The NWDA faces death by a thousand cuts if the Tories win power

By Rob Merrick on Oct 15, 08 01:53 PM

THEY will not be axed, but will suffer the sort of slow, painful, lingering, death-by-a- thousand-cuts that would make any sane person pine for a speedy demise.

That appears to be the Conservative plan for regional development agencies (RDAs), should David Cameron find himself in Downing Street in 2010.

Officially, the Tory policy is still under review, but business spokesman Alan Duncan confirmed the RDAs' future is not a happy one in a weekend interview. (Possibly, Mr Duncan felt the need to clarify matters after his colleague, Eric Pickles, threatened RDAs with the same fate as Anne Boleyn - who definitely did get the axe!).

Regardless, the plan appears to be to gut the RDAs of many of their powers - in particular, over housing and planning - and simply make them responsible for helping businesses set up and expand.

Even more ominously, Mr Duncan clearly expects many of the watered-down RDAs to commit suicide by restricting co-operation to "economic areas", such as Merseyside.

He said this: "RDAs will remain, but with a business-led enterprise purpose. And what we're going to let them do is propose what shape they want to take.

"If they want to stay as a big regional RDA, they can come to my department and say. If they want to be smaller, so they work more closely with county councils for specific regions, they can do that."

Now, much of this undoubtedly chimes with the complaints of business leaders who, in evidence to MPs last week, attacked the "mission creep" that has seen RDAs take on more and more peripheral powers.

But it is hard to see how a glorified business advice service - the Duncan vision, apparently - can be a Regional Development Agency in anything but name.

After all, with all planning powers back in town halls, these new-look agencies will have limited say over development - and, in many cases, they won't even be regional.

Significantly, whatever their complaints, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry, the Engineering Employers Federation and others were united in one belief.

That was that, if RDAs didn't ex- ist, someone would have to invent them - which makes it strange the Tories want to disembowel them.