ANONYMISATION.DOC

NOTE ON THE PROCESS OF ANONYMISING INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS FOR SUBMISSION

For each interview submitted, the names of the interviewees have been replaced with a unique identification tag (Interviewee 1, Interviewee 2 etc). This replacement method has been rigorously applied across all transcripts. As such, when the name of one of our interviewees is raised in another interview, their name has been replaced with their unique identification tag.

Wherever possible, we have tried to leave the names of individuals, places and organisations in the transcripts. Where this was not possible, for example when this might have compromised the identity of the interviewee, the name has simply been deleted and replaced with unique identification code. This coding has been used in a consistent way between interviews.

On at least one occasion, an interviewee made ‘off the record’ comments that were transcribed. These comments have been removed and this practice has been noted in the submitted transcript.

1 INFORMATIONSHEET.DOC

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

Professor Adam Tickell

1987: BA Geography, First Class, University of Manchester; 1992: PhD Geography, University of Manchester 1991-1994: Lecturer, University of Leeds; 1995-1998: Lecturer, University of Manchester; 1998-2000: Professor, University of Southampton; 1995-1998: ESRC Research Fellow (concurrent with teaching appointments); 2000-present: Professor, University of Bristol. Selected Publications 1992: ‘Accumulation, regulation and the geographies of post-Fordism’ Progress in Human Geography (with Peck); ‘The structure and relationships of inward investment in northern England.’ Regional Studies. (with Dicken); 1994: ‘Too many partners ... the future for regeneration partnerships’ Local Economy (with Peck); 1995: ‘Regulatory deficit’, England’s South East and the collapse of Thatcherism.’ Environment and Planning A (with Peck); 1996: ‘Manchester plays games: exploring the local politics of globalisation’ Urban Studies (with Cochrane and Peck); ‘The return of the Manchester Men’ Transactions, Institute of British Geographers (with Peck); ‘Putting Japanese investment in Europe in its place’ Area, (with Dicken and Yeung); 1998: ‘Privatisation, employment and windfall tax’ Area 30, 83-90; ‘Creative finance and the local state: the Hammersmith and Fulham swaps affair’ Political Geography; 2000: ‘From PEZ to FFEZ: the evolution of a labour market experiment’ Regional Studies (with Peck, Haughton, Jones); 2001 ‘Emergent frameworks in global finance: Accounting standards and German supplementary pensions Economic Geography (with Clark and Mansfield); German employee-sponsored pensions and investment management Transactions, Institute of British Geographers (with Clark and Mansfield); 2002: Devolution and England’s south east Regional Studies (with John and Musson); 2003 The economic geographer reader (Blackwell, with Barnes, Sheppard and Peck) Grants: ESRC Research Fellowship; Canadian High Commission Fellowship; ESRC awards on future of governance and devolution. Editorships: Review editor, Journal of Economic Geography (2000-4); Editor, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers (2002-7) Member of editorial board, Critical Discourse Studies

Professor Peter John

1983 BSc Economic and Politics, Bath University, first class; 1986 M. Phil, Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford University; 1992 D. Phil Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford University

1987-88 Research Assistant, Nuffield College, Oxford University;1988-92 Research Fellow, Policy Studies Institute, London;1992-1995 Lecturer in Politics, Keele University;1995 -1998 Lecturer in Politics, Southampton University;1998-1999 Reader in Politics, Southampton University;1999- Reader in Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck College (Professor from 2001)

Selected Publications Books: Analysing Public Policy (London, Cassell, 1998); Local Governance in Europe (London: Sage, 2001).

1 Journal articles: Peter John and Alistair Cole, 'Urban regimes in Britain and France: the cases of Leeds and Lille', Frontières, 9, 1996, 37-50; Peter John and Alistair Cole, 'A very difficult political animal', Municipal Journal, 13 March 1998; Thanos Mergoupis, Keith Dowding and Peter John, Problems of Residential Mobility as a Market-Like Mechanism in Local Government Centre For Philosophy of Natural and Social Science Discussion Paper Series, ISSN 1358-0477 DP 46/00, 2000; Charlie Hislop and Peter John, Validating Best Value: a Southampton case study (London: Local Government Information Unit, 1999), pp10.

Chapters in edited collections: Peter John and Alistair Cole, 'Sociometric mapping techniques and the comparison of policy networks: economic decision-making in Leeds and Lille', in D, Marsh (ed.) Comparing Policy Networks (Buckingham, Open University Press, 1998); ‘New Labour and the decentralisation of power' in G. Taylor (ed.), The Impact of New Labour (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1999); ‘Capacity building, networks and local political leadership’, in G. Stoker (ed.), The New Management of Local Governance: Audit of an Era of Change in Local Governance (London: Macmillan, 1999); Peter John and Martin Saiz, 'Local political parties in comparative perspective', in M. Saiz and H. Geser, Local Parties in Political and Organisational Perspective (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999).

Grants

The competitive city and urban policy: modelling discretionary grant allocation in the UK, Peter John (principal applicant), Keith Dowding and Hugh Ward - £47,947, February 1998-January 2000, L130 25 1038 (Cities, Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme). Co-funded by Southampton University, Research Fund, Annual Grants Scheme, £18, 099 (September 1997-September 1998).

Elites and institutions in regional and local governance in Eastern Europe, James Hughes (principal applicant) and Peter John, September 1999- September 2002, £150,000 (part of One Europe or Several Research Programme).

Social capital, participation and the causal role of socialisation, with David Halpern (principal applicant) and David Hargreaves, January 2000-January 2003, £190,000 (part of the Democracy and Participation Programme).

Building institutions in a vacuum: devolution and England’ s South East, with Adam Tickell, April 2001 – April 2004, £110,000 (part of the Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme)

Dr Steven Musson

1997: BA (Hons) Geography (First Class), University of Manchester 2001: Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester 2001 – 2003: Research Assistant, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, ‘Building Institutions in a Vacuum: Devolution and England’s South East’ 2003 – 2004: ESRC Post-doctoral Research Fellow, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol Selected Publications 2004: The world city as a local political strategy in Manchester, UK. Submitted to Cities in March 2004 (with Peter M Webb); A decade of decentralisation? Assessing the role of the government offices for the English regions. Submitted to Environment and Planning A in October 2003 (with Adam

2 Tickell and Peter John); 2003 The South East Region? In Tomaney, J and Mawson, J (Eds.): England. The state of the regions. Bristol: Policy Press (with Tickell and John); Building a world class region: regional strategy in the South East of England. Local Economy 17.3 pp 1-10 (with Tickell and John); England’s Problem Region: Regionalism in the South East. Regional Studies 36.7 pp 733-741 (with Tickell and John)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The South East region has long been seen as peripheral to the process of devolution in England. Claims that the region lacks a clear identity of its own, that it is in fact a series of economic sub- regions and that London, although governed separately, is the cultural and economic core of the South East, are easy to make and to substantiate. This research project moves beyond these preliminary analyses of the ‘problem region’ of English Devolution. It focuses on the process through which the region is constructed as a network of institutions. It considers the emergent relationship between the three institutions of regional government, the RDA, the Government Office and the Regional Assembly, to be critical in the formation and operation of the region. This triad of regional institutions has had an immediate and significant impact on local and county government in the South East. However, the effectiveness of their promotion of the South East’s interests on the inter-regional and national scale is more questionable. This project investigates the projection of regional interests onto other scales of government by regional government.

Three phases of research were carried out during 2001-2002. Initially, the focus was on the South East region but subsequently we sought to place this research in a wider spatial and institutional context though further research in central government and in London. The first phase of research involved socio-economic profiling and mapping of the region and the modelling of networks of institutional connectivity based on the multiple board memberships of individuals. The main phase of research has been a series of interviews with key informants from regional, county and local government, the economic development community, business, trade unions and the voluntary sector in the South East region and beyond. These interviews sought to identify which policy issues were important across the south east, to assess the likely impact of regional institutions on government in the region and to clarify how the South East might seek to articulate its policy requirements through the collective voice of regional government. The final phase was to extend the research focus to central government as well as organisations such as the CBI, the TUC and the British Chambers of Commerce and to establish how the interests of the South East region are represented at the centre.

From our analysis of these data, we found that institutions of regional government in all parts of England are concerned primarily with physical regeneration projects and economic development initiatives. However, the policy imperatives for south east England are to address the problems of economic success such as transport congestion, skilled labour shortages and a lack of affordable housing. As such, the regional government of the UK’s core economic area is failing to address the fundamental requirements of the regional economy. Institutional links between the South East region and London remain underdeveloped and as such inter-regional policy on important common issues such as housing and transport are fragmented. It would seen that there is much scope for the GLA, the LDA and GOL to develop common strategies with their counterparts in the South East and the East of England, although as yet they are under little pressure to do so as central government takes a leading role in these perceived issues of national importance.

3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

Aim: To explore / investigate the extent to which the south east is a “problem” for the regional experiment in England and examine the institutional options for the region.

Objectives: To ascertain the extent to which the south east constitutes a region in comparative UK terms, according to political and economic criteria To audit the region’s institutions and partnerships; and examine the depth and links between the institutional networks and partnerships To map the regional economy and situate the south east within the national political economy To feed into the policy making process the insights of the research and potential avenues for institutional change and development

RESEARCH METHODS

The research involved the analysis of (i) economic and social statistics for the region (ii) publicly available documents from key regional bodies (iii) internal documents from key regional bodies (iv) interviews with key officials in the regional governance architecture (v) interviews with key business figures and regional experts In addition, we constructed a database of the key board, QUANGO and public-private partnership members and performed socio-metric network analysis of cross board memberships The network analysis informed the selection of interview subjects, and the identification of key players in the region: their place in the regional network, their views of the south east and the proposed options for reform As the project developed, we also incorporated a range of local, regional and central government financial data. This was analysed using geographically and longitudinally sensitive methods.

PUBLICATIONS ARISING (at 18th June 2004)

Governing the mega-region: governance and networks across London and the South East of England. Submitted to New Political Economy June 2004

A decade of decentralisation? Assessing the role of the government offices for the English regions. Submitted to Environment and Planning A June 2004

The South East Region? In Tomaney, J and Mawson, J (Eds.): England. The state of the regions. Bristol: Policy Press

Building a world class region: regional strategy in the South East of England. Local Economy 17.3 pp 1-10

England’s Problem Region: Regionalism in the South East. Regional Studies 36.7 pp 733-741

4 INTERVIEWSCHEDULE.DOC

Identification of the region

• It seems that the South East region is most relevant to policy makers in local authorities, county councils and economic partnerships. To what extent does the south east region matter – in this area and to this organisation? • How does the south east work? In which policy spheres is it important? In which is it irrelevant? • Do you think that a South East interest exists (does this interest tie in to those projected by the three institutions of regional governance?) Which groups / organisations are leading the way in creating this interest, and who does it serve? • The South East region can be though of as an amalgamation of diverse sub-regions. Are there a set of interests / policy issues / institutional objectives that connect this part of the region to others / connect different parts of the region? Which are these? What role do the three institutions of regional governance have in identifying these issues and addressing them strategically? • Is the region a politicised construction? Can it be seen as a Labour Party project, or does it have cross-party support? Conservative led and dominated region – does this put the South East in a problematic position with regards the rest of the regional project? • There seems to be little public support for the Government’s regional proposals in the South East. Why do you think this is? Does it matter that there is little public support for the development of strong regional institutions? • Other government activities / other institutions and organisations are also organising around the regional scale. Any implications of this beyond administrative convenience? Does the region this creates have added significance beyond the sum of its parts?

1

Working with and within the region

• Are the three institutions of regional governance relevant to the economic life of the south east region? Has a clear role been built for these institutions? Where is this role being decided? Within the region, or imposed from central government? • Can the ‘talk’ of the three institutions of regional governance be translated into action in the region? How does this translation happen- which mechanisms and which organisations? • How does the role of the three institutions of regional government differ in relation to your organisation? What do the Government Office, the RDA and the Regional Assembly actually do for you? (Need to move beyond ideas of ‘the region’ as a general construction here and to get into the detail of responsibility and delivery by the different players that are ‘the region’). • In what respect is the region an enabler? What are the benefits delivered by being in the region? Does the south east region limit what can be achieved? Does it reduce local autonomy? (Need to get here into which elements of strategy formation and policy decisions the three institutions of regional governance are involved in – and the role that each institution of regional governance plays in this process) • In setting objectives, is the discursive priority given to exclusion, while the strategic priority is given to managing and maintaining growth? • Can the divergent nature of the SE region be overcome by the three institutions of regional governance? Can the competing claims of the sub-regions all be met by a single strategy? • Partnership Building and Network Development

• How has the nature of the relationships that your organisation forms / the partnerships you are involved in been changed?

2 • Many new partnerships within the region – and Local Strategic Partnerships to cut through the tangle of partnerships at the local level. General acceptance that there is a proliferation of partnerships at the local scale. Do these partnerships reflect real policy issues / address real priorities? Are they relevant? • Have existing relationships between institutions been formalised by these partnerships, or is there still more informal networks at the local scale? • Does the creation of regions limit your ability to form partnerships / maintain networks between different regions? Is the region limiting as well as enabling in this respect?

Relationship between the local and the regional scales

• How do the three institutions of regional governance fit in to existing relationships between institutions? Which organisations have become more important and which have had their importance diminished? • Local – regional conflict. Have there been any incidences where regional interests have been prioritised over local interests in this area? What means for redress is there for local areas? How can local interests be protected against regional strategic priorities? • National versus local interests. What role can the three institutions of regional governance play in mediating between national and local interests? Any examples of how this works? (The different IRGs are expected to have very different roles in this – RDA effectively a lobbying organisation whereas Government Office has statutory links to DTI, DTLR, DoE etc.)

Inter-regional relations

• Creation of regional government has separated the SE from London (also need to tailor this for areas e.g. Milton Keynes which sit between 3 regions – they presumably have much contact outside the region and more in common with other regions than with most of the south east). In which ways is contact between regions made?

3 • Which issues are important across regions? How are these addressed at a local level? How at a regional level? Do local institutions have contact with the three institutions of regional governance in more than one region? Does the establishment of regional strategic tier inhibit the creation of inter-regional partnerships? • What are the implications of having one regional voice / one regional representative for relations with other regions? • Regional – County Council relations

England • Is the south east region an effective lobbying device? Does it make the region more likely to get what it wants from central government? Will other regions be more able to lobby effectively as stronger regions? • Relationship between three institutions of regional governance and other sub-regional institutions – turf wars? Also, battles for power and control between the three institutions of regional governance? Might lack of an elected regional assembly in the SE create a power vacuum that others might try and fill – e.g. counties? • Sustainability of growth in the south east region – highly concentrated nature of growth in hotspot areas (Government Office and RDA are very concerned about this – possible source of tension between them and RDA, who seem less concerned about it) • SE as a knowledge-based, high value economy – the central plank of the RDA’s economic strategy – the solution to sustainable growth problems in a form acceptable to the rest of the UK (who benefit from the trickle down effects of this type of economy). BUT can such a strategy be pursued in a way that is acceptable to the rest of the UK – without draining highly qualified labour out of other regions to meet demand? • South East has a de-facto veto power over the English regional project

Europe • How effective has the ‘single voice’ of the three institutions of regional governance been in securing funding/policy input/profile in Europe?

4 • Any ties to other European/international localities? What it the region’s role in this process? Any promotion of international links through the region • Funding – the most relevant aspect of European affairs in much of the UK, but does it have any impact in the south east (one view is that the UK only went down the regional path to secure funding from the EU, which is awarded on a regional basis. But, how relevant is this to the SE, which attracts minimal amounts of structural funding?)

5 PROJECTRATIONALE.DOC

Context and rationale

"The Labour Party is committed to reversing the tide of centralisation and giving regions and the people who live in them more power to determine their own futures" (John Prescott, 1996)

Although considerably meeker than the constitutional changes underway in the other national territories of the United Kingdom, England is enjoying a slow, fitful and little noticed (outside London) move towards the devolution of power to its regions (John and Whitehead, 1997). While this process started in 1994 when the Conservatives created regional baronies that were vested with some of the powers of key government departments (the regional ‘Government Offices’), the election of the Labour Government in May 1997 shifted the political terrain. As the New Labour manifesto recognised, much of the debate on regional devolution in England has been influenced by the imperatives and political discourses of those regions that failed to enjoy the full fruits of economic growth during the last two decades. Not only was there a sense in, for example, the North East that national policies were dominated by the perceived requirements of ‘middle England’, but also that the regions were better able at framing appropriate tools for economic intervention than Whitehall. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the poorly funded, precarious coalitions that were the English Regional Development Organisations, such as the Northern Development Company and Inward (in the North West), looked enviously at the power and resources of the Welsh and, while it existed, Scottish Development Agencies (for example, Dicken and Tickell, 1992). Accordingly, in their election Manifesto, New Labour argued that,

"The Conservatives have created a tier of regional government in England through quangos and government regional offices. Meanwhile, local authorities have come together to create a more co-ordinated regional voice. Labour will build upon these developments through the establishment of regional chambers to co-ordinate transport, planning, economic development, bids for European funding and land use planning. Demand for directly elected government so varies across England that it would be wrong to impose a uniform system. In time, we will introduce legislation to allow the people, region by region, to decide in a referendum whether they want directly elected regional government (1997, 34-5). 1 In the meantime, however, English regional devolution was to be more modest. In contrast to the creation of legislatures in the ‘national regions’, the English regions were to see the creation of representative regional development agencies. Reflecting the concerns of peripheral English regions that centralised governance was a drag on regional economic development, the remit of the RDAs was, even at the rhetorical stages of their development, tightly drawn:

"Prosperity needs to be built from the bottom up. We will establish one-stop Regional Development Agencies to co-ordinate regional economic development, help support small businesses and encourage inward investment" (Labour Party Manifesto, 1997, 16).

The RDAs became live in 1999 and will, over time and in conjunction with the appropriate Government Office, assume an important role in supporting, co-ordinating and stimulating economic development in the English regions. However, in more peripheral regions there was disappointment that the RDAs were given relatively circumscribed powers, that there boards were both to be dominated by the Secretary of State (rather than elected directly or by the regional assembly) and dominated by business people, and that more ambitious plans for regional government appear to have been put on hold (see, for example, Tommaney, 2000). But there are stronger political forces at work than the nervousness of first term governments. As the experience of Spain shows (Colomer 1988), asymmetric regional structures are not stable. Excluded regions wish to ‘catch up’ and access the political and policy resources associated with more independent authorities. In the regions themselves the structures of regional governance have been forming since the first flirtation with devolution in the 1980s (Hogwood and Keating 1982), then in reaction against retreat of the state from regional planning in the early 1980s: regionally based European Union partnerships with an office in Brussels (Burch and Holliday 1993, John 1994, Jeffery 1996), stronger local authority networks (Mawson 1998) and regionally based interest groups, such as of business and trades unions. The West Lothian question – forever a false paradox – is a persistent rhetorical flourish that drives political debate. The experience of countries like France shows that administrative regionalisation can turn into political regionalism. Who would have thought that the bizarre regions drawn by Debré in 1962, themselves drawn from boundaries of the Vichy era, would become the boundaries of France’s 22 regions created in 1982 and democratised in 1986? With this historical experience in mind,

2 the standard regions of England may have a similar trajectory (with a similar asymmetry between the regionally focused industrial regions, such as Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the more ethnically based regions, such as Brittany, and the amorphous, but prosperous regions of Ile-de-France and Centre). However, the success of regional devolution will stand or fall on whether it is legitimated in the core discursive and political region of England: the South East. Using almost any economic or social indicator, England’s South East is the most privileged place in the UK. For example, it has a higher economic activity rate than any other region or national territory; the lowest rate of long-term illness; the highest proportion of people in the upper income quintile; the lowest unemployment rates; and the highest car ownership rates. Although in the popular imagination the South East is simply a service economy, with the exception of the West Midlands, more people in the region rely on manufacturing for their jobs than anywhere else, while with just 13.7% of the UK population, it accounts for over 15% of GDP. Importantly, these data exclude London which provides employment and income to many of the best paid workers in the SE region. Yet a paradox runs through the economic success of the South East that goes to the heart of regional devolution: England’s richest region is simultaneously the most institutionally weak and geographically divided. While the development agencies in northern regions had something of a history of partnership building (they could, for example, build upon the regional development organisations and coalitions of local authorities), the South East had little institutional infrastructure for South East Economic Development Agency (SEEDA) to build upon (although in SERPLAN the local authorities did co-operate well). The South East is dominated by powerful sub-regions which face outwards to other regions or across the channel (John 1998; Church and Reid, 1999); it has areas of extreme affluence and areas of significant urban decay; there is significant intra-regional competition for influence, resources, investment and authority; and, importantly, there is no historical-geographical imagination of the region which can glue it together. Furthermore, there is significant intra-regional political fractionation. Not only do all political parties have power bases, but there is significant competition between local authorities within the region for authority and power. For example, in Hampshire Southampton City Council refuses to join - or collaborate with - the Hampshire Economic Partnership and has even recently cancelled 3 long-standing joint economic planning procedures with neighbouring Eastleigh Borough Council. John and Cole found that partnerships and governance in the Southampton area was weak, divided and ill-focused (John and Cole 1999). Within the region there is no dominant urban centre, but there are seven cities with populations of over 100,000. In this context, it is not surprising that business appears to be a driving force in setting the agenda for the region. Although this is inscribed in the genes of the RDAs in general, which in as much as their boards must be dominated by business people exhibit remarkable continuity with the pre-1997 quangos (on which see Peck and Tickell, 1996; Tickell and Peck, 1996), the divided nature of the region enhances the discursive power of business further. However, there remain important questions about the extent to which business is able to operationalise its agenda without marshalling the public sector, thus further relying upon pre-existing and novel structures of local governance. This raises a series of problems for regional governance which are addressed in this research. There is a second paradox of the South East: while all of the English regions are - to a greater or lesser extent – unnatural artifices, the South East exists only in relation to an external political, economic, cultural and social space: London (see, for example, Allen et al, 1998). There are, of course, a number of asymmetries here. Not only does much of the prosperity of the South East region depend upon its geographic proximity to the London economy, but the devolution programme has granted much greater political autonomy and democratic legitimacy to the London mayor and Assembly than available elsewhere in England. Accordingly, in setting the agenda for the wider London and South East economic space, the economic prowess and political authority of the capital may dominate. And yet this is to draw it too baldly. The growth of the wider regional economy is a ‘problem’ for London, as long-standing processes of counter- urbanisation denude the city of both population and employment (Breheney, 1999). Therefore, it is not just that London is a ‘problem’ for governance in the rest of the South East, but that the rest of the south east is a problem for the governance of London. In this context, SEEDA, the South East Regional Assembly and GOSE (Government Office for the South East) will have to construct and legitimise a robust institutional network without going to the heart of the real functional space. A coherent regional strategy requires co-ordination with - or assertion of power against – the political, economic and administrative might of the capital, newly energised by the London mayor. For the combined effect of these paradoxes is that the most prosperous and dynamic parts of the UK economy are just beyond the M25 – beyond the 4 grasp of London, but are lost in a tangle of city based networks and unable to articulate its interests because of an apparent absence of political identity. For all its size, the south-east is squeezed by both a resurgent periphery and centre. These issues are of more than local importance. Not only do they talk profoundly to issues of scale (Macleod & Goodwin 1999a,b; Brenner, 1999; Jones and Macleod, 1999), Macro- economic policy in the UK has increasingly responded to the imperatives of its core regions. Overheating in the (greater) South East during the late 1980s was one of the key regulatory crises of the late Thatcher period and undoubtedly contributed to the deep economic recession of the early 1990s (Peck and Tickell, 1992; Tickell and Peck, 1995) and the disenchantment with Conservative governments throughout that decade. Indeed, the devolution programme could be theoretically understood as responding, in part, to the politics of the ‘North-South divide’ that resonated during the 1980s (Lewis and Townsend, 1989; Tickell, 1993) and which have been revived by the intervention of Cabinet Office research (2000) which has pointed to the intra- regional economic variability. While these findings are entirely consistent with the corpus of geographic research (for example, Massey, 1978), it remains the case that strong growth in southern property and consumer markets have a strong impact on the economy of the UK as a whole. Indeed, the interest rate rises in 1999 and 2000 have led critics to suggest that "Mr George seems to be running the Bank of South East England at the moment" (Alex Salmond, leader of SNP, Radio 5 19 Jan 2000). While unpalatable, as long as inflationary pressures in asset prices and services in the South East remain, macro-economic policy is likely to continue this bias. As such, the economic development tasks for the new institutions of regional governance - to maintain growth and to provide a non-inflationary infrastructure - are of central significance to the health of the UK economy as a whole. There is, then, a fundamental paradox here. While the political imperative for regional devolution in England came from peripheral areas which had felt excluded from the political process and marginalised by economic decision-making, the economic imperative may be for the management of growth by locally-embedded institutions. Yet this is a process fraught with tensions. Not only is there a danger that articulate regional armatures will refuse to subsume the regional interest to the national, but within the region, there may be localities which refuse to accept growth in order to alleviate pressures elsewhere.

5 So what of the political space of the south east? Path dependence suggests that fragmentation and lack of identity will continue to sustain the absence of political region. Such a political strategy may be reinforced by criticisms of the costs of regional government and fear of the political power of northern Labour baronies, better able to access resources from the centre. It makes sense for regional elites rely on their ‘luck’ (cf. Dowding 1996) on having macro-economic policy designed in their favour; they do not need regional institutions because they get all the policy outcomes they desire. Nevertheless, there may be incentives to foster more regional joint working. The first is the familiar ‘echo effect’ of top down regionalisation, that elites and their constituents become mobilised by regional institutions. The second scenario is that the change in balance of power in the UK state may have the effect of mobilising south-east elites. This may derive from the political effects of stronger regions. More specifically, the demands on the centre to balance the costs of macroeconomic policy with fiscal compensation to poorer regions may activate a south-east regional agenda to stop the loss of public resources, such as SSAs which are already migrating north in the latest review. Given the fragile nature of economic competition between the south-east economy and its neighbours in central France, northern Italy and south Germany, elites may take the view that massive public investment and energy is needed on transport and housing if south-east labour markets are to remain efficient across Europe and that the long term returns to the UK economy are going to massively outweigh any benefits from retraining schemes located in the North East. Underneath such economic calculation may be the emergence of an English identity – whose core area corresponds with the area of the south-east. While assertions of English identity have been masked by a liberal consensus and have been subsumed within the UK project (Lee 2000), devolution upsets the equilibrium as the (southern) English have a grievance to bear against the strength of the periphery. Research questions This research seeks to explore/investigate the extent to which the SE is a "problem" for the regional experiment in England and examine the institutional options for the region. This will be done by addressing the following research questions: • Is there a SE interest and whose is it? To what extent are these interests felt? To what extent are these interests articulated? To what extent are these interests realised? In setting objectives, is the discursive priority

6 given to exclusion, while the strategic priority is given to managing and maintaining growth? • In what ways is the regional political infrastructure developing in response to the devolution experiment? Are new institutions emerging? Do these represent autonomous and local, or centrally- imposed and national, solutions? How strong are the links between geographically and politically bounded organisations? Do some (geographical/ political) institutions have primacy in the region? how do regional interests and public-private partnerships co- ordinate their actions? how does it gain a popular or local legitimacy? how do regional interests lobby the centre? Does the South- East get what it wants without trying and so does not need a regional political structure? How does the regional interest differ from the national interest and how does it relate to the Regional Policy Forum? How do the new institutions in London interact with those of the South East? • In what ways can regional institutions affect the regional economy? What is the shape of the regional economy? How does economic development activity translate into economic change? how does the new institutional architecture co-ordinate efforts within a disparate region?

7 REQUESTLETTER.DOC

Email: Direct line:

Date

Dear xxxx

Devolution and England’s South East

I am writing to seek your assistance for a research project being led by Professor Adam Tickell at the University of Bristol. We are exploring the response in the South East to devolved regional institutions, both within the region as a whole and within the constituent sub-regions, focussing in particular on the relationship between new regional institutions and those at the sub-regional and local scales.

We have already conducted an audit of institutions in the South East and are now interviewing strategically important organisations and key actors. I would very much like to arrange an interview with you in the coming weeks, at a time and location convenient to you. The interview should last approximately an hour.

Your assistance is crucial to the success of our research project and I will phone your office shortly to arrange a convenient time for an appointment. In the meantime, however, feel free to contact me to discuss any aspect of the project, or the nature of the interview, further.

The project is part of a high-profile national research programme coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council and both the programme coordinator and Professor Tickell are working closely with DTLR. Overall, eighteen projects are exploring a wide range of themes surrounding devolution in the national territories of Great Britain and in the English regions. This is the only project seeking explicitly to represent the South East region in this programme of research.

A brief outline of our project is enclosed, while more comprehensive details can be found on the project web site at

Yours sincerely,

1