So the Government has announced the outcomes from the first round of bids for support from the Regional Growth Fund. The more astute among you will notice that, with the honourable exception of one award for the bid from e2v in Chelmsford, there are no successful bids from anywhere in the East or South East of England. This geographic slant is consistent with the messages given out by Lord Heseltine and Sir Ian Wrigglesworth that this fund would be used to support areas of the country with greater reliance on public sector jobs, but it does raise some interesting issues. Whilst the plight of some areas of the country with difficult economic futures should be of concern to us all, it is not clear that this approach offers the right answers for those areas or for the country as a whole. If the Government's prime aim is to rebalance the economy from the public to the private sector, and given that there are limited funds to help with this, should it not look for a more blended approach, where some of the money is used in areas where it generates the biggest returns in terms of new jobs created? That way, the business and income taxes resulting from growth can be reinvested in those areas with more significant structural difficulties, rather than applying sticking plasters in the shape of limited funds like RGF. And this is not a North-South divide issue either: cities such as Manchester, Leeds, and York are likely to be net generators of jobs just as much as Cambridge, Peterborough, Reading or Oxford. It's all about making the most of our national assets in tough times and investing in areas where the UK can still outcompete other parts of the world.No use crying over spilt milk of course, but it is a shame that a great number of very strong bids in the Greater South East seem to have been dismissed purely on the grounds of geography. I hope that decisions on future rounds of RGF, and for the competition for the remaining 10 Enterprise Zones are made using different criteria.
