REGIONAL EMPHASIS DOCUMENT

The Executive Committee of 12 December gave its endorsement to the Regional Emphasis Document which has been prepared jointly with SEEDA and the Government Office.

The Treasury has tasked all the regions with preparing Regional Emphasis Documents (REDs) which will be used by central Government departments when preparing for the Comprehensive Spending Review. These documents need to set out how Government resources in each region might be deployed more 'smartly' to achieve, principally, competitiveness goals. The Treasury has stressed that there is no new money for the years under consideration by the spending review (2006-07 and 2007-08) and that purely bidding documents will not have influence.

The Executive Committee held a workshop at the beginning of December to debate and shape an early draft of the RED. These discussions, and other input from a wide range of organisations, were used to develop the version of the South East RED considered by the Committee on 12 December.

The South East RED distils the case for investment in the region in order for the UK to improve its competitive position globally. It outlines a range of propositions and areas of policy to deliver increased productivity and to improve public service delivery. These include:

• New ways of incresasing investment (capital and revenue) in infrastructure and public services in the South East.
• Greater regional and local discretions and flexibility in delivering Government outcome targets.

GOSE will take on board the Executive Committee's comments and those made by the SEEDA Board and make any necessary amendments to the document before it is submitted to Government before Christmas. The final RED will be posted on the Assembly's website.

SEEDA ACCOUNTABILITY

Pam Alexander, the SEEDA Chief Executive Designate attended her first Executive Committee meeting on 12 December. In the SEEDA report she told the Committee how much she was looking forward to working with the Assembly and how impressed she was with the co-operative working which was already going on in the region.

Pam formally takes over from Anthony Dunnett as SEEDA Chief Executive on 5 January 2004.

Assembly/SEEDA Board Level Liaison
The Assembly Chief Executive reported on the first board level liaison meeting which was held on 20 November. It was attended by the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of both SEEDA and the Assembly, the Assembly Vice-chairs, SEEDA board members and senior officers from both bodies.

The meeting covered SEEDA's half year performance report, follow up on the select committee recommendations, the future scrutiny programme and joint advocacy opportunities. It was regarded by all those attending as highly constructive and worthwhile.

SEEDA Response to the Workforce Skills Select Committee
The Executive Committee considered SEEDA's response to the recommendations made by the Workforce Skills Select Committee. On the whole the Executive Committee welcomed SEEDA's response. which was generally positive and constructive. However, Dr Michael Thrower, Chair of the Select Committee, raised concerns about SEEDA’s ability to monitor and influence the work of the local learning and skills councils. It was proposed that the Assembly should have a role in scrutinising the LSCs but it was felt that we should first see the impact of the imminent regionalisation of the local LSC operations.

Future Select Committee Programme

• Spring 2004: Enterprise Hubs and Clusters;
• Summer 2004: The Rural Economy Post-Haskins Review;
• Autumn 2004: Regeneration and Area Investment Frameworks.

REGIONAL PLANNING

South East Plan
The Executive Committee approved the timetable for the first stage of the South East Plan.

• Sub-regional studies, steered by local members are under
• A joint RPC and Executive Committee workshop will take place on 15 March for members to debate initial spatial options.
• The RPC on 31 March and Executive Committee on 2 April will consider reports on these options.
• A special Plenary session on 7 April will allow all members to consider the issues through structured workshops and debates.
• A programme of stakeholder workshops will be held through April and May.
• Issues and recommendations arising from these discussions will then go to the RPC on 16 June and Executive Committee on 2 July.
• A report for decision, with opportunity for debate, will go to the 21 July Plenary meeting.
• A second stage of work and debates will take place in the autumn followed by the formal public consultation at the end of the year.

The issue of housing numbers will be part of the 'spring debates'. We are currently assembling a range of information and forecasts which will allow the development of options about housing provision. These will be informed by the sub-regional studies, regional and inter-regional work being done and by current national policy. At this first stage, potential housing numbers will only be illustrative and distributions won’t be below the county or sub-regional study area level.

Regional Minerals Strategy
The Executive Committee of 12 December endorsed the proposed policy amendments to the Draft Regional Minerals Strategy and authorised the RPC to resolve any outstanding issues. Revised recycling figures provide an opportunity to mitigate the apportionments to Oxfordshire and Surrey. The RPC on 17 December approved the draft, with minor amendments, for publication. The Strategy will be submitted, along with the Waste Management Strategy, to Government at the beginning of March 2004. This will allow a single Public Examination of both the Waste and Minerals Strategies to take place in September 2004.

NEWS IN BRIEF

GOSE Report
GOSE Regional Director, Paul Martin, reported to the Executive Committee on a number of key issues:

• At the recent Regional Housing Board meeting concerns were raised about the 5% decrease in expenditure on affordable housing in the South East coupled with a 5% increase in London. Paul Martin, as Chair of the board, is writing to the ODPM to raise these concerns.
  
  
• The Local Transport Plan settlements and will be announced week commencing 15 December; the performance of, and allocations to, South East authorities, were expected to be good.
  
  
• The Chancellor’s recent pre-budget statement included an increased grant for local authorities. However the complicated equation which determines individual grant allocations means that although everyone is a winner, some have done much better than others.

Health Summit
On 1 December the second South East Regional Health Summit was held. The summit brought together key regional agencies involved in improving health and reducing health inequalities across the region to discuss how to 'join up' approaches to these issues across the South East.

A key outcome of the 1 December meeting was the signing of a Health Concordat by the Regional Assembly, GOSE, SEEDA, the Department of Health and the four Strategic Health Authorities in the region. The partnership's initial focus will be on:

• Maximising the contribution the health sector makes to the region's economic success;
• Finding measures to increase the health and life chances of the workforce in the South East and to enhance the health benefits of being in work.

Feedback from RSS Workshops

The feedback from the RSS workshops held at the November Plenary meeting can be viewed here.

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Last updated: 21 August 2007