The review from the afternoon

Among those of us who dwell in the murky world of regional policy, waiting for this afternoon's Review of Sub-National Economic Development has had us on the edge of our seats for days. Perhaps we should get out more.

But now it has finally arrived, the result is not disappointing. Bringing responsibility for economic and planning strategy together is so obviously sensible, one wonders why they didn't do it in the first place - but better late than never.

One NorthEast did a good job with the Regional Economic Strategy, so it seems the right body to carry this out.

The potential to devolve decisions over further pots of funding to the region is another plus - if business gets a chance to play its part as it did over the regional funding allocation for transport last year, and the restrictions that were placed on that process are not repeated.

The one caveat would be a slight concern about the implications of handing more control of funding back to councils. If this leads to fragmentation of policy in a relatively small region, it's bad news.

On the other hand, if they can come together with a coherent approach - perhaps under the co-ordination of the Association of North East Councils which has proved itself open to business - we could find that North East policy is tailored to the needs of the North East. Wouldn't that make a nice change?

Overseeing all this will be the new Minister for the North East, Nick Brown. Since his appointment, Mr Brown has said nothing we've noticed that we could possibly disagree with. So far, so good. Long may it continue.

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