RDAs handed stronger role despite threat of extinction (From The Northern Echo)

RDAs handed stronger role despite threat of extinction

4:49pm Monday 30th November 2009 in

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A STRONGER role was pledged yesterday for regional development agencies - just months before a general election that could see them axed.

Lord Mandelson announced that One NorthEast and Yorkshire Forward would become a "vital bridge" between businesses and universities, to help drive forward economic recovery.

The Business Secretary said the link was currently "under-used and under-exploited" and offered a fresh way to strengthen the vital role played by the quangos.

From April, the RDAs will also be responsible for drawing up a skills strategy for their region, which will influence how Whitehall spends hundreds of millions of pounds on improved training.

The twin new responsibilities will sharpen the divide between Labour and the Conservatives, who have vowed to scrap the RDAs and hand their powers to local authorities.

Yesterday, speaking to journalists at Westminster, Lord Mandelson accused the Tories of bowing to the wishes of Conservative-run local councils, who had an "inbuilt antipathy" to the quangos.

He said RDAs had stimulated more than £4 of economic benefit for every £1 spent and had created, or secured, more than 200,000 jobs in the last decade.

Lord Mandelson said: "In the light of that track record, why on earth is David Cameron determined to scrap these business-led regional powerhouses?

"Our intention is to strengthen the RDAs, by making them a critical intermediary between local businesses and universities and colleges - a vital bridge, which has been understated, under-used and under-exploited."

Details of the new role will be revealed in a few weeks, as part of a new higher education framework that will pave the way for more businesses to "fund and design" university courses.

During the speech, Lord Mandelson was upbeat about the way the North and other regions were coming through the recession - in contrast to the lasting pain inflicted by previous economic crashes in the 1980s and 90s.

He said: "I don't think it is stretching it to talk, these days, about a renaissance in regional confidence in Britain. Fifteen years ago, the talk in any of the industrial revolution cities was still too often about what had been lost, how they had declined.

"These days it is increasingly about what is being built and what is being renewed in these cities - the new confidence, the new links to Europe or the global economy, the new jobs."

However, Lord Mandelson defended his decision to end the 'car scrappage'

scheme that has been credited with keeping the car industry afloat through the recession.

He said: "The longer you make any particular industry dependent on government intervention, the harder it will be to wean that industry off that particular measure. That really does have to happen during 2010."