SOUTH EAST RURAL FORUM

The Executive Committee on 18 January voiced concerns about the Regional Assembly representation on the proposed South East Rural Forum. The Forum, which is being established as a result of the Rural White Paper, is intended to be a regional sounding board on rural issues.

Following a review of rural policy arrangements in the region, GOSE has produced a prospectus for establishing the Forum, and inviting nominations from the Assembly.

Assembly membership on the forum

The prospectus recognises that a wide range of representative bodies need to be included in the Forum, but proposes a Regional Assembly representation of only one person. The Executive Committee took the view that this was wholly insufficient and did not reflect the role of the Assembly as the representative voice of the Region. Members were also critical that one Government department (i.e. DEFRA) should be setting up a new body alongside existing representative arrangements. Parallels were drawn with the creation of Regional Cultural Consortiums in 1999; these are now under review in order to strengthen the integration of cultural policy with wider regional strategies. Such departmentalism is viewed as preventing the more joined-up policy making that most agree is required if the complex challenges facing rural communities are to be effectively addressed.

SELECT COMMITTEE

The first Select Committee to be convened under the Assembly's stronger accountability arrangements with SEEDA will meet on 22 March and 18 April. The focus for this first Select Committee will be SEEDA's impact (past and potential) in areas of economic success. Economic partner Vice-Chair, Mike Geddes will chair the committee, which plans to meet for a full day at its first sitting and a half day on its second sitting. The Committee will be inviting evidence on the economic development issues in the Thames Valley, Oxfordshire and Basingstoke, and will review the RDA's interventions to assist in addressing them. Nominations are now being sought for members to sit on the Select Committee from each of the party and partner groups on the Assembly. Please contact the secretariat if you are interested in participating.

SEEDA CORPORATE PLAN

The Executive Committee on 18 January considered the full draft of SEEDA's Corporate Plan as submitted to Government on 21 December 2001. A response from Government is expected by the end of January.

In the meantime, members of the Executive Committee reiterated concerns about the lack of explicit targets for affordable housing units in the Plan. Jeff Alexander of SEEDA agreed that affordable housing is very important to the economic development of the South East but reminded the Executive that SEEDA can only generate affordable housing through their direct developments. For the future, the Brownfield Land Assembly Trust (BLAT) will be a key mechanism for delivering affordable housing. BLAT is currently in its early stages and SEEDA feel that it would be unrealistic to identify targets within the two year timeframe of the Plan. However, the Executive Committee were assured that SEEDA do regard affordable housing as an important element of their direct development projects and are committed to meeting or exceeding local authority targets for the percentage of affordable housing units in direct development schemes.

Copies of the draft Corporate Plan can be found in the executive committee section of this web site.

REGIONAL ECONOMIC STRATEGY REVIEW

SEEDA will be holding 12 consultation events through February and March. Six of these will be morning events with a sub-regional focus. The afternoons on each day will then be devoted to pan-regional forums on key issues. The dates, venues and themes are as follows:

There will also be a day event on Sustainable Development on 13 March at Gatwick.

Assembly officers will be attending all these events. Members of the Assembly wishing to sign up should contact Iolanda Ribes-Guerrero on 01483 484234.

RULES OF DEBATE

The Executive Committee on 18 January agreed simplified Rules of Debate that will apply at the forthcoming plenary on 13 February at Reading. It has for some time been felt that the language and procedures of local government, which can predominate at Assembly meetings, discourage the participation of the Assembly's social/environmental and economic partner representatives.

The new Rules of Debate will be an addendum to the agreed Rules of Procedure. They are a simplified version of those used by most associations. They endeavour to avoid jargon that is familiar to some but confusing to many.

An innovation that links to the new Rules will be the use of coloured forms at each plenary meeting. Members will be required to hold up their form to indicate their wish to contribute to debates and also when votes are taken by a show of hands. This will avoid the risk of observers inadvertently being invited to speak or counted in votes.

The Executive Committee has agreed to implement the Rules with a review of them in 12 months. It was also agreed that all card ballots, excluding elections to Assembly offices, would be a matter of public record.

A copy of the Rules of Debate will be provided to all members prior to the February plenary.

REGIONAL PLANNING COMMITTEE

The Executive heard a brief report from Cllr Nick Skellett, Chair of the Regional Planning Committee (RPC) on the meeting, which took place on 8 January 2002. The RPC agreed at the meeting to hold a special meeting of the Committee on 1 February to discuss the Planning Green Paper. This will allow Assembly officers to report back to the Committee, prior to their debate, on comments from the Strategy Advisory Group meeting on 21 January and the Local Authorities Chief Executives (LACE) meeting on 22 January.

The special meeting of the RPC will take place on the morning of Friday, 1 February at the Institute of Materials in London.

Cllr Skellett also reported that the RPC expressed robust criticism of the Heathrow Terminal 5 decision, which was made in November. It was felt by the committee that Stephen Byers needs to re-consider urgently his decision with regard to improving public transport links to Heathrow, the issues of night noise and a third runway at Heathrow Airport. The RPC will be making strong representations to the Secretary of State on these points of concern.

IN BRIEF….

• The Executive Committee on 18 January formally agreed the Assembly Budget for 2002-2003. The Committee, however, voted against the Chief Executive's recommendation to establish a Budget Reference Group to act as a sounding board on the preparation of the Assembly's budget
  
  
• At the Executive Committee in September, concerns were raised about the proposed reorganisation of ambulance trusts in the South East. Paul Bevan informed the Executive on 18 January that Ministers have decided not to go ahead with the proposed reorganisation.
  
  
• As Allan Willett is stepping down as Chairman of SEEDA in December 2002, GOSE is intending to start recruiting his successor before Easter. The Regional Assembly has been invited to propose possible successors.
  
  
• GOSE has appointed a new Director for Kent and Medway, Mark Bilsborough. Mark has been in post since December and will be taking over the responsibilities which Andrew Campbell held.
  
  
• Kate Morrison has joined the Assembly's planning team as Regional Analyst. Kate will be responsible for setting up and running the Assembly's GIS system.

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Last updated: 21 August 2007