I am delighted to be here today to talk to such an audience of key players and commentators on the regional agenda.

In fact, this is a particularly well-timed event. After the launch of the Regional Coordination Unit, we are now settling down to put together a detailed work programme for the new Unit. I am sure that this conference will prompt a great deal of useful debate about regional coordination issues and about how we can best work together in partnership.

The new Regional Co-ordination Unit is part of that commitment to delivering results. Of course, it is early days for the Unit, but I would like to use today’s session to kick off a debate on where we are coming from, what we have achieved so far, and where we are headed.

Firstly, I should like to say a little about why this new Unit has been set up in the first place. As I am sure most of you know, the impetus for the Regional Coordination Unit came from a report published in February this year by the Cabinet Office’s Performance and Innovation Unit.

The report, called "Reaching Out", was asked to look at how government could achieve better integration at regional and local level in order to improve the delivery of key objectives. It arose from a strong sense that central government initiatives that affected the same people in the same areas were run separately and not linked together. This meant that many initiatives were less effective than they should have been. It also meant that local communities and local organisations were often faced with the unnecessary and time-consuming burden of having to deal with each initiative separately.

The PIU report found that, while there was a great deal of good work going on at regional level, the regional networks of Government departments were fragmented, with no part of Government responsible for coordinated action in the regions. The clear message was that Government would need to drastically improve the way it develops and implements policy affecting regional and local areas.

The PIU report made 81 recommendations for action on what Government might do to achieve this step change. At the core of these recommendations was the proposal that there should be a new Unit to ensure better Ministerial and Whitehall coordination of regional policy initiatives.

This Unit, called the Regional Coordination Unit, was set up in core form by 1 April this year. It is located within, but separate from, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. I have day to day responsibility for the Unit, reporting to the Deputy Prime Minister.

The new RCU has three clear aims. It is designed to:

• ensure that there is better and more effective Ministerial and Whitehall coordination of policy initiatives with a regional and local impact;

• act as a means of making sure that all Government departments are committed to GOs for the regions and support their work; and

• ensure that the Government Offices have a higher profile, and that they cover a wider range of Government policy.

The core of the Regional Coordination Unit is already up and running. Although located for pay and rations purposes in DETR, it is an interdepartmental body, with an interdepartmental remit, and it will draw staff from across Whitehall. I also hope to see a significant number of secondees from local government and the voluntary, community and private sectors. This is essential if we are to establish a sense of common ownership and purpose, and if we are to ensure that we deliver what is best on the ground.

It really is too early to describe in detail what the Unit will look like in the longer term. But we anticipate that, on present plans, it will have about 40 staff – although over half of these will be existing Government staff who will be redeployed from Government Office central management functions.

The Regional Coordination Unit’s first task is to draw up a detailed action plan, setting out precisely how we intend to implement the 81 recommendations in the PIU report. We are committed to having a plan in place by July, so that we can really make a start on moving things forward. We are further committed to having the main new arrangements coming out of the PIU report in place by April 2001. Although the Unit will be taking forward work on a number of fronts, I should like to concentrate today on two key issues – how we achieve better co-ordination within Whitehall, and how we give Government offices more clout.

Since coming to power, this Government has embarked on a range of initiatives to improve the lives of local people. By necessity, these Area-Based Initiatives have been numerous and varied, and often Departmentally focused. Some problems are better dealt with in this way. But we know from our work on social exclusion how important it is to work together across Departments to tackle complex problems such as health, education, the local environment, crime, employability and family welfare. We need to extend this approach.

The PIU report – and indeed, our own experience – has shown that both individual and cross-cutting initiatives targeted at the same local areas can, and often do, look unfocused and uncoordinated to the outside world. This undermines the efforts of Government Offices to promote and deliver integrated policies and programmes in the regions. What is needed is the better coordination of policies and initiatives across Whitehall to ensure that these initiatives join up at the planning, development and implementation stages. This is one of the central messages in the PIU report.

We need to work hard at the centre and in the Government Offices to create synergies which will make service delivery more effective on the ground. People should see a greater impact where initiatives are linked up in local areas. This calls for a real partnership between the regions and the centre, and between regional and local players. There is already a strong partnership between central and local government. Central Local Partnership Meetings are held regularly and provide a forum to consider major issues affecting local government, particularly those which cross-departmental boundaries. They help ensure that local government can input their ideas and experience at all stages of policy development. This means that when decisions are taken they are soundly thought out and developed using local government’s experience, ensuring better results. And efforts to coordinate initiatives will support the work at local level to build up strong Community Planning Partnerships.

The PIU Report proposes and the Government accepted a "double key approach". In other words, any proposal for a new or extended Area-Based Initiative, or for the creation of a new Departmental regional network, will have to be the subject of advance and serious consultation with Government Offices, and will have to go through the Regional Coordination Unit.

All Departments whose work has an impact at regional or local level have made a real commitment to better coordination of key policies. They realise that it makes sense for Departmental actions and initiatives to be consistent and reinforce one another at the regional and local level. In this way, the Government will deliver its policies and services with maximum impact and benefit to people on the ground.

I do not want to create the impression that the coordinating work of the Unit is taking place in isolation from other coordinating trends. These new RCU coordination arrangements should be seen as part of a broader push by Government to act in a more joined-up way, both in terms of policy-making and implementation.

The Urban White Paper, for example, will draw together the broad range of current thinking on urban development. The National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal consultation document draws together the work of 18 Policy Action Teams looking at problems of deprived neighbourhoods. A cross-cutting review of Government Intervention in Deprived Areas forms part of the current Spending Review process. Part 1 of the Local Government Bill, currently being considered by Parliament, will require local authorities in England and Wales to prepare a "community strategy" for promoting or improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area and contributing to sustainable development in the UK. Such strategies should ensure that local services are responsive to the needs of local people, are effectively coordinated and make the necessary links to regional and national agendas.

I would now like to turn to the role of the Government Offices. GOs currently bring together the regional operations of the DETR, the DTI, and the DfEE - although there are also smaller teams within them from the Home Office and from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and sometimes secondees from other public services.

The Government Offices were originally set up to bring a more coordinated approach to the delivery of Government programmes at regional level. They have made a good deal of progress in many areas. In my travels around the regions, I have been able to see at first hand the excellent and valuable work done by the Government Offices. I have been very impressed by the range of issues they cover and by the number of regional partners they deal with.

We know that joined-up, cross-departmental working is critical. However, almost everyone I spoke to during my visits underlined the main findings in the PIU report - namely, that this cross-departmental working wasn’t happening. And that central Government needed a stronger and more coordinated presence in the regions. The Report found that Departmental regional networks are fragmented, so that it is not always clear who is responsible for bringing together the contributions of individual initiatives to help make a difference at local level. This leads to accusations that individual Departments are narrowly focused on their own agendas and not looking to find holistic solutions to address deep-seated and wide-ranging problems.

One of the PIU report recommendations is therefore that we should draw in a wider range of Departments and make sure that, across the range of Government activity and policy-making, systematic arrangements are put in place to ensure a more coordinated approach to the regions. A key element of this will be giving Government Offices a lead role in bringing together other Government Departments and Agencies at local level, and ensuring that activities are complementary and contribute to common goals.

Another message which came through loud and clear was the need to articulate more clearly to all regional and local partners what the specific roles are of the key players – the Government Offices, the Regional Development Agencies, the voluntary Regional Chambers and others. Some regions, such as the North East, have developed Concordats between the three key players, and we are encouraging that, but we also recognise that there may need to be greater clarity from central Government.

In conclusion, we need to ensure that action is tailor-made to local circumstances, and to guard against fragmentation at the regional level. This will be an important step in preventing our regional and local partners from being overburdened with too many competing priorities.

I am confident that the RCU will provide the mechanism at the national level which regions need to implement policies and deal sensibly with the forthcoming challenges. And Government Offices will provide the necessary coordination at regional level, working closely with the Development Agencies.

It takes time to alter people’s perspectives and establish new ways of working. It cannot be done overnight. What is more, we have only been given a year to implement the Report’s conclusions. That is an ambitious target. But one which the Unit can achieve, so long as it develops effective partnerships across central government and with regional and local players.