South East England Development Agency (SEEDA)

Present:
James Brathwaite (Chairman), Liz Brighouse, Poul Christensen, Imtiaz Farookhi, Keith House, Peter Jones, Terry Mills, John Peel, Peter Read, Bill Wakeham, Phil Wood

In attendance:
Pam Alexander, Jeff Alexander, Paul Hudson, Paul Lovejoy, John Parsonage, Duncan Straughen, Simon Walker, Donal Galligan, Eileen Armstrong (for item 6), Deborah Wharton (for item 7)

Item 2 Welcome and apologies for absence

1. Apologies had been received from Mary McAnally, Phil Wood and Rob Anderson.

Item 3 Minutes of the last meeting (29 September 2005)

2. The minutes of the last meeting were agreed as a correct record of proceedings.
Matters arising
3. Rob Douglas updated the Board on the consultation recently launched by the Learning & Skills Councils' (LSC) on plans for its reorganisation. The LSC intends to make its stakeholder interface more local by having partnership teams operating across it existing areas, with core office functions aggregated up to the regional level.
4. The Chairman informed the Board that Ministers had turned down plans for a radical reorganisation of post-16 education in Hastings. The broad coalition of partners behind the plans are now working with DfES on a revised proposal which it is hoped will receive Ministerial support.
5. Peter Jones, also Chair of the Sussex Police Authority, updated the Board on the reorganisation of police forces across England and Wales. Under current plans local policing would remain local through the basic command units but the higher level protective functions and back office functions of smaller forces could be merged (with oversight from a strategic board). South East Chief Constables are discussing the way forward for the region's forces. The Board noted the very significant disruption across front line services.

Action: item 3, Matters Arising; paragraph 5
Paul Lovejoy to bring a paper to the Board on public sector restructuring in the region.

Item 4 Declarations of interest

6. John Peel, item 8, Sussex Enterprise Board member.

Item 5 Local Area Agreements (LAAs)

7. Paul Lovejoy introduced a paper on the LAAs being prepared by Local Authorities across the region. LAAs present a new model of service delivery, and provide a means of joining up a diverse set of Local Authority tasking frameworks in a way that can deliver flexibility in local service delivery. The agreements cover four funding ‘blocks', health, safety, children and young people and economic development and enterprise (the recently added ‘fourth block'). SEEDA has agreed to provide leadership and guidance in the development of the fourth block. All SE County Councils and three Unitary Authorities (Isle of Wight, West Berkshire and Wokingham) will have LAAs in place by April 2006.
8. SEEDA's Area Teams have been working closely with Local Authorities on the LAAs. Emerging commonalities between the LAAs include: skills, developing enterprise, infrastructure & accessibility, growing businesses through support mechanisms, reducing business waste, affordable housing, and reducing benefits dependency.
9. Issues for SEEDA to consider include: how best to organise the effort of the Area Teams across the 19 LAAs which will have been developed by 2007; how to engage with the financing of the LAAs (for example two Councils are piloting single pots); and how to contribute to what is a real chance to transform the delivery of local services.
10. The Board noted the opportunity offered by the LAAs but observed that managing local political issues will be important in making them work. The Board welcomed the emerging focus on increasing levels of economic activity, noting that the benefits structure needs to be considered in this context.
11. John Parsonage highlighted SEEDA's work with Jobcentre Plus on identifying ways of helping people out of the benefits trap, for example helping them to set up businesses, and working with GPs to identify potential referrals to Jobcentre Plus.
12. The Board NOTED the update on LAAs.

Item 6 Regional Economic Strategy (RES)

13. Eileen Armstrong presented the emerging priorities of the new RES to achieve a vision of sustainable prosperity as a world class region. They grow from the characteristics of success that the consultation process has identified: build on excellence and play to strengths; invest in potential and reduce underperformance; safeguard the quality of life as a competitive advantage of the South East. The RES consultation draft will articulate these priorities through the five drivers of productivity: enterprise, innovation, skills, competition, investment which in turn drive prosperity along with increased employment. Clear objectives and measures of success will be identified. For example the suggested enterprise objective will be for the South East to become one of the top 15 most entrepreneurial regions in the world, as measured by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; the employment objective will be to increase levels of economic activity to 85% in the South East (from 82% in 2003).
14. The Chairman welcomed the work to date on the RES and noted that measuring and communicating performance will be vital in order to provide clarity on the South East's performance relative to other global regions. The Board supported this position and offered the following comments: there should be a small number of aspirational targets; whilst increasing spend on science R&D will be vital, innovation and creativity needs to be supported and fostered across the economy, not just in the traditional science based sectors; science skills are important and we need to pursue measures to ensure an appropriately skilled workforce from school leavers onward with a more entrepreneurial approach; SEEDA needs to lead in developing innovative ideas for infrastructure funding and investment; the problem of long lead times for transport projects needs to be addressed; achieving sustainable prosperity will be key (i.e. stabilising and reducing the ecological footprint of the South East).
15. Pam Alexander thanked Board members for their input and efforts during the initial phase of consultation on the RES, and informed the Board that the RES Consultation Draft would be finalised and issued for formal consultation in mid-November.
16. The Board NOTED the update on the development of the RES consultation draft.

Item 7 Area Update: Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Berkshire & Buckinghamshire (MKOBB)

17. Deborah Wharton gave the Board an update on SEEDA's work in the MKOBB area.
18. The Chairman welcomed SEEDA's work in the MKOBB area and noted with interest Milton Keynes Council's innovative plans to implement a roof tax on new housing developments in order to extract the planning gain from new developments at an early stage.
19. The Board NOTED the Area update on Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

Item 8 Joining Forces: One Stop Business Support

20. Jeff Alexander updated the Board on the Joining Forces programme and sought its endorsement for SEEDA to continue working with the 6 existing Business Link companies. Joining Forces seeks to simplify access to business support in order to get more businesses using support services and to drive up productivity.
21. The Board welcomed the Joining Forces programme and noted the successes of the Business Links in the South East: 100,000 businesses contacted per annum (twice as many as London's Business Links), improvement in reported customer satisfaction since April 2005. The Board stressed that work needs to continue on increasing awareness of the Business Link brand in the business community (30% of the target market is currently being accessed), and that the contract review process should continue the drive for better performance.
22. The Board noted with regret that the LSC had determined that the Employer Training Pilots were to be retendered nationally, which meant Business Links were at a disadvantage. The Chairman would raise this at RDA Chairs' next meeting with Ministers.
23. The Board NOTED the policy update on SEEDA's Joining Forces ‘one stop business support' programme and ENDORSED ongoing negotiations with the 6 Business Link companies, subject to the Board's review of their output targets.

Item 9 Regional Funding Allocation (RFA)

24. Paul Hudson updated the Board on progress in drafting the housing, transport and economic development sections of the RFA which will be submitted in draft to Government in December ahead of final submission in April 2006.
25. SEEDA is drafting the economic development section which will be based on the findings of the RES review process. The Regional Housing Board has drafted the housing section which sets out plans for meeting the projected medium term housing needs for the South East. The Regional Transport Board has focussed on producing a methodology for assessing regional transport projects according to value for money, deliverability and policy fit. However the RTB's scope is limited to non-Local Authority road schemes, approximately 10% of public expenditure on transport in the South East (rail, ports, motorways, waterways and all Local Authority schemes are excluded) and it is only able to consider new schemes from 2011 (committed schemes use the available budget until 2010). Whilst the A3 at Hindhead is a committed scheme the RTB propose it should be privately funded since otherwise it takes a considerable amount of the total resource available.
26. The Board noted the limited remit of the Regional Transport Board and observed that SEEDA needs to take a view on the schemes that are emerging from its assessment process to identify which schemes are a priority and where the gaps are from the point of view of the emerging RES priorities, and also to suggest innovative ways of bringing projects forward (in order to get more done for the same amount of capital investment).

Action: item 9, Regional Funding Allocation; paragraph 26
Paul Hudson to prepare an analysis of the Regional Transport Board's work according to the RES priorities to inform further discussion of the Draft Regional Funding Allocation Submission covering the three strands at the December Board.

Item 10 Financial & Operational Review

27. Duncan Straughen summarised the Financial and Operational Review. The projected capital underspend against original budgets stands at £12-13million; the situation on End Year Flexibility (EYF) remains to be clarified but £14million is expected. Fully approved and budgeted projects have been identified that can be brought forward in order to manage the slippage of individual programmes and the EYF allocation.
28. The Board NOTED the Financial & Operational Review.

Item 11 Committee Report: Social Dialogue

29. The Board NOTED the report of the Social Dialogue Committee.

Item 12 Projects

30. The Board NOTED the summary of SEEDA's projects.

Item 13 Chairman's Report

31. The Chairman attended the British Ports Association conference and noted with concern that the Department for Transport has not yet finalised the Ports Review begun 2-3 years ago. He also attended the NAO senior management conference and reported to the Board that the NAO would be taking the lead in future RDA performance appraisals.
32. The Chairman had made a valuable trip to the US to make contact with key US investors in the South East. The key messages he took away were that: the UK has become un-competitive on manufacturing costs; and that the UK needs to improve its performance on R&D spending. He also visited Genzyne's new eco-friendly headquarters in Boston. Innovative building materials and practices have delivered a 40% reduction in the building's ecological footprint.
33. The Board NOTED the Chairman's Report.

Item 14 Agency Report

34. Pam Alexander updated the Board on the recent Permanent Secretary appointments in Whitehall. Peter Housden takes over at the ODPM, Sir Brian Bender at DTI, Helen Ghosh at Defra, Leigh Lewis at DWP, David Normington at the Home Office. Only DfES are yet to appoint their new Permanent Secretary.
35. Pam Alexander also reported that: LAAs, the City Regions agenda and urban areas as growth points had been the focus of a recent ODPM seminar; Paul Carter has taken over from Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart as leader of Kent County Council; the Creative Media Centre 2 in Hastings had been successfully completed and opened with many units pre-let; and the Motorsports Academy, a cross-RDA collaboration by SEEDA, emda, AWM and the DTI which aims to attract young people into engineering, was launched on 26 October.

Item 15 AOB

36. None