IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v22y2004i3p317-347.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Local Government and the Changing Institutional Landscape of Economic Development in England and Wales

Author

Listed:
  • Crispian Fuller

    (Local Government Centre, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, England)

  • Robert J Bennett
  • Mark Ramsden

Abstract

This paper assesses the response by local authorities to the new institutional structure introduced in England and Wales since 1997: of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Development Agency (WDA), subregional partnerships, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), Education and Learning Wales (ELWa), and local government new well-being and Best Value initiatives. The paper demonstrates, using new survey evidence, that RDAs are beginning to promote a regional framework for local organizations, but the strategic impact is limited to county, unitary, and metropolitan areas, which are focused heavily on programme delivery. More generally, regional strategy inputs have added yet another dimension to local government partnerships. RDAs are not yet, therefore, the strategic bodies for all areas that was originally planned. Regional Chambers and the Welsh Assembly have weak influence on local government and are not yet effective monitoring bodies on the RDAs/WDA. Subregional partnerships offer potential for regional-local government strategy, but are chiefly involved in programme design (especially for regeneration) and their future importance appears limited. The transfer from TECs to the LSC/ELWa has had much less impact than expected: local government was already leader and financier of most of the projects in which TECs were involved. However, a reduction in level of activity, effectiveness, and resources has occurred for most projects in England, though to a lesser extent in Wales. Overall, the paper demonstrates that as yet changes in institutions have produced little real changes in how economic development occurs or how local government operates. The complexity and fragmentation of economic development institutions by government, on balance, appear to have increased rather than diminished.

Suggested Citation

  • Crispian Fuller & Robert J Bennett & Mark Ramsden, 2004. "Local Government and the Changing Institutional Landscape of Economic Development in England and Wales," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 22(3), pages 317-347, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:22:y:2004:i:3:p:317-347
    DOI: 10.1068/c31m
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c31m
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c31m?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Jones, 2001. "The Rise of the Regional State in Economic Governance: ‘Partnerships for Prosperity’ Or New Scales of State Power?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(7), pages 1185-1211, July.
    2. N A Phelps & M Tewdwr-Jones, 1998. "Institutional Capacity Building in a Strategic Policy Vacuum: The Case of the Korean Company LG in South Wales," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 16(6), pages 735-755, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tsu Lung Chou & Yu Chun Lin, 2007. "Industrial Park Development across the Taiwan Strait," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(8), pages 1405-1425, July.
    2. Paul Benneworth & Tiago Ratinho, 2014. "Reframing the Role of Knowledge Parks and Science Cities in Knowledge-Based Urban Development," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(5), pages 784-808, October.
    3. Andrew Beer & Terry Clower, 2009. "Specialisation and Growth: Evidence from Australia's Regional Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(2), pages 369-389, February.
    4. Proinnsias Breathnach, 2014. "Creating City-region Governance Structures in a Dysfunctional Polity: The Case of Ireland’s National Spatial Strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2267-2284, August.
    5. Nicholas A Phelps & Mark Tewdwr-Jones, 2000. "Scratching the Surface of Collaborative and Associative Governance: Identifying the Diversity of Social Action in Institutional Capacity Building," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(1), pages 111-130, January.
    6. Amy Sanders, 2023. "Examining How Equalities Nonprofit Organizations Approach Policy Influencing to Achieve Substantive Representation in Sub-State Government Policymaking," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-27, February.
    7. David Evers, 2015. "Formal Institutional Change and Informal Institutional Persistence: The Case of Dutch Provinces Implementing the Spatial Planning Act," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(2), pages 428-444, April.
    8. N A Phelps & M Tewdwr-Jones, 1999. "Competing through Planning," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 26(2), pages 159-162, April.
    9. Nicholas A. Phelps & Mark Tewdwr-Jones, 2001. "Globalisation, Regions and the State: Exploring the Limitations of Economic Modernisation through Inward Investment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(8), pages 1253-1272, July.
    10. David Brooksbank & David Pickernell, 2001. "Changing the Name of the Game? RSA, Indigenous and Inward Investors and the National Assembly for Wales," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 271-277.
    11. Aidan While & Andrew E G Jonas & David C Gibbs, 2004. "Unblocking the City? Growth Pressures, Collective Provision, and the Search for New Spaces of Governance in Greater Cambridge, England," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(2), pages 279-304, February.
    12. Tsu-Lung Chou, 2007. "The Science Park and the Governance Challenge of the Movement of the High-Tech Urban Region towards Polycentricity: The Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(6), pages 1382-1402, June.
    13. Joseph Leibovitz, 2003. "Institutional Barriers to Associative City-region Governance: The Politics of Institution-building and Economic Governance in 'Canada's Technology Triangle'," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(13), pages 2613-2642, December.
    14. Mark Tewdwr-Jones & Nicholas Phelps, 2000. "Levelling the Uneven Playing Field: Inward Investment, Interregional Rivalry and the Planning System," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(5), pages 429-440.
    15. Breathnach Proinnsias, 2023. "Regional governance and regional development: Implications of the Action Programme for Effective Local Government," Administration, Sciendo, vol. 71(2), pages 69-91, May.
    16. Keith Jacobs, 2004. "Waterfront Redevelopment: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Policy-making Process within the Chatham Maritime Project," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(4), pages 817-832, April.
    17. Crispian Fuller & Robert J Bennett & Mark Ramsden, 2003. "Organised for Inward Investment? Development Agencies, Local Government, and Firms in the Inward Investment Process," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(11), pages 2025-2051, November.
    18. Philip Boland, 2007. "Unpacking the Theory-Policy Interface of Local Economic Development: An Analysis of Cardiff and Liverpool," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(5-6), pages 1019-1039, May.
    19. Krisztina Varró, 2012. "Reconsidering the English Question as a Matter of Democratic Politics and Spatial Justice," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 29-45, February.
    20. Philip Allmendinger & Mark Tewdwr-Jones, 2000. "New Labour, New Planning? The Trajectory of Planning in Blair's Britain," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(8), pages 1379-1402, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:22:y:2004:i:3:p:317-347. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.