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December 22, 2008 - SNR/Prosperous Places/New Build

Included in the Queen’s Speech on December 3rd was the somewhat weirdly entitled "Local Democracy Economic Development and Construction Bill". It’s a funny little Bill, the wimpish outcome of 18 months of totally dysfunctional government process which should never have happened in the way that it did. This process has had huge implications for sustainable development at the regional and local levels.Some history: On 4th November 2004, the citizens of the North East voted (by a substantial majority) against the idea of a directly-elected regional assembly. The Government’s “Big Idea” about making the English regions as dynamic as equivalent regions in Europe has ground to a halt. There was no Plan B. They’ve never recovered from that blow.

There have been three developments since then:

1. In July 2007, the Government released its Sub-National Review of Economic Development and Regeneration (SNR).

This was a Treasury-led, BERR supported exercise, with minimal consultation with either CLG or Defra. It was a shocking document, poorly drafted, with unsubstantiated assertions and macho rhetorical flourishes. From a sustainable development point of view, it was a nightmare – paying scant regard to any of the five "Guiding Principles" that underpin the Government’s own sustainable development strategy, Securing the Future.

Guiding Principles
Living Within Environmental Limits

Respecting the limits of the planet's environment, resources and biodiversity - to improve our environment and ensure that the natural resources needed for life are unimpaired and remain so for future generations.
Ensuring a Strong, Healthy and Just Society

Meeting the diverse needs of all people in existing and future communities, promoting personal wellbeing, social cohesion and inclusion, and creating equal opportunity for all.
Achieving a Sustainable Economy

Building a strong, stable and sustainable economy which provides prosperity and opportunities for all, and in which environmental and social costs fall on those who impose them (polluter pays), and efficient resource use is incentives.
Promoting Good Governance

Actively promoting effective participative systems of governance in all levels of society - engaging people's creativity, energy, and diversity.
Using Sound Science Responsibly

Ensuring policy is developed and implemented on the basis of strong scientific evidence, whilst taking into account scientific uncertainty (through the precautionary principle) as well as public attitudes and values.

Taking each of those in turn:

It made no attempt whatsoever to reconcile its growthist ambitions with the idea of "environmental limits". References to climate change or the need for a low-carbon economy were derisory.

Marginally more effort was made to reconcile those same growthist ambitions with the "fair, healthy and just society" Principle, but still so superficially as to trigger only irritation.

On "Governance", it couldn’t have been worse. Regional Assemblies were unceremoniously swept aside, but no serious thought was given to alternative arrangements. Indeed, the idea that Regional Development Agencies should become the statutory planning bodies in their regions caused consternation – how could “business-led”, minister-appointed Boards of Directors overcome their yawning democratic deficit in terms of securing any kind of ongoing credibility in the regions?

On the "Sound Science" Principle, the SNR was unapologetically driven by ideology rather than by evidence.

Finally, you would have thought they would have at least have sorted out the "Sustainable Economy" bit. Far from it. At the heart of the original SNR was an uncompromising commitment to economic growth at any cost. But the whole thing was driven by the intent to impose "an overarching growth objective" on the regions, the sub-regions and every local authority. (That, by the way, is what Treasury still thinks "Sustainable Economic Growth" actually means!)

Nightmare. How could such an utterly defective, dysfunctional bit of process be imposed on every other bit of government? Not just the Sustainable Development Commission was outraged. Local government, city government, business representatives, planners and environmental groups were pretty much united in their horror at the ill thought out delivery mechanisms for a less-than-unifying policy goal. Even the RDAs weren’t keen.

2. On March 31st 2008, the Government published "Prosperous Places" – an improved but still wholly inadequate version of the original SNR. The ambition level, from an economic growth perspective, was still high. RDAs were still to be statutory planning bodies. Growth-at-all-costs was still the name of the game. An incredibly convoluted definition of "Sustainable Economic Growth" was grudgingly offered up, which left people as much in the dark as they had been before.

The consultation around this was duly carried out. The RDAs were split down the middle in terms of their response. Some couldn’t wait to get their hands on statutory planning powers. Others hated that prospect, on the basis that it would seriously impede their work as economic development agencies, but didn’t dare tell CLG or BERR to get stuffed. Fundamentally, RDAs knew they have to be willing to do whatever ministers mandate them to do.

Totally against the Government’s own expectations, the business community did dare to tell them to get stuffed. Business was totally opposed to the proposal that RDAs would be required to devolve their budgets to sub-regional bodies or local government.

The Government sat on the consultation responses for months. And months. Battles between warring departments went on and on. The embarrassment stakes were high. Ministers were increasingly asking how it was that such a fiasco of a process had been unleashed upon them.

3. On November 25th 2008, CLG issued its response to the consultation. A few days later, the Queen’s Speech included early details of the “Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill”, as the next stage of the process. What has been extracted from the original SNR is as follows:

  • An obligation on Regions to produce a new Single Regional Strategy, amalgamating the existing Regional Economic Strategy and Regional Spatial Strategy. RDAs will be required to work with Local Authority Leaders’ Forums (which constitute the rump of the Regional Assemblies with even less accountability, far less resource, and questionable democratic accountability) to produce this strategy.

  • The new strategies will be based on "delivering sustainable economic growth and contributing to sustainable development". The fact that CLG still thinks that there’s a difference between sustainable development and "sustainable economic growth" tells you just about everything you need to know about the continuing confusion on this score – or do I mean deliberate, double-dealing opacity?

  • A new statutory duty on Local Authorities to carry out an economic assessment of their area.

  • A determination to legislate for the creation of sub-region authorities for economic development – to be known as Economic Improvement Boards (EIBs) – though they will be completely voluntary.

And that’s about it. Putting aside any scepticism you might have about the gap between strategies and delivery, a new Single Regional Strategy is a great idea to further sustainable development – just so long as the guidance on how it should be drafted has sustainable development absolutely at its heart. There’ll still be a huge battle on that score.

On the Statutory Economic Assessments, who knows? It could be good; alternatively it could just be another bureaucratic irrelevance. And why a duty on the economic role of local authorities, which is, after all, just one aspect of the "power of wellbeing" that local authorities already have to take proper account of the environmental and economic wellbeing of that area? The line previously from CLG had been that new duties meant new monitoring and new guidance that was just all too onerous to ask of hard pressed local authorities. Clearly, an economic duty is somehow exempt from all these problems.

Net impact from a sustainable development perspective? Just two further reflections:

1. On "Living Within Environmental Limits", this is a wasted opportunity of staggering proportions. The Government has just steered through its admirable Climate Change Act mandating cuts of at least 80% in greenhouse gases by 2050. This new bill makes few, if any, substantive references to this. It's as if the new Climate Change Act had no bearing on anything that CLG has in mind for either the regional or local tier of government.

2. On "Good Governance", even the most dispassionate analysis of what’s happened reveals a quite disgraceful story. For all their failings, Regional Assemblies did provide some kind of quasi-democratic accountability, some kind of transparent process, and some kind of scrutiny of the RDAs. One of the most innovative aspects of the Regional Assemblies was the formal incorporation of "Social, Economic and Environmental Partners" (the so-called SEEPs). And it was all this that originally prompted the government to try and turn Regional Assemblies into directly-elected Assemblies to ensure their credibility.

What do we have instead? Local Authority Leaders' Boards which may or may not develop constructive ways of working amongst themselves. No statutory "regional planning body" at all. No formal convening of the SEEPs – though RDAs and Local Authority Leaders’ Boards will "have a legal duty to consult and engage stakeholders". And we all know what that usually means. Scrutiny of the RDAs is to be done by new Regional Select Committees, which may or may not be an improvement on scrutiny by Regional Assemblies.

So we've moved from the idea of directly elected Regional Assemblies to this continuing, massive "democratic deficit" at the regional level. To be fair, the new Bill does set out to improve things at the local level in terms of a new Duty on local authorities "to promote democracy".

What else can I say? To me, it’s still unbelievable that a botched, ill-thought-out Treasury paper could have wasted so much time on the part of endless public sector bodies, have achieved so little of any real value, and have caused so much "collateral damage" in the process. In every respect, this represents one of the worst examples of mis-governance that I’ve seen since 2000.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on December 22, 2008 11:43 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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