A stronger role for regional assemblies

The Executive Committee on 27 April agreed our response to the Government's consultation paper – ‘Strengthening Regional Accountability’ (reported in Bulletin 19). We will be making five points:

Firstly, the Government should make it clear that each of the RDA's regional targets should be negotiated and agreed with its regional assembly. Secondly, the 'light touch' approach of the proposed funding regime is welcome; while it is reasonable for assemblies to account for money they receive from Government, there should be wide scope for each Assembly to strengthen accountability in ways that suit its particular region.

Thirdly, we shall be calling for assemblies to be allowed to develop their scrutiny role on a broad agenda, not restricted to RDA activities. If the assembly is the voice of the region, it has a place in reviewing regional plans and actions beyond economic development - such as environment and health.

Fourthly, we shall be pressing for submissions to the Government for the promised allocations of £500,000 a year to be processed quickly. With Regional Economic Strategies up for review in 2002, it is important that we embark as soon as possible on measures to improve regional intelligence and public awareness.

Finally, we will be stressing the importance of monitoring the success of the joint projects funded with the additional fund of £1 million to be made available to regional assemblies collectively in 2001-02. It may be more appropriate in future to distribute this extra money directly to each assembly.

Our full responses on the Assembly's behalf to both the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions’ consultation and to the Arts Council's proposals will be posted on our web site. The consultation deadlines are 9 May and 15 May respectively.

The New Arts Council of England

The Executive Committee considered the proposals from the Arts Council to replace the current regionalised arts development arrangements with a single national body, the New Arts Council of England (ACE). The plan abolishes the ten Regional Arts Boards (RABs) and creates regional offices of the New ACE on Government Office boundaries.

Stephen Phillips, the Cultural Consortium's Executive Committee member, explained the two distinct issues at stake. The first is whether the two RABs covering the South East (South East Arts and Southern Arts) should merge. This is quite separate from the proposals to replace the RABs entirely with regional offices of one national body, the New ACE.

On the first point, the Committee recognised the balance to be struck between operational effectiveness and strategic impact. It is important for arts development staff to liaise closely with their localities, and the larger the region covered, the more difficult this is. However there is a view that, in spite of being the UK's largest region, the South East's poor share of arts development resources has been at least in part due to a dissipation of influence. A single arts development body for the region could ensure the South East ‘punches its weight’ in the competition for investment in the region's arts economy. This has already been acknowledged in their own spheres by both Sport England and the regional tourist boards.

On the plan to abolish RABs, the Committee took the strong view that this would be an unwelcome, centralising outcome. The RABs are independent charitable companies with membership drawn from across their region – including elected councillors, arts practitioners and administrators. The New ACE proposal to create an Advisory Board in each region underestimates the important contribution made by councils to arts development. The Committee feared that the highly centralised New ACE would ride roughshod over regional and local priorities, dictating the extent and content of the arts from London. The regional voice would be disempowered, and subsidiarity – i.e. the merit of taking decisions as close to the ground as possible - undermined.

Foot and Mouth Disease

The Executive Committee received an update on the impact of foot and mouth disease (FMD) from Alison Parker, the new MAFF director in GOSE. She explained that there had been very few cases in the South East, with those areas previously at risk shortly to be declared risk-free. This reinforced the importance of working now to rebuild the rural economy, and the particularly urgent need, at this time of year, to promote the region's tourism industry.

The Committee expressed its disappointment that Government funding was being directed only towards those regions where the incidence of FMD was highest, rather than those for whom the economic impact was greatest. As the UK's gateway region the South East stands to suffer most from the downturn in overseas visitors. SEEDA director Jeff Alexander reported the progress of the regional ‘rapid response team’ created to focus business support efforts, and confirmed that SEEDA had allocated £500,000 to support tourism in the South East.

The Assembly's member of the rapid response team is rural community councils representative, Jeremy Leggett (email: jeremy.leggett@srcc.org.uk). The team is tasked with producing a regional recovery plan; its business can be accessed via the SEEDA web site on www.seeda.co.uk.

Assembly Business Plan 2001-02

The Government timescale for taking assemblies’ submissions for their £500,000 allocations is 29 June. In the meantime the Executive Committee on 27 April debated a draft business plan for this year that includes actions and assumes resources arising from the Assembly's stronger accountability role. Anticipating drawing down the full £500,000 from central Government, the Committee asked the Chief Executive to work to a total budget of £1.705m, to include, on auditors’ advice, a contingency reserve of £50,000. The plan and budget will be finalised at the next meeting of the Executive. Because of the changed date of the local elections, this has been postponed from 8 June to 22 June.

Area Cost Adjustment (ACA)

The Assembly's ACA Steering Group on 1 May focused on the threat to post-16 and schools funding posed by present Government reviews of grant distribution to Learning and Skills Councils and Local Education Authorities. Our aim is to ensure that the full costs of service delivery in the region are properly recognised in future funding formulae.

In brief

• Economic partnerships in the region have concluded agreements with SEEDA that clarify respective roles and provide funds to support the partnerships’ contribution to implementing the region's business development strategy.
• The European Union's Second Cohesion Forum takes place on 21-22 May in Brussels. This will consider the future of EU structural funds following the enlargement of the Union. The South East delegation will include Joint Europe Committee Chair Cllr Don Turner and Assembly Chief Executive Paul Bevan.
• The timescale for the secretariat's office move has slipped marginally, and is now scheduled for late May. All our contacts will receive separate notification of this change when the move occurs.
  Our new address will be:
• Berkeley House,
  Cross Lanes, Guildford, GU1 1UN
  T. 01483 555200; F. 01483 555250
  E-mail and web addresses will remain the same.
• Further key appointments have been made to the Assembly's planning team. In late May Ray Bowers joins us from West Berkshire as Head of Spatial Planning. In the meantime two new regional planners will start with the Assembly on 8 May; they are David Payne, from the Environment Agency, and John Pounder from consultants ECOTEC.

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Last updated: 21 August 2007