Development agencies not just capital idea
Oct 30 2009 by Tom Scotney, Birmingham Post
When Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said to a room full of Birmingham’s business leaders that the Conservatives would abolish the Regional Development Agencies, he probably wasn’t expecting a reaction quite like this.
The incredulity from the crowd must have come as a surprise to Mr Clifton-Brown. After all, aren’t RDAs redundant? A ‘tier of government which is not needed’ (except in London, according to Mr Clifton-Brown)?
But the shadow minister for international trade and development misunderstood his audience on two points.
Firstly, the London-only RDA plan reinforces the capital-centric reputation of central government, never popular here in the provinces. Secondly, it underestimates the regard in which Advantage West Midlands is held in the region.
While RDAs have never been without their problems, it’s hard to overlook the success stories involved with them. Compare the impact of the funding from AWM and East Midlands Development Agency with the frankly pathetic performance of the city council-led Be Birmingham coalition, which has sat on a pot of money intended to relieve unemployment. While the Ansty Park development looks set to become a part of an industrial future for the region, the larger part of the Working Neighbourhoods Fund was siphoned off to plug gaps in the council’s social services fund.
Critics have pointed towards the complex nature of the Be Birmingham board.
But somehow the manufacturing centre has got the go-ahead, despite involving a confusing melange of public and private-sector contributors, including RDAs that don’t usually work together, and the likes of Rolls Royce, Jaguar Land Rover and Airbus.
AWM should be congratulated for their part in setting up the manufacturing centre, especially given the constraints the budget has been placed under.
After it had to axe spending, the RDA set its stall out firmly behind business support. This might have made it unpopular among the regeneration projects of the region, but now looks to have been the right decision.
AWM was always likely to become first in the sights of the slash-and-burners in central government once the economic tide turned, largely because of their lack of public affection.
And it’s true that regional government probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to the average voter.
But Westminster, whether it’s red or blue after the next election, should consider its decentralised spending on merit, not just knee-jerk populism.
