House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Sixth Report

THE DEPARTMENT FOR CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT AND ITS QUANGOS

V. QUANGOS AND THE NEW REGIONAL AGENDA

55. One of the themes to emerge from the Comprehensive Spending Review was what was termed by Mr Smith "the new regional agenda".[163] The Department has sought "to establish a stronger regional focus for our policies and programmes, greater strategic coherence between cultural activities at regional level and new machinery to support this".[164]

56. The Department's regional agenda is in part designed to strengthen links with local authorities. Local government tends to have responsibilities across the whole range of cultural and leisure services for which the Department is responsible at national level. Local authorities also traditionally have adopted the more coherent approach which the Department is seeking to encourage at regional level.[165] The Department is fostering the development of local cultural strategies by local authorities which should feed into regional developments.[166]

57. The Department itself is appointing a senior official in each of the nine regional, cross-departmental Government Offices. The role of these officials will be to represent cultural interests at regional level.[167] These appointments were seen as a step forward, although the National Trust questioned whether one person in each region would be sufficient.[168] The Department is also fostering two other developments which we examined in more detail: first, further delegation to the regions by quangos; and, second, the establishment of Regional Cultural Consortiums.

(ii) Tourism and the regions

58. The transformation of the English Tourist Board into the English Tourism Council is designed in part to allow more expenditure on tourism to be allocated to the regions.[169] Regional Tourist Boards are not quangos, but financially independent membership organisations, which currently receive only 10 to 15 per cent of their funding from the English Tourist Board. Mr Quarmby nevertheless felt that they were "well-positioned to carry forward the regional dimension of the Government's tourism strategy".[170]

59. The Local Government Association broadly welcomed the commitment of a higher proportion of Government support for tourism to the regions, believing that it would help to foster effective public/private partnerships which are crucial to tourism development.[171] However, both the Tourism Society and the Local Government Association were concerned that regions themselves did not have boundaries suited to the marketing of tourism. Tourism destinations did not follow administrative boundaries; regions were generally too large and inappropriate to be promoted in this way; destinations had to be promoted in their own right and in different ways; Regional Tourist Boards varied in their effectiveness; destinations on the edge of regions might suffer from concentration on artificial regional structures.[172] Mr Smith accepted that it was the marketing of particular destinations which had "much more resonance with the public" and implied that devolution to the regions would facilitate a greater emphasis on such marketing.[173] The extent to which individual destinations rather than regions in themselves benefit is likely to be an important determinant of the success of the new regional agenda for tourism.

(iii) Arts and the regions

60. As part of its reorganisation, the Arts Council of England has committed itself to what it terms "a radical policy of delegation" to Regional Arts Boards.[174] Mr Robinson assured us that he took the issue of delegation "very seriously": there had been "huge increases" in support for the Regional Arts Boards "because we fundamentally believe that the best decisions about arts in a region are going to be made by a proper input from that region itself".[175] English Regional Arts Boards believed that the Arts Council "is now fully committed to the spirit of decentralisation, and is working in harmonious partnership with the Regional Arts Boards to resolve any outstanding structural or financial problems of devolution of particular client organisations within clearly-agreed timescales".[176]

61. The Regional Arts Boards are not public bodies, but independent companies limited by guarantee with charitable status.[177] English Regional Arts Boards suggested that their independence had probably been enhanced by the fact that none of the Board Chairmen were now on the Arts Council.[178] As part of its Funding Agreement with the Department, the Arts Council "is required to gather information from Regional Arts Boards pertinent to this agreement through similar, formal funding agreements, to measure whether all directly and indirectly funded bodies are contributing to the same outputs".[179]

62. In evidence, there was cautious support for delegation to Regional Arts Boards. Sound Sense commented that "broadly, the closer funding gets to local communities, the more likely it is that it does what communities want it to do".[180] This view was tempered with concern that support should not be affected by the "personal predilections of individual officers".[181] The Foundation for Community Dance also supported greater delegation with the proviso that hitherto some of the broader work of Regional Arts Boards had been "largely hidden from the arts constituency".[182] Although Mr Hewitt saw one of the strengths of the Regional Arts Boards as lying in local authority involvement, the Local Government Association described the relationship as "variable" and called for greater consistency in policy in future.[183]

(iv) English Heritage and the regions

63. Whereas expenditure on tourism and the arts is being increasingly delegated to independent bodies in the regions, English Heritage has been strengthening its own regional network. It will shortly have opened offices in the nine regions of England using the boundaries of the Government Offices. These local offices will perform English Heritage's frontline work: statutory planning casework, the distribution of conservation grants and the presentation of properties to the public. The offices are intended to make English Heritage more visible and accessible at a regional level and to serve as "one-stop-shops" for its services.[184] This development was supported by the National Trust and the Local Government Association, the latter believing that it would facilitate liaison between local authorities and English Heritage officers previously based in London.[185]

(v) Regional Cultural Consortiums

64. The Department is also seeking to create more formal structures for liaison between its sectors in the regions, "bringing the arts and sport and heritage and tourism together".[186] Existing informal Regional Cultural Forums are being replaced by Regional Cultural Consortiums in each English region outside London which will have a more formal structure and support. The Secretary of State will initially appoint the Chairs of these bodies. The Department and its staff in the Government Offices will assist with the establishment of the Consortiums, although further support will come from the participating publicly-funded organisations.[187]

65. The Regional Cultural Consortiums will involve quangos, local authorities and "representatives of other relevant regional interests including the creative industries".[188] Quangos such as English Heritage will be represented at senior level on the Consortiums.[189] Some concern was expressed that the work of Consortiums might be unduly influenced by the varying regional strength of different sectors.[190] The Local Government Association saw the involvement of local authorities as a welcome chance to contribute to regional strategic planning for cultural sectors.[191] The strength of involvement from the cultural sectors themselves rather than quangos is also likely to influence the effectiveness of the Consortiums.[192]

66. Regional Cultural Consortiums are coming into being shortly after the establishment of Regional Development Agencies. These statutory agencies have responsibility for furthering "the economic development and the regeneration" of particular regions.[193] Tourism, the arts, heritage and sport can all make vital contributions to economic development and regeneration.[194] The Government has stated that "those with experience of the cultural sector may well be appropriate candidates for membership of the Regional Development Agency board".[195] Both the National Trust and the Tourism Society suggested that sectors which the Department sponsors might benefit from more direct, formal involvement with Regional Development Agencies.[196] Mr Smith disagreed, arguing that the Regional Cultural Consortiums represented the best means of placing cultural activity and the creative industries on the agenda of the Regional Development Agencies.[197]

(vi) Conclusions

67. In principle, the new regional agenda appears to be a worthwhile step in the right direction for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its quangos. However, a number of concerns will have to be allayed if delegation to the regions is to be successful and regional cooperation between sectors is to flourish. First, national agencies need to retain sufficient resources at the centre to finance major projects.[198] Second, quangos need to retain the capacity for developing national policies based on a clear understanding of developments in the regions.[199] Third, regional activity has to operate fairly and strategically across regions. Fourth, delegation has to take place in a way which ensures that the localities benefit and that the process does not foster a new centralisation and bureaucratisation at regional level.[200] Finally, Regional Cultural Consortiums must find the right balance between fair representation and a capacity to provide strategic leadership.

68. If Regional Cultural Consortiums succeed, it is just possible that they will create a paradox whereby cooperation between quangos and sectors is more effective at regional level than at national level. The Museums Association suggested that consultation between quangos was often lacking so that they were unaware of each other's projects and priorities.[201] Although Mr Quarmby did not see a need for an over-arching structure for cooperation between quangos at national level, the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management suggested that coordination of quangos at regional level might hasten similar developments at a national level.[202] Both the Local Government Association and the Museums Association advocated the creation of a national counterpart of the new regional structures—a National Cultural Consortium.[203] We recommend that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport consider the advantages and disadvantages of establishing a National Cultural Consortium and set out its view on the proposal in its reply to this Report.

163 Q 319. Back

164 Evidence, p 94. Back

165 Evidence, pp 10, 94. Back

166 QQ 70, 73; Cm 4213, p 20; Local Cultural Strategies: Draft Guidance for Local Authorities in England, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, June 1999. Back

167 Cm 4213, pp 19-20; Evidence, p 95. Back

168 Evidence, pp 156, 32; Q 131. Back

169 Evidence, pp 22-23; Establishing a new National Body for Tourism in England, pp 16-17. Back

170 Ibid, p 14; Q 78. Back

171 QQ 53, 69. On such partnerships, see Evidence, pp 147-149. Back

172 Evidence, p 2; QQ 54, 67. See also Evidence, p 149. Back

173 Q 326. Back

174 Evidence, p 68 Back