Government to abolish West Midlands region
Jul 22 2010 By Jonathan Walker
The West Midlands region is to be officially abolished, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has announced.
Ministers have decided that the region, which brings together Birmingham, Solihull, the Black Country, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, is to go.
Mr Pickles said that he believed residents cared about their cities, counties and towns, but did not identify with "arbitrary" regions.
The decision means that the Government Office for the West Midlands, in Colmore Row in Birmingham city centre, will be closed. It employs civil servants from 13 government departments, including Education, Health, Transport and the Home Office.
Under the Labour Government, both Liam Byrne and Ian Austin spent time as Minister for the West Midlands.
England is currently divided into nine administrative regions by central government, and funding from the Treasury is sometimes provided on a regional basis.
But the had led to concern in counties such as Worcestershire or Herefordshire that their needs are ignored because the region is dominated by Birmingham.
The existence of a West Midlands region can also cause confusion because it shares the same name as the smaller West Midlands county, which includes Birmingham, the Black Country, Coventry and Solihull.
Regional offices were opened in 1994 under a Conservative government. Labour attempted to introduce regional parliaments, but this idea was scrapped when voters in the North East opposed the idea in a referendum.
Mr Pickles said: "We do not believe the arbitrary government regions to be a tier of administration that is efficient, effective or popular.
"Citizens across England identify with their county, their city, their town, their borough and their neighbourhood.
"We should recognise that the case for elected regional government was overwhelmingly rejected by the people in the 2004 North East Referendum.
"Unelected regional government equally lacks democratic legitimacy, and its continuing existence has created a democratic deficit."
But shadow communities secretary John Denham said: "The decision leaves English regions without any way of co-ordinating economic development, major infrastructure projects and the effective co-ordination of public services for local people.
"It is a decision being made under the guise of 'localism' but it will see a huge centralisation of power into Whitehall ministries," he said. "What we now see with the abolishing of the Government Offices along with Regional Development Agencies, is the abandonment of much of England to Whitehall power."
The Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "This decision has been taken at a political level, with no consultation and no thought for the effect and cost of the essential regional services these offices provide.
"We do not believe it is necessary and we will fight it along with the devastating cuts being proposed elsewhere."
