Issn: 13673882

QUARTERLY
MAGAZINE OF THE
- Big Society, Localism and Regional Policy in the UK
- Regional integration in Latin America
- Latest news from Members of the Association
THE VOICE OF THE MEMBERSHIP
NO. 281, SPRING 2011
REGIONALISM VERSUS LOCALISM
6
In Depth, pp. 6-9 Regions No 281 Spring 2011
Setting the
scene
S u b - n a t i o n a l
development in
England is once
again at a deci-
sive crossroads
in its persistent
journey of state-
led restructuring.
Whereas the territories of Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland achieved
signicant devolutionary packages under
the UKs Labour Government (1997-
2010), decentralisation in England was
rather more constrained and could be
more aptly described as a regionalisation
of central government functions. Since
the election of a Conservative-Liberal
THE REGIONAL LACUNA: A PRELIMINARY MAP OF THE
TRANSITION FROM REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES TO
LOCAL ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIPS
Lee Pugalis, Newcastle University and County Durham Economic Partnership, UK
Figure 1: Map of English regions indicating RDA spend and impacts
Democrat (Con-Lib) UK Government
in May 2010, the demise of Englands
regional framework has featured promi-
nently in political discourse. It is a case
of out with the old, including Regional
Development Agencies (RDAs),
Government Ofces for the Regions
and Regional Leaders Boards, and in
with the new such as Local Enterprise
Partnerships (LEPs), as the Coalition
Government embark on their quest of
economic rebalancing and recovery at the
same time as state spending retrenches.
An orderly transitional period is
programmed to be largely completed by
March 2012, the outcome being a radical
transformation of the geography of sub-
national development policy, governance
and delivery. Consequently, these shifts
have stimulated a resurgence of interest
in the future of sub-national development
policy, including the politics of scale, une-
ven development and spatial inequalities,
as observed by the editors of this magazine
in issue 279. The transition is all the more
intriguing from a European vantage, con-
sidering that regions are the bedrock of the
EUs territorial cohesion policy, perform-
ing a key role in the administration of the
European Regional Development Fund
(ERDF). Contemplating how this transi-
tion may play out, I sketch a preliminary map
of the road from RDAs to LEPs. Whilst
the analytical focus is spatially specic to
England, the policy journey of economic
space in transition is of wider appeal.
Hopefully the international community
of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers
7
In Depth
and academics can draw on these insights
to help inform the scale, scope and pace
of policy transitions in other time-space
trajectories.
From RDAs to LEPs
Conceived under a Labour Government,
RDAs are non-departmental public bod-
ies, or quangos, set up under the Regional
Development Agencies Act 1998 to be
strategic drivers of regional development.
Responsible to Whitehall and governed
by state appointed private sector led
boards, the nine RDAs were arguably
the chief institutional conguration
under Labour for promoting enterprise
and innovation within the regions (see
Figure 1). Until the Coalition signalled
their abolition (subject to legislation),
RDAs performed at a key nexus of
power between localities and Whitehall,
and were collectively responsible for
the annual administration of billions of
pounds of central government Single
Programme resources and ERDF.
1
Guided by the objective to help
strengthen local economies, LEPs
were put forward by the Coal ition
Government as the only key apparatus
by which to reform sub-national devel-
opment. Circumventing the customary
consultation procedures and discarding
other options, such as reviewing RDAs,
the Con-Libs invited councils and busi-
ness leaders to come together to consider
how [they] wish to form [LEPs] ... ena-
bling councils and business to replace the
existing [RDAs].
2
This open invitation
was by way of a letter, dated 29 June,
2010, penned by Vince Cable, Secretary
of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills, and Eric Pickles, Secretary of State
for Communities and Local Government.
The letter is an example of the Coalitions
so-called permissive policy approach
(i.e. unautocratic), which is claimed to
reect localist ideals (or a Big Society)
whereby the delivery of services and
other responsibilities are passed-down
to local communities and volunteers.
Yet, the letter states that Government
is reviewing all the functions of the
RDAs, surmising that some of these
are best led nationally, such as inward
investment, sector leadership, responsi-
bility for business support, innovation,
and access to f inance. Arguably, the
centralisation of these RDA responsibili-
ties would signicantly undermine the
Coalitions localism agenda together with
the ability of LEPs to play a signicant
role in developing their local economies.
Therefore, the purported transition from
a regionalist framework (synonymous
with the previous Labour Government)
to a localism approach (championed by
the Con-Libs), may not be as clear-cut
as some would have us believe. Indeed,
there is a suspicion that the rhetoric of
decentralisation may be thinly disguising
centralist tendencies (Pugalis, 2010).
LEPs: Guiding (state-set)
parameters
By way of the Cable-Pickles letter, the
Coalition Government set an extremely
ambitious deadline of 6 September 2010
for joint public-private LEP propositions.
Government provided stakeholders with
less than 70 days to develop proposals,
guided by their embryonic ideas for LEPs
and some broad parameters covering role,
governance and geography (see Figure
2). Indeed, with Ministers encouraging
a wide range of ideas underpinned by
little more than a few paragraphs of loose
guidance, stakeholders were tasked with
quickly negotiating territorial alliances
against the background of local politics,
histories of cross-boundary and multi-
sector collaboration, business views and
the logic(s) of functional economic geog-
raphies. An additional layer of complexity
was the fact that the Governments White
Paper on Local growth (HM Government,
2010) was not published until 28 October
2010 at which point the deadline for LEP
submissions had passed. Consequently, pro-
posals of variable quality, ambition and
stakeholder buy-in were quickly worked
up on the basis of limited national criteria
and the absence of even a partial road map
of the Con-Libs economic transition plan.
The result was the submission of over 60
bids, of which many were clearly rival
and/or geographically overlapping.
The transition period
Contending that the transition period is
likely to be anything but orderly, what
follows in the remainder of this article
is a preliminary map as I navigate the road
from RDAs to LEPs. Firstly, I consider
timing to be paramount. With most
RDAs set to stay operational (to lesser
or greater degrees) until March 2012, it is
crucial that LEPs hit the ground running
and maintain momentum. Coordinating
the rollout of one sub-national economic
entity with the rollback of another would
aid the transfer of key skills, knowledge
and assets. If the Con-Libs decide to cash
in on RDA assets, as a short-term strat-
egy to ease the budget decit by way of a
re sale, it may well result in signicant
delays to long-term regeneration schemes
Figure 2: Government parameters
Role Governance Geography
- Provide strategic leadership; setting
out local economic priorities
- Help rebalance the economy towards
the private sector; creating the right
environment for business
- Tackle issues such as planning
and housing, local transport and
infrastructure priorities, employment
and enterprise, the transition to the
low carbon economy and in some
areas tourism
- Collaboration between business and
civic leaders, normally including
equal representation on the boards of
these partnerships
- Work closely with universities and
further education colleges
- A prominent business leader should
chair the board
- Sufciently robust governance
structures
- Proper accountability for delivery by
partnerships
- Better reect the natural economic
geography; covering the real
functional economic and travel to
work areas
- Expect partnerships would include
groups of upper tier local authori-
ties, which would not preclude that
which matches existing regional
boundaries
8
underpinning the revival of depressed
local economies. With a dearth of inves-
tors, and development nancing almost
impossible to obtain without pre-lets,
the stalling and mothballing of complex
urban regeneration projects would strug-
gle to regain development momentum.
Secondly, the positive role and ambi-
tions of LEPs must be supported with a
reasonable level of resources. With the
Coalition reluctant to support the single
running costs associated with operat-
ing a cross-boundary economic agency,
although there are signs of a change
in stance,
3
the goodwill and nancial
backing of local partners will only go so
far. Regardless, the issue of day-to-day
operational costs will be incidental if the
nance (including lending powers) is not
in place to deliver. Lib-Con rhetoric that
the public sector needs to retract from
an interventionist role in order to release
the business community to lead an eco-
nomic recovery may have some merit in
those places underpinned by a relatively
buoyant private sector. However, such an
approach is likely to perpetuate uneven
patterns of spatial development and
exacerbate socio-economic disparities
(Peck, 2010). For the rest of the coun-
try, the areas of need and public sector
dependency, lying beyond the places of
(investment) choice and opportunity,
there is a danger that the progress made
over the previous decade up until the
credit crunch will rapidly recoil. Slavishly
reducing regeneration resources for those
places most in need, and in turn where
the private sector refuses to invest, is akin
to robbing Peter to pay Paul: savings
made through regeneration funding cuts
are likely to be soaked up by increased
demand for health and welfare support,
for example.
Thirdly, a cavernous policy vacuum
is expanding between localities and the
national level. Whilst the letter was co-
signed by Cable and Pickles, providing
the impression of a united front, noises
of a turf war between the two gure-
heads and their respective departments
4
16
7
21
22
19
6
10
15
4
13
11
26
3
17
2
5
9
20
18
1
12
28
27
8
24
14
23
25
Local Enterprise Partnerships
Produced by the Geographic Analysis Team, ASD
Crown Copyright and database right 2010. All rights reserved.
Ordnance Survey Licence number 100018986 2011 01 03
Data Sources:
OS Boundary Line 0 30 60 90 15
Kilometres

Isles of Scilly Inset

List of local enterprise partnerships
1 Birmingham and Solihull with East
Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth
2 Cheshire and Warrington
3 Coast to Capital
4 Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
5 Coventry and Warwickshire
6 Cumbria
7 Greater Cambridge and Greater
Peterborough
8 Greater Manchester
9 Hertfordshire
10 Kent, Greater Essex and East
Sussex
11 Leeds City Region
12 Leicester and Leicestershire
13 Lincolnshire
14 Liverpool City Region
15 New Anglia
16 Northern Eastern Partnership
17 Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby,
and Derbyshire
18 Oxfordshire City Region
19 Sheffield City Region
20 Solent
21 South East Midlands
22 Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
23 Tees Valley
24 Thames Valley and Berkshire
25 The Black Country
26 The Marches Enterprise Partnership
27 West of England
28 Worcestershire
Local Authority Districts in
overlapping local enterprise
partnerships
Figure 3: The geography of LEPs
In Depth Regions No 281 Spring 2011
9
continue to grow louder. The former is
considered to see the benets of retain-
ing a regional economic presence in
some parts of the country such as the
North and Midlands, whereas the latter
is antipathetic to anything regional or
indeed strategic as many planners and
developers would attest in response to
the hasty revocation of Regional Spatial
Strategies, (Pugal is and Townsend,
2010). In policy and practice terms, the
Coalitions intentions and policy shifts
thus far reveal an outright abandonment
of regional policy-architecture, which
has created a regional lacuna.
A map of the rst wave of 24 LEPs
approved by Government shows the
complexity of the geography of emerg-
ing economic governance. Incidentally,
from the announcement of the rst wave
of LEPs in October 2010 up to the date
of writing in January 2011, four further
LEPs Norfolk & Suffolk, the Black
Country and Worcestershire were
approved between December 2010 and
January 2011, with others set to follow
(see Figure 3). Hence, whilst it is reason-
able to surmise that the white areas on the
map will continue to reduce, the geogra-
phy of sub-national development policy,
governance and delivery is at the cusp of
radical transformation. Estimating that
circa 35 LEPs could eventually replace
the eight RDAs outside of London, a key
question is how London-based ministerial
departments could feasibly engage with
each LEP on an individual basis? Indeed,
will Whitehall mandarins appreciate
the spatial particularities of these new
geographies of economic governance?
More so, what prospects for non-LEP
geographies of England?
Without some form of strategic eco-
nomic body to negotiate the policy space
in between sub-regional groupings of
localities and the national level, I would
caution that the spatial particularities of
LEPs, outside the big hitters organised
around a core city such as Birmingham
or Manchester, may struggle to make
their voices heard in Whitehall policy
circles. Notwithstanding the limitations
of regional administrative areas in pro-
viding the ideal spatial x for the delivery
of all sub-national policy, strategically-
focused regional bodies would help
in coordinating the activity of LEPs,
facilitating cross-boundary cooperation,
the management of some programmes
(including ERDF) and could even
assume responsibil ity for signif icant
strategic projects (unworkable at lower
or higher spatial scales), such as some
transport schemes. It appears to me that
the Coalition have become ideologically
blinded to the reality that the English
regions, or at least some of the regions,
provide a pragmatic spatial scale for
bridging the national-local divide.
Concluding remarks on a
shifting agenda
Interest in LEPs has been enormous,
with 62 propositions submitted to
Government ahead of the September
2010 deadline. This is perhaps hardly
surprising considering that LEPs have
been conceived as a direct replacement for
RDAs, notwithstanding the recentralisa-
tion of some notable responsibilities to
the state. Whilst the White Paper (HM
Government, 2010) is now in circulation,
countless questions remain in respect of
the transitional process and the role(s) of
LEPs. How long will it take to establish
LEPs as effective economic leadership
vehicles? When established, will the
boards of LEPs be composed of the usual
suspects? Alternatively, are democratic
accountability and business leadership
a recipe for disaster? Might governance
issues and institutional recongurations
distract attention from delivering positive
change? How will succession planning
be carried forward and in what ways
may noteworthy RDA successes provide
a positive legacy for LEPs? How will
ERDF be managed and by whom? In
terms of multi-level governance and
coordination across multiple spatial
scales, how will nationally led eco-
nomic programmes interact with LEPs?
Indeed, does such an approach run the
risk of contradicting the localism agenda?
Only time will tell. It will be interesting
to take stock of the transition and how
LEPs are bedding down in a years time.
However, at this juncture I am sceptical
that the Coalition Government posses
the majority of the answers.
Critics suggest that this slight reshuf-
e of the same pack of cards is merely
economic development on the cheap ...
a no-frills version of the economic pol-
icy of the past decade (Larkin, 2010),
that may marginalise or overshadow
the interests of some places and groups
(Herrschel, 2010). If this is so, then
improvements remain ambiguous, but
the potential to lose out is signicant.
Not least for any place on the periph-
ery of a LEP boards spatio-economic
References
Herrschel, T. (2010), Regionalisation,
marginalisation and the role of govern-
ance in Europe and North America
(Part 2), Regions 280(Winter), p.28.
HM Government (2010), Local growth:
realising every places potential,
London: The Stationery Ofce.
Larkin, K. (2010), Regions after RDAs,
Public Finance Blog, 1 July.
Peck, F. (2010), Post Election policy
debate in the UK: Whither the regional
agenda?, Regions 279, pp.4-5.
Pugalis, L. (2010), Looking Back in
Order to Move Forward: The Politics
of Evolving Sub-National Economic
Policy Architecture, Local Economy,
25(5-6), pp.397-405.
Pugalis, L. and Townsend, A. (2010), Can
LEPs ll the strategic void?, Town &
Country Planning, 79(9), pp.382-87.
Dr Lee Pugalis is a Visiting Fellow
at the Global Urban Research Unit,
Newcastle University, and man-
ages the County Durham Economic
Partnership. Prior to his existing role,
Lee was the Regeneration Specialist
Advisor to One North East Regional
Development Agency and has also
worked for central and regional gov-
ernment in policy-making roles.
lee.pugalis@ncl.ac.uk
priorities or, worse still, for any white
space on the map left out of the LEP
equation. Let us hope that the Lib-Cons
stay true to their localism philosophy,
which would put the onus on localities
to devise unique policy solutions, sup-
ported by nancial freedoms, exibilities
and powers. Maybe those plying their
trade outside of England can ref lect
on this form and manner of state-led
restructuring and act accordingly the
next time a new (and presumably better)
policy innovation is proposed.
For a more extensive examination of
the issues addressed in this article consult:
Sub-national economic development:
where do we go from here?, Journal of
Urban Regeneration and Renewal.
Endnotes
1 The RDAs combined budget was
2.3 billion in 2007-08 and remains at
just over 1.4 billion in 2010/11.
2 The letter is available at:
http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/
depositedpapers/2010/DEP2010-1363.pdf
[accessed 2 July 2010]
3 In January 2010, the Coalition announced
that it is to launch a 4 million fund aimed
at boosting the analytical capacity of LEPs.
In Depth
Xyxyyxyx Yxyyxyyyx Regions No 281 Spring 2011
32
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Regions
THE VOICE OF THE MEMBERSHIP
The Regional Survey in this issue focuses on regional integration in
Latin America. Our contributors explore the difculties that these
countries have traditionally faced in integrating interventions to
develop their peripheral regions as well as the potential for growth
that coordinated interventions might generate in the continent.
Despite the widely held belief that the lack of linguistic and religious
barriers would simplify integration efforts between these countries;
the lack of both political and economic coordination, the large size
of the areas, regional disparities both between them as well as
within them, and poor infrastructure have always worked against
integration efforts in the region.
This series of articles edited by Carola Ramon-Berjano provides
expert views on three different integration initiatives in Latin
America; namely MERCOSUR (the area between Argentina, Brazil,
Uruguay and Paraguay), UNASUR (a more ambitious project
involving 12 Latin American countries) and ZICOSUR (an economic
zone comprising neighbouring and peripheral areas of Argentina,
Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia). These articles approach the issue of
larger versus smaller integration schemes as well as differences
and similarities between countries and regions. These schemes are
viewed at different scales from the wider Latin American perspective,
to the national and regional levels to illustrate how the potential
gains as well as problems vary between countries and regions.
This issue also contains insights into the changing landscape of
regional and local development in the UK and in France. John
Diamond discusses the new Coalition Governments concept of the
Big Society and renewed interest in localism in the UK. He argues
that these concepts may have little to do with democratisation of
local decision-making but more to do with a decline in the role
of the state at all levels, including the demise of the Regional
Development Agencies that were set up under the previous Labour
Administration. This theme is picked up by Lee Pugalis in the In
Depth article on the changing institutional structures surrounding
sub-national development in the UK. It is noted that these changes
are particularly intriguing from the perspective of European
Cohesion Policy which remains rmly based on regions as the
basic spatial unit for territorial development. In contrast, Anna
Geppert provides a research note on the French Governments
plans to strengthen the City-Region scale of development through
the promotion of collaborative networks.