Fact or Fiction?
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Fact or Fiction?The Regional Assembly is not directly elected - FACT The Regional Assembly is a 'voluntary regional chamber', formally recognised by Government, which all the South East's 74 local authorities decided to establish in 1999 to give the region a strong united voice in Whitehall and Brussels. The Assembly members are not directly elected but are nominated to the Regional Assembly by their organisations; 66% of them are elected local councillors. 75% of the local councillors on the Regional Assembly are either the Leader or Deputy Leader of their council. The Regional Assembly is not representative - FICTION The Regional Assembly has 112 members. 74 of them are local councillors elected by their communities and nominated to the Regional Assembly by the region's local authorities; three are elected councillors representing town and parish councils across the South East; and 34 represent a wide range of regional interests including the voluntary and community sector, business, environmental interests, economic partnerships, education, sport and culture and faith groups. The Regional Assembly is a quango - FICTION Quangos, also known as Non Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), are arms-length agencies run by Government appointees responsible for advising on and carrying out Government policy. In contrast, through its representative membership, the Regional Assembly gives councils and stakeholders collective influence in regional affairs - influence they would not have as individual councils or organisations. The Regional Assembly can shape the region's policies for strategic planning, housing, transport, and the environment according to its members' priorities, not Government direction. Assembly members draw large salaries - FICTION Assembly members do not get paid for being on the Regional Assembly. However, the Regional Assembly does pay allowances to those members who take on added responsibilities on the Regional Assembly's behalf. The level and terms of these allowances are agreed by the full Assembly. Of the 112 Assembly members, most (65) receive no allowance at all from the Regional Assembly. 34 receive just £625 a year as a contribution towards the costs they incur from participating in the Regional Assembly's affairs, and four members who sit on both main Regional Assembly committees receive £1,250 a year. Only eight members - occupying the offices of Chair, Deputy Chair, Assembly Vice-Chair (of whom there are four), Regional Planning Committee Chair and Vice-Chair - receive more than this as an allowance; these members spend a considerable amount of time on Regional Assembly business, for which the allowances are modest recognition. A full analysis of Assembly member allowances is available here. Assembly members are paid to travel all over the region - FICTION The Regional Assembly does not pay travel expenses for members within the region. Expenses are only paid if an Assembly Member has to carry out Assembly business outside the region or London. This is an infrequent occurrence. The Regional Assembly is an unnecessary extra layer of bureaucracy - FICTION There has been a regional level of government in England since 1992, when regional government offices were created. Many government agencies and quangos already operate at the regional level; they are accountable upwards to central Government but are largely out of the public eye. The role of the Regional Assembly is to expose the plans and performance of these agencies to greater public scrutiny and ensure that their priorities reflect those of the communities in the South East. The Regional Assembly itself is a small operation with a modest budget; it is not like the Scottish Parliament or Welsh or London Assemblies in size or bureaucracy. The Regional Assembly is a small organisation and had a budget of £4.6m in 2007-8. That is equivalent to less than 50p per person in the region each year. The Regional Assembly is just a talking shop - FICTION Besides acting as the voice of South East England to Government, the Regional Assembly has an important, statutory, role to play in region-wide planning, allowing South East England to develop economically and socially, while protecting the environment. The Regional Spatial Strategy sets out the broad strategic policies at the regional level for matters that apply across the whole region or major parts of the region, and which need to be considered on a scale wider than that of a single local authority (e.g. transport, economic growth). It sets the framework for, but does not replace, local planning. The Regional Assembly has recently submitted the South East Plan, which will cover the period up to 2026. The region doesn't need a Regional Assembly - FICTION Without a Regional Assembly to represent it South East England - the UK's largest region, with a population as big as Scotland and Wales combined - would have no collective voice in Whitehall and Westminster. The likely result would be that other regions would persuade Government to direct more resources and investment for public services away from South East England because we are seen as 'prosperous'. Without a Regional Assembly the many quangos and government agencies already working at the regional level would decide their policies and priorities without reference to the region's local communities. Without a Regional Assembly it would be Central Government who would draw up the future planning of the region, leaving local authorities and other stakeholders with no say in the future of the South East. Councils would be obliged to plan development according to Government diktat, instead of arriving at a consensus approach on the scale and distribution of future growth through the Regional Assembly. The Regional Assembly will transfer local planning decisions away from local authorities - FICTION The Regional Assembly draws up the planning framework for the region for the Government to agree, but the Local Authorities maintain control over local decisions The Regional Assembly is funded by taxpayers' money - FACT The main sources of Regional Assembly funds are grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government, and subscriptions agreed and paid each year by all the region's local authorities. The Regional Assembly has unlimited powers to raise money - FICTION The Regional Assembly's budget is a matter of open public record; it is agreed by the full Assembly each year and is published in our annual business plan which is available on our website. Spending is scrutinised by Assembly members and, being public money, is subject to regular and routine Government monitoring. The accounts are also in the public domain and are independently audited. The Regional Assembly has been set up as part of a European plan to undermine the nation state - FICTION The Regional Assembly was created voluntarily by the region's councils; it receives no core funding from, and has no accountability to, the European Union. As part of its advocacy role the Regional Assembly aims to influence the European Commission to ensure that policies reflect the interests and priorities of the region. To do that we have joined with local authorities and universities to fund a representational office in Brussels, and we work with Members of the European Parliament and the European Committee of the Regions to ensure they are briefed on regional issues. The Regional Assembly is the same as SEEDA - FICTION The South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) is a completely separate organisation from the Regional Assembly. SEEDA is a Government agency with a business led board responsible to the Department of Trade and Industry for the economic development of the South East. The Regional Assembly scrutinises SEEDA to check that its work reflects the region's priorities. SEEDA is a much bigger organisation than the Regional Assembly. The two are based in the same building in Guildford, but they do not share offices. The Regional Assembly has a big HQ in Guildford - FICTION The Regional Assembly secretariat rents one floor of one wing of an office building; this is not big enough for Assembly meetings. As the Regional Assembly meets in full only three times a year these plenary events are held at venues across the region, providing better value for money and accessibility for members. Plenary meetings in 2008 will be held in Reading, Hove and Winchester. The Regional Assembly is a limited company - FACT Like many partnerships and voluntary bodies, the Regional Assembly is set up as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee in order to have an appropriate legal entity for contracting purposes. The directors of SEERA Ltd are the Regional Assembly's Chair, Vice-Chairs and Chief Executive, and the members of the company are de facto the Assembly Executive Committee. The articles and memorandum of association for SEERA Ltd are available on the Regional Assembly website, and the accounts are filed both with Government and with Companies House. The Regional Assembly is legally constituted - FACT The Regional Assembly was set up under the provisions of Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. The Regional Assembly has no statutory role - FICTION The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 established the Regional Assembly as the statutory Regional Planning Body for the South East. In this role the Regional Assembly has responsibility for developing a Regional Spatial Strategy for the region (in our case the South East Plan), monitoring its implementation and updating the Plan when necessary.  |
