Regional Development Agencies and English Regionalisation: The Question of Accountability

Abstract

The English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) are an uneasy halfway house between a standard quango, answerable to Parliament through a Secretary of State, and the regionally accountable development agencies they will become if the government ultimately tackles the democratic deficit in the English regions by creating new, directly elected regional authorities. The accountability arrangements for RDAs are ambiguous as to whether the agenda of the new agencies will primarily reflect the views of their boards and executives, regional stakeholders, or government ministers and departments. The authors put the current debate about RDA accountability into historical perspective and review its main features. They argue that the debate risks ignoring some important factors which affect the success of RDAs if it does not also (a) examine the issue of accountability within and between the broader constellation of organisations whose efforts must underpin the realisation of regional economic strategies, and (b) address a broader debate about the role of regional institutions— elected or not—in encouraging regional economic innovation and development.