Mar 27 2007
Abolish the RDAs
Margaret Hodge has just sent me - and doubtless many others - a coloured brochure entitled "Creating prosperity in every region: England’s Regional development Agencies".
She tells us the RDAs help to bring prosperity to all parts of England. Nowhere does she point out that the reigonal disparities have grown substantially during Labour’s period in office, with the regions that have least government interference growing much more rapidly than the ones with?? most. Her brochure lists a series of small initiatives which entail the RDA getting hold of some public money which some other branch of government could have spent, influencing conduct on the ground a little with the money, and then spending more of our money endlessly claiming credit for spending some of our money!
There is no sense of the??small scale??of most of the projects highlighted in the case studies in the brochure. For the South-east as a whole, an economy turning over more than????400,000 million a year, they mention the following:
??63 million for Hastings, mainly spent on a new University centre
??3.6million extra innovation expenditure in six months of a new scheme
Advice for 1500 businesses through the Hub system
??23.6m investment in University facilities in Chatham
??100 million spent in such a huge economy has little overall impact. It is difficult to see why the money for universities could not have been routed direct through the usual channels for the public sector to finance Higher Education. If you want to have an impact on the South-east economy you need to be talking in billions - and best to leave it to the private sector which invests billions every year.
Margaret Hodge’s brochure did one good thing. It reminded me how important it is to abolish these insignificant bodies. The money spent on their??administrative and PR budgets shoudl be returned to taxpayers, whilst any sensible expenditure on development or education should be sent with all the other monies to HE or local Council’s development departments.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Well said indeed. I can’t help suspecting the companies that received HUB advice (civil servants who haven’t giving businessmen who have, advice on running a business!) would have preferred lower taxes in the first place.
And as for the
Business tax competition between local councils would do wonders.
I do agree and am happy that you have clarified that a Conservative administration would abolish both the Regional assemblies and the RDA`s. But what thought has been given to the opposition to these plans which must be expected from both the Regional actors and the EU, the Conservative stance on abolishing the regional level of governance is at odds with the EU based aims of increasing regional power and EU integration, as can be seen from the recent Committee of the Regions declaration for Europe
[...] John Redwood has a post ridiculing a glossy brochure sent to him and doubtless many others, by Margaret Hodge, entitled Creating prosperity in every region: England’s Regional development
[...] John Redwood has a post ridiculing a glossy brochure sent to him and doubtless many others, by Margaret Hodge, entitled “Creating prosperity in every region: England’s Regional development” Agencies”. “She tells us the RDAs help to bring prosperity to all parts of all parts of England. Nowhere does she point out that the reigonal disparities have grown substantially during Labour’s period in office, with the regions that have least government interference growing much more rapidly than the ones with most. Her brochure lists a series of small initiatives which entail the RDA getting hold of some public money which some other branch of government could have spent, influencing conduct on the ground a little with the money, and then spending more of our money endlessly claiming credit for spending some of our money!” [...]
[...] John Redwood has a post ridiculing a glossy brochure sent to him and doubtless many others, by Margaret Hodge, entitled “Creating prosperity in every region: England’s Regional development” Agencies”. [...]