities Task Force. Lord Heseltine strongly backs city-regional governance structures and executive mayors. However, this would require significant reform of local government. Direct intervention from central government would be necessary for this long-talked about, never-delivered, dream to become reality, and it's unclear whether the Tories are prepared for the firefight with town halls that would be inevitable if they were to try to introduce it. Cameron went to the Local Government Association conference and promised there would be no forced restructuring of local government. Yet the Labour Government's experience is that profound restructuring of local government just will not happen unless it is imposed by Whitehall.
Finally, the party wants to see a greater focus on the private sector. A recent report by Cameron's favourite think-tank, the Policy Exchange, has cast into doubt whether Labour's city regeneration spending programmes have had any tangible success. Instead, the party is moving towards widening access to start-up finance and improving the tax arrangements around the Alternative Investment Market at the London Stock Exchange. This attempt to stimulate business formation could be a radical departure from the Labour Government's approach to regeneration, but it is as yet unclear how far the Tories are prepared to go.
There is still a while to go before a general election and it is by no means certain that the current momentum behind the Conservative Party will last. If the emerging agenda is anything to go by, there will not be one day of big regeneration announcements. Instead, creeping reform is more likely, with RDAs' powers slowly being chipped away and local government gradually empowered.
- Nick Cuff is public affairs manager at think-tank the Local Government Information Unit.
POSSIBLE TORY CHANGES
- Remove underperforming RDAs: David Cameron said that RDAs which fail to deliver will be removed. But it is unclear how their performance would be assessed.
- Flexible spending: Shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles pledged that a Conservative Government would remove ring-fenced grants, allowing local authorities to identify their own spending aims.
- More mayors: Lord Heseltine proposed creating elected mayors in city-regions outside London.
- Abolish regional spatial strategies: Eric Pickles said a Tory Government would drop these plans. It is uncertain if they would be replaced.
- Improve access to start-up finance: The Richard Report proposes a banking finance group to improve equity loans from banks.
