Having announced its plans to abolish the Regional Development Agencies, the Government has now said it intends in principle to scrap the Government Offices in each of the English regions.  They co-ordinate national and local policy on behalf of 13 Government Departments.

Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, commented:

“We should be clear: the Government Offices are not voices of the region in Whitehall. They have become agents of Whitehall to intervene and interfere in localities, and are a fundamental part of the ‘command and control’ apparatus of England’s over-centralised state.”

He said the final decisions on the future of eight of the nine Government Offices, including arrangements for closure and for the transfer of on-going functions, will be made at the end of the Spending Review in the autumn. The closure of the Government Office in London has already been announced.

TAEN understands that the closures are likely to take place by the end of March 2011. Trade unions estimate that if the other offices are closed, up to 1,700 jobs may be lost but Mr Pickles said that where possible staff would be redeployed rather being made redundant. 

Commenting on the announcement, John Denham, the shadow Communities and Local Government spokesman, said:

“The decision leaves English regions without any way of co-ordinating economic development, major infrastructure projects and effective co-ordination of public services for local people.  It is a decision being made under the guise of ‘localism’ but it will see a huge centralisation of powers into Whitehall ministries.” 

The dismantling of the regional support structures raises many questions, not the least of which is how the contracting round for the second half of the European Social Fund national programme in England will be handled.  As the whole programme hitherto has been based on a regional approach to specifying and contracting provision, would-be project providers for the 2011-13 contracting round await clarification of what new arrangements are to be put in place.