social enterprise

This article is provided courtesy of the news feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news

The Conservatives have confirmed local areas will be asked whether they want to scrap regional development agencies (RDAs) in favour of new bodies if the party is elected.

In an open letter, shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman and shadow business secretary Ken Clarke said local authorities and businesses would be invited to come forward with proposals for local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) to replace RDAs.

The move clarifies the policy position outlined in New Start last month, when the Conservatives said RDAs would be stripped of all functions not related to business growth and replaced by more focused LEPs. It also said at the time that councils would be left to decide whether they wanted to keep their RDA, leaving the door open for different models in different regions.

In this week’s letter, the two MPs labelled RDAs the ‘remains of John Prescott’s failed experiment of regional government’ and said the Conservatives were in the process of drawing up detailed plans to ensure a ‘smooth transition’ to LEPs.

The party has recently faced criticism that its policy on the fate of RDAs was unclear. A spokesperson insisted the party’s position had not altered and that the letter was intended to ‘enunciate’ its stance on RDAs.

In the letter’s introduction the authors said they felt it would be ‘helpful to confirm the key elements of our policy’ following the 2009 publication of the party’s green paper Control shift: returning power to local communities.