Committe of the region

The Executive Committee on 19 October agreed nominations to Europe's Committee of the Regions:
Primary list: Cllr Gordon Keymer (CON)
Cllr Shirley Smart (LD)
Additional list: Cllr David Shakespeare (CON)
Cllr Suzie Kemp (CON)
Cllr Ken Bodfish (LAB)
Cllr June Bridle (LAB)
Cllr James Walsh (LD)
Cllr Lena Rust (LD)
Cllr Harry Rees (IND)
These nominations have been forwarded to the Local Government Association, who are tasked by Government with drawing up an English delegation of 16 members and 16 alternates that is balanced politically, geographically, by gender, and by type of local authority.

Healthy region forum

The next meeting of the Forum takes place on Wednesday 31 October from 11 am to 3pm at the Health Development Agency in Great Peter Street, Westminster. The agenda will include health service restructuring and health service performance issues, including the social care and health interface. The Forum will receive a joint presentation from Slough Council and Primary Care Trust Chief Executives on how the new approach to primary care and public health will help to address these important issues. The Forum has a core membership, but is an open meeting and all are welcome to attend.

SEEDA scrutiny

The Executive Committee on 19 October agreed to establish a series of Select Committees in the new year on aspects of SEEDA's work. Members and constituent bodies are encouraged to contact Paul Bevan with issues that might be constructively addressed through this Select Committee process. It's expected that the first committee will be established at the December meeting of the Executive. Select committees will normally sit for one full day only; members who may wish to participate in these committees should also register their interest with the secretariat.

SEEDA board membership

Four SEEDA board members will be standing down in mid-December - Jim Baker, David Rogers, Brian Davies, and Russ Nathan. Interviews have been held for their replacements and four names have been forwarded by the Government Office to Minister Patricia Hewitt. In the meantime the re-appointment terms of existing Board members have been announced as follows:
One year: Kit Oliver
Sarah Ward
Caroline Williams
Kevin Wilson
Two years: Ken Bodfish
Barry Camfield
Three years: Clive Booth
Janis Kong

The Executive Committee agreed to press the Government for greater formal involvement of the Assembly in future appointment procedures.

In brief….

The Assembly budget for 2002-03 was considered by the Executive Committee and will be looked at in detail by the Chair and Vice-chairs before being placed before the November Assembly for agreement. The budget proposed by the Secretariat would maintain local authority subscriptions at current levels plus an inflation uplift of 2%.

The Committee considered two projects for funding from the collective Government fund for regional assemblies managed by the English Regions Network. The first project aims to provide greater support to social/environmental and economic partners through the regional network, RAISE, and the second is a one year project to develop key indicators in the regional sustainable development framework.

The Committee agreed its response on the Assembly's behalf to the draft regional social inclusion statement. In addition to endorsing the detailed comments prepared by the secretariat, the Committee confirmed the significance of both the cultural and environmental aspects of social exclusion.

SEEDA corporate plan

The Executive Committee on 19 October received a brief presentation from SEEDA on the RDA's proposed approach to its corporate plan for 2002-04. A short paper reflecting the decisions of the SEEDA Board the previous day was tabled. The Committee recognised that this was a critical piece of the forward planning jigsaw for SEEDA and probably the most important one for the Assembly to scrutinise and influence. For example it will be the corporate plan that sets out SEEDA's broad spending allocations and in particular shapes how the 'single pot' will be distributed both thematically and geographically.

Principles

The Committee heard how the SEEDA Board had agreed a number of principles for the corporate plan:

1. To balance investing in success with tackling deprivation, where possible linking these two streams of activity, e.g. through harnessing the more successful areas with the less successful through supply chains.

2. To focus on outcomes - particularly the 'tier 2' outcomes in SEEDA's public service agreement with Government - rather than programmes; this will require bespoke initiatives rather than standardised programme delivery.

3. To deliver through partners rather than by direct intervention, seeking to maximise leverage and complementary funding.

4. To increasingly develop shared frameworks for action with partners as the basis for future funding and support, as already exemplified by Enterprise Hubs and Area Investment Frameworks (AIFs).

5. To avoid where possible the use of broadly cast regional bidding rounds to determine funding allocations.

6. To focus on region-wide and sectoral activities; SEEDA's support for local initiatives will be on the basis of securing a wider regional benefit.

Milestones

The Government will be setting a number of core 'tier 3' milestones for RDAs that specify the outputs to be achieved during the year. These outputs represent SEEDA's contribution to the 'tier 2' regional outcomes already submitted to ministers. In addition each region is able to identify specific output targets as supplementary tier 3 milestones. The Executive Committee expects the Assembly to be closely involved in considering and agreeing these targets, which will form a key aspect of SEEDA's corporate plan.

At the meeting on 19 October, eight possible supplementary milestones were tabled:

1. Number of businesses being incubated and progressing from incubators.
2. Number of businesses receiving specialist advice.
3. Number of businesses active in cluster, technology and learning networks.
4. Number of adults receiving basic skills training.
5. Number of adults receiving ICT training.
6. Number of adults receiving high-level skills training, with a particular emphasis on science, technology and engineering.
7. Number of businesses and individuals having broadband access.
8. For each of the above, the proportion delivered within the more deprived urban and rural areas of the region will be monitored and assessed against local needs.

Timetable

SEEDA's corporate plan must be submitted to the Government by Christmas. The Executive Committee declined to take an immediate view on the tabled papers but instead agreed that the Chair, Vice-Chairs and Chief Executive should be delegated to discuss the detail of the corporate plan with SEEDA, involving other interested members of the committee. A date is being sought for an in-depth meeting in the second half of November.

In the meantime Paul Bevan would welcome all members' thoughts both on SEEDA's six corporate plan principles and on their eight proposed regional milestones.

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Last updated: 21 August 2007