10 November 2006
Town halls this week set out their wish list for economic devolution within the context of the sector's white paper – urging ministers to establish new funding streams for sub-regional transport, skills and planning regimes.
A Local Government Association study lays out town halls' expectations now that ministers have proposed boosting local economies operating across existing authority boundaries.
It attempts to supersede debate around the 'best' form of governance at sub-national level and calls for a flexible approach to devolution that would create a mix of powerful economies representing city-regions, sub-regional hubs of towns, and counties.
Speaking at a New Local Government Network conference on November 7, LGA chair Sandy Bruce-Lockhart demanded sub-regional powers over 'labour market intervention, skills development, transport and infrastructure, and house building and regeneration.
'Some of these things need analysing and deciding more locally, like library provision and street cleaning arrangements. Some things need analysing and deciding regionally – [like] strategic trans-regional transport and inward investment,' he added.
The Treasury will publish final proposals for economic devolution alongside the Comprehensive Spending Review next summer.
In the meantime, the LGA's Prosperous communities: beyond the white paper, states: 'There is still some distance to cover before we get a consensus on how to get the right decisions taken, and the right funding streams spent at the right tier of sub-national government.'
Targeted devolution along the lines of the LGA's three-pronged approach would best allow local government to close the regional productivity, employment and exclusion gaps between Britain and its European Union counterparts, it argues.
Decisions over exactly how sub-regional programmes would be established should, Bruce-Lockhart later said, be made by local government and its partners within Local Strategic Partnerships.
Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly, speaking at the NLGN conference, indicated that the precise nature of the government's devolved economy was still up for grabs. She said: 'We have set the direction for further change [through the white paper]. And there is more to come. In moving forward we will continue to follow the principle that we need decisions to be made at the right level to achieve the best outcomes.'
The LGA believes that Kelly's plans for Local Area Agreements and wider Multi-Area Agreements, outlined in last month's white paper, make its aims achievable.
One supportive town hall chief executive told Public Finance: 'The LGA's study is all about realpolitik. It largely accepts the government's assumptions on devolution… and its focus is on how to turn that into workable, sub-regional policies that will maximise the benefit to local and national economies.'
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