Recently in RDA Category

Reflecting on Arnie Vinick (and actually, very much more to the point, Al Gore) I am forced to conclude that power is an elusive concept.

One of the tricks in the armoury of the regeneration practitioner is to seize power, assume it really, where in reality none exists.

All of the many achievements of the Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) for instance, were delivered despite the fact that the URCs didn't have any planning powers, or CPO powers; they didn't own any land and what budgets they had were limited in comparison to their host local authorities, RDAs and so forth.

I appreciate the picture is mixed but seriously it is a wonder that anything was achieved at all! And it was always easier to commission a feasibility study than to get any tangible benefits going on the ground for real people.

The good urban regeneration practitioner will use other peoples powers if necessary and combine this with influence (lobbying and publicity) and bullying and charm - in equal measure - to get something going. It's exhausting but it's how we do it. Of course, this "art" will become ever more necessary in more-for-less Britain.

I once sat on a private sector-public sector committee of an initiative called "Fair Cities" that was chaired by the luminous David Michels, then Chief Executive of Ladbroke Hilton. We were debating whether the then Prime Minister (Tony Blair) could do anything about a fairly trivial (in David's eyes at least) condition for those claiming Job Seeker's Allowance to not exceed so many hours training each week.

The Financial Times this morning has got into the whither-the-RDAs debate. The headline in the FT Notebook claims "Tory RDA plans 'hazy'".

The Tories are urged "to produce a formula that allows regional decisions to be taken at a sufficiently strategic level if they are serious about offering councils the chance to form local economic partnerships to take over regional development agencies' (RDAs) economic development responsibilities and funding".

Further on the Conservative's criteria are described as being as hazy as the likely fate of the RDA., with some surviving, such as the London Development Agency, because it is already devolved under the mayor, and possibly others such as One North East.

But Notebook takes the view that it would seem perverse if London were able to keep its RDA while lagging regions lost theirs.

Hmmmm. Nice to know that this blog is somewhat ahead of the FT! But it is genuinely difficult to see how it would work in practice if parts of the county kept their RDA, by virtue of strong local stakeholder support (or the special circumstances of the London Mayor), while other regions have to manage without theirs.