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Senior cabinet ministers have defended the decision to abolish regional development agencies (RDAs), despite glowing ratings from the public spending watchdog, issued as they were scrapped. Business secretary, Vince Cable, told a Commons select committee RDAs had failed in their primary purpose to make the country more equal economically. He also denied claims of a rift between himself and communities secretary, Eric Pickles, adding: ‘We are giving the same message. We are very clear that RDAs are to be abolished. I use more neutral language, but there's no difference in the central point.' Speaking after the Federation of Small Businesses had signed up to be a key partner in helping put local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) in place, Mr Pickles said the Government's aim was to ‘rebuild and rebalance local economies' without red tape, so new economic opportunities could spread nationwide. But independent reviews carried out by the National Audit Office painted a different picture. The auditor looked into how the RDAs prioritised work with the highest economic impact, implemented improvement plans, and learned from its work to improve performance management and effectiveness. It deemed the West Midlands and East Midlands agencies to be topping the charts, with three ‘strong' ratings, while their East of England, North West and North East counterparts received one ‘strong' and two ‘good' ratings each. None of the agencies were judged to be performing poorly. Councils are currently submitting their proposals as to how LEPs should work, ahead of a White Paper, expected in September, which will set out more details. Last week, the business, innovation and skills select committee announced its first inquiry of the new Parliament would look into the LEPs plans.

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WHITEHALL

Politicians defend plans to axe RDAs

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