Regional Development Agencies Must Be Freed From Central London

9.47.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 10th Jun 2004

Commenting on the Trade and Industry Select Committee report on the Regional Development Agencies released today, Liberal Democrat Trade and Industry Spokesman Malcolm Bruce MP said: "This report makes the case for abolishing the DTI, the Department which spawns a plethora of time-wasting, irrelevant targets and initiatives.

"The findings of the Trade and Industry Select Committee bears out all that I said when commenting on the RDA half yearly targets announced in February, for which I was criticised by several Agencies.

"The RDAS should be allowed to get closer to their own areas and set targets which are more relevant to the needs of their region instead of having to meet arbitrarily set central directives. Many of the business support schemes are distractions to businesses and often set up foreign companies in direct competition to established British firms not eligible for such assistance.

"We need to cut out central control and allow much more flexibility in regional development policy."

ENDS

Notes

Malcolm Bruce MP argued the RDAs were dangerously behind in meeting their half-yearly targets on 5th February 2004. The Trade and Industry Select Committee publishes the report Support to Business from Regional Development Agencies on Wednesday, 9 June 2004 at 11.00 a.m.

The Report found that:

• The RDAs ability to focus on implementing their Regional Economic Strategies is being constrained by the system of targets which they must fulfil...the Committee is concerned that the current system of targets is unnecessarily narrow and prescriptive. There is no link between each RDA's targets and its Regional Economic Strategy.

• Too many business support schemes have been set up without sufficient regard to existing provision, resulting in numerous different schemes and confusion for the businesses they were designed to help.

• The RDAs are required to place too much emphasis on identifying and developing clusters of business activity. There is a danger that RDAs are concentrating too heavily on creating clusters in fashionable, high technology industries that have little chance of success.