While the eddy of ‘events' tugs daily at the good ship Government, the navigator continues to plot its course mapped out months, perhaps even years, ago, hoping that the turbulence will not capsize the vessel altogether. And the course of the good ship Government is very much about reducing economic and social inequalities, between class, between English regions, and between core cities and smaller cities. The ballast for this direction was provided last July during the glad, confident summer of the Brown honeymoon, by John Healey's sub-national review, which he had led while at the Treasury. This week, after some delays, the next stage of implementing its content emerged in a consultation paper. There is much that councils can welcome from it, since it recognises and enhances their key ‘place-shaping' and economic development role, and none will oppose the goals behind it. Few will shed a tear for the passing of the Learning and Skills Council, an expensive experiment in bypassing LEAs, from which the Government appears, remarkably, to have escaped any flak. And there will be support, too, for making RDAs more accountable to regional forums of local leaders, although how these will differ from the soon-to-be abolished assemblies remains to be seen. The regional select committees also appear to be a long time coming. However, there will be some concern about yet more legislation. The draft paper this week proposes legislation to create a ‘duty' to assess their local economies, something which most upper-tier councils surely see as part of their remit anyway. Is it really necessary to tie everyone up in more regulation? This issue, of making statutory what is already happening anyway, is also picked up, as it happens, by our respected commentators George Jones and John Stewart in The MJ this week (p24-25). In their article they question the need for a statutory duty for councils to respond to petitions when councils are already doing so quite adequately anyway. Most councils have been taking a proactive role in economic development for years. They don't need to be told by ministers to do it. Michael Burton Editor, The MJ
