Economic Prosperity Boards

City-regional and regional government in England are at a crossroads right now. And the traffic lights aren't working. One road is totally congested with too many different regional bodies. Meanwhile, there are some new, emerging city-regional vehicles on the other road - 15 Multi Area Agreements and 2 city-region pilots. But so far, progress has been too slow - mainly because all those regional bodies are clogging things up.

We like city-regions, because they match real economic areas like Greater Manchester. They are the right-sized area for funding transport, skills and housing. Regions are too big for that stuff, and individual local councils too small. We want city-regions to be put on a firmer footing - formal legal bodies, with real powers.

That's why we welcomed the Government's proposals for Economic Prosperity Boards, earlier this year. EPBs are part of the Local Democracy Bill, which is currently going through Parliament - see previous post.

EPBs would be permanent, statutory, binding sub-regional authorities for economic development. Unlike MAAs, which are 3-year voluntary groupings of local councils. EPBs would be much broader than MAAs - they would allow existing councils to pool responsibilities for things like transport, planning, skills and employment. And because they are formal legal bodies, central government could devolve real powers to them.

Greater Manchester and Leeds city-region pilots are the closest thing to EPB status. As I said back in February, city-regions like Greater Manchester will only get hold of big devolved budgets if they go for formal, statutory models like EPBs. Or Metro Mayors.

But EPBs are not definite yet. Government Ministers haven't exactly been pushing them hard. Concerns have been raised in Parliament. And the Tories seem to be against them.

The Business and Enterprise Committee considered the Local Democracy Bill earlier this year. It was "surprised and disappointed" by the lack of detail in the Government's proposals for sub-regional governance. And concluded that EPBs "might be an unnecessary addition to the plethora of organisations and strategies which operate at local, sub-regional and regional level".

Caroline Spelman didn't like EPBs, when she spoke in the Local Democracy Bill debate in June.

I asked a CLG Minister and officials about EPBs a couple of weeks ago. They were "hopeful" that EPBs would get the green light, but weren't entirely clear what they would do - and said it was "up to local councils" to decide.

I hope that Economic Prosperity Boards do end up in the final Local Democracy Act. If they are in there, CLG Ministers will have to sell them - and explain why Greater Manchester etc should become one. Councils that form a statutory sub-regional authority should get more devolved budgets and powers, than those that don't.

But there is a risk that EPBs will never materialise. Either because they get chopped out of the Bill. Or because, post-election, a Tory Govt drops them and introduces Local Enterprise Partnerships instead. Things should become a bit less muddy once the Bill gets Royal Assent next month.