Northern Summit: LEPs a long way from hitting the Euro jackpot

Having spent years advising regional development agencies on the use of regional aid from Brussels such as the European Regional Development Fund, Jonathan Branton is better placed than most to comment on communities secretary Eric Pickles' recent comments regarding local enterprise partnerships and the administering of the Euro millions.

Branton, a partner at Cobbetts LLP who heads up the firm’s EC Competition team, does not have a problem in itself in the emerging council and business-led partnerships becoming the "main vehicle" for handing our European regional aid, as Pickles suggested they would be at the Conservative Party conference. (Listen to the Regeneration & Renewal team discuss that story in the latest Ten Minute Briefing here.)

But, Branton told me on the sidelines of the Northern Regeneration Summit in Manchester yesterday, "the point with ERDF is that it’s a regional fund. To not administer it regionally presents immediate problems. Obviously the RDAs [which have administered ERDF since 2008 but will be abolished in 2012] have been the ideal bodies to do that."

This presents a problem for the future local enterprise partnerships, of course, whose boundaries are meant only to cover a functional economic area, and are thus much smaller geographically than the boundaries of the nine region-wide RDAs (London included).
Branton’s answer? A pan-regional collaboration of sorts. He says he can imagine groups of LEPs within the same region collaborating on the management and allocation of grants currently handled by the RDAs.

"Yes, LEPs are local, but they can still collaborate across the region," he told me. ERDF is designed to be administered on a regional basis, Branton says, "so it depends on how the LEP [compares] against the specific region for ERDF allocation purposes and drawn up by Brussels. We’ll have to see what the fit looks like."

And if the EU-shaped shoe doesn’t fit, can Branton envisage a situation where, given the moratorium placed by the Treasury on match-funding ERDF cash with money from the RDAs’ own single pots, the Euro millions are sent back unspent from whence they came? Branton thinks not. "Ultimately the law says unspent ERDF cash has to go back to Brussels. But I would have thought that people would find a way to make sure that doesn’t happen. There’s going to be little enough money sloshing around. It would be daft if that was allowed to go back."

For their part, the Department for Communities and Local Government says: "Any bid from an LEP that covers more than one ERDF Operational Programme boundary will be developed by the ERDF teams in conjunction with the LEP in order to balance the requirement to meet the stringent criteria for project selection and to maximise the benefits of the project."

I’m not sure what that means, although I don’t see the word "collaboration".

Luckily, the DCLG offers some advice. "The RDA can advise you on the application process."

Eric Pickles' LGA speech as a Wordle

We've created a wordle of a draft of communities secretary Eric Pickles' speech (sample quote: "We can make localism a reality") from yesterday's Local Government Association Conference 2010 in Bournemouth.

Click on the image above to make it larger.

Powered by wordle.net

How much does a 'D' cost?

The Tories turned their fire on the Department for Communities and Local Government today, criticising it for carrying out at least 10 rebranding exercises, costing nearly £170,000.

Top on the list of “pointless” rebranding exercises highlighted by the Tories was the department’s decision to drop the “D” from DCLG. According to figures obtained by the Conservative Party, the move cost nearly £30,000 in total.

According to the Tories, nearly £4,000 was spent on a new logo for the Department for Communities and Local Government in May 2006 when the department replaced the Office of the Deputy

 Prime Minister (see left). The department spent a further £25,000 five months later rebranding itself as “Communities and Local Government” (see right).

The name change does indeed seem faintly ridiculous, especially given that the department’s legal name is still the Department for Communities and Local Government (the title used for the department by Regeneration & Renewal). But does this really amount to “endemic waste”? I’m not so sure. £25,000 is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.

And the Tories are brave to criticise the department for its spending on rebranding. Does this mean that shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman would do nothing to rebrand the department should the Tories get elected?

The sum of all Blears

Has any Labour minister been subject to as many cruel and unusual nicknames as Hazel Blears over the last month? Here’s our timeline of the most outrageous press cuttings the erstwhile regeneration supremo has had to deal with in the last four weeks.

May 12 - Missile

We’re going to credit the Daily Mail with getting the hyberbole rolling proper. Early in May the paper claimed cabinet ministers had told the PM that Hazel had become an “exocet missile who could destroy his premiership” if sacked.

May 17 - Dangerous

A few days later the Mirror chipped in with an exclusive story that Blears – already an exocet missile – was now “dangerously out of control”.

An out of control warhead would certainly explain the “bloodbath” spotted on the doorsteps of Number 10 by an eagle-eyed Telegraph reporter the same day.

June 3 – Nuclear

D-Day. And Hazel made good that missile prediction early doors. By 10.37 her resignation confirmed she’d "gone nuclear" (Guardian).

Assassin

By lunchtime she had transformed into a “flame-haired, pint-sized assassin” (Sky News).

But by the afternoon off the record sound bites were just getting plain lazy:

Chipmunk

"Most political attacks come from a knife in the back. Hazel stuck it in Gordon in the front," a senior Blairite MP was quoted as saying. The headlines, however, were still well anchored in the realms of fantasy.

The same article was titled “Revenge of the Chipmunk” (Telegraph).

Which chipmunk? I hear you cry. The Iron Chipmunk, of course, (The Spectator), a name that suggests that Hazel is at least 50 per cent of the way to fullfilling the “Labour’s Thatcher” (Guardian) tag she’d been give earlier.

June 4- Demonic Doll

The morning after, and Blears had morphed from chipmunk to Chucky, as the Times decided the time was ripe to publish a photo of Hazel next to the Hollywood horror puppet.

Menshevik

She was also accused of orchestrating a “Pugin room plot” (Times) referring to the commons bar in which the rumoured anti-Brown backbench email campaign – otherwise known as a “Trotskyite stalking herd”, (Guardian) - was organised.

Terrorist

But as it happens all talk of missiles, both exocet and nuclear, seem somewhat wide of the mark. The Guardian published pictorial evidence, that the outgoing communities secretary is, in fact, a suicide-bombing pig.

The insults have got it all: Sexism. Heightism. Even terrorism. But ask yourself this, will we see the press dole out any simliar ire to this morning's cabinet walk-away "smooth assassin" (Guardian) James Purnell?

I doubt it.

Hazel nuts the Prime Minister

Ouch! Westminster's queen of the worlds of regeneration, local government and housing Hazel has given the PM a pain this morning by quitting before she was pushed. The Salford MP – who shares the record with Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather for being the shortest MP, standing 4 feet 11 inches – may not be tall in stature but, as anyone who has ever met her will attest, can certainly fight her corner. I have enjoyed being on the receiving end when she has out-sparred an entire group of male journalists, and today she has humiliated the PM with a nicely timed kick to the chandeliers. 

Blears, like many talented ministers, got caught up in the expenses fiasco, but obviously decided to go when she could cause most damage to the PM rather than wait for the call. An arch-Blairite, she was an effective champion for community empowerment and neighbourhood regeneration and many people in those sectors will be saddened to lose her.

 

She also fulfilled a key role for Labour in standing up for the values of aspirational working class women, memorably crossing swords with her middle-class rival for the deputy leadership, Harriet Harman, over what is an acceptable amount of money to spend on a handbag. The privately-educated Harman suggested about £50. Blears said it was fine to spend hundreds of pounds on a bag  "if you've worked hard for it". Hers costs £250. 

The only question now is whether Hazel is leading the charge of more ministers before the PM gets chance to move or sack them after a diabolical performance in the European and local elections tomorrow. Westminster Village is a-buzz with talk of the Labour sisterhood knifing the PM. Blears is in dance troupe the Division Belles with Beverley Hughes, who has already quit, and Caroline Flint, who is seldom regarded a fan of Mr Brown. One wag on the Regen newsdesk suggested that the Belles may end up tap dancing on the PM's grave. 

Darren Haines from Paddy Power has sent us odds on how many ministers will quit in the next fortnight. You can get 25-1 on all of them walking out. 

How many ministers will quit before June 15?

5/1        None
6/1       One
4/1       Two
2/1       Three
3/1       Four
5/1       Five
7/1       Six to 20
25/1      All of them 

Update: Huw Morris, editor of Planning magazine, our stablemate, has taken a much tougher line on Hazel than I have. His message? Goodbye and good riddance. 

Reshuffle kerfuffle

Jacqui Smith's snap resignation as home secretary today will mean Whitehall's regeneration-related ministries will definitely get new personnel in next week's cabinet reshuffle, which was expected anyway, but now must go ahead to accommodate Ms Smith's departure. 

The gossip in Westminster Village has already begun: with names such as David Blunkett being touted for the Home Office. The Blunkett rumour will cheer those who believe the Home Office is on the right lines but needs a shot in the arm –the tireless MP for Sheffield Brightside is sure to deliver it – but will dismay those readers who feel that the ministry has wandered too far down the authoritarian path in recent times. 

Meanwhile, the Department for Communities and Local Government is likely to lose Hazel Blears, who has received little or no backing from the Prime Minister since she was caught by the Daily Telegraph flipping the designation of her first and second homes. 

Geoff Hoon at transport is under similar pressure due to his part in Expenses-gate, while one of the few secretaries of state in a regeneration-related ministry to keep his nose reasonably clean is Lord Mandelson at business, although there are strong rumours he will be off too – to the Foreign Office. 

The greatest casualty of the endless reshuffling of secretaries of state is continuity. Whether or not you think the ministers above deserve to be moved or indeed dumped, it can be unhelpful for people working on the ground to have to wait for the new secretary of state to learn their brief before policy-making can move on again. I remember one DCLG official explaining to me how David Miliband failed to grasp even the basic concept behind city-regions at first, before it clicked and he became a great fan of the idea. Of course, it wasn't long before he was shunted off. Following a spell under Ruth Kelly, Hazel Blears arrived and changed the focus of the ministry from regional policy to community empowerment. She'll probably be bounced out next week. 

Many DCLG watchers will hope that the impressive Yvette Cooper, who has a thorough understanding of housing, regeneration, economic development and planning, is given the job. But what's the betting she'll be saved for a higher-profile ministry and Eland House's officials will have to dust off the crib sheets for the new secretary of state yet again? 

DCLG must get real on Mayors

There was a ripple of excitement around the Regeneration & Renewal newsdesk this afternoon when Hazel Blears announced plans for more mayors. They would have a real mandate and a real budget, she said.

Directly elected mayors in England's largest core cities have been a subject long dear to this reporter's heart - mayors that is, that cover real city regions, like the Mayor of London, and have real powers over employment, transport, regeneration, economic development, and so on. Not mayors in the form the Tories envisage, in existing local authorities, so that Greater Manchester could have ten separate mayors overseeing its city region, rather than the one powerful mayor it needs.

Had Hazel finally seen the light? Had she decided to trump the Tories, take on local fiefdoms and launch the radical proposals for city regional mayors that England's greatest cities need? Go Hazel !!!

Er, no.

The plans unveiled this afternoon were for "young Mayors". DCLG in its wisdom has announced £2 million in funding to encourage young people aged 11-18 to run for a position of young mayor on their local authority. Apparently, there are already 10 such young mayors who are directly elected by the youth to represent the youth. Apparently these mayors open up the world of politics to the youth. And they have real budgets, the DCLG tell us, with real mandates, to do things that the youth want. Lucky youth.

Pity the rest of us. Wouldn't it be nice if DCLG was as focused on devolving real powers from Whitehall to England's cities as it appears to be to these young mayors.

Just this month Lord Smith, chairman of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, told the House of Lords that Greater Manchester was ready to walk away from DCLG's forerunner city region process because in their discussions mandarins in the department were mumbling only about administrative freedoms, rather than the devolution of real powers over funding the cities have been promised. Manchester may not be ready for a mayor yet, but its certainly ready for a real budget, and the powers that go with it.

As the youth might say, DCLG should get real.