Brown appoints regional ministers

The New Local Government Network has already leapt on the announcement that there will now be ministers for all of the English regions. Director Chris Leslie and his colleagues obviously view this as a significant step towards proving the devolutionary rhetoric Gordon Brown has been talking is about to become action.

For those who haven't picked this up yet, the new posts have come about as part of the reshuffle (which we will be reporting on in detail in the July 5 issue). The following have been given regional roles:

• Minister for the North East of England: The Rt Hon Nick Brown MP



• Minister for the North West: The Rt Hon Beverley Hughes MP



• Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber: Caroline Flint MP



• Minister for the Olympics and for London: The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP



• Minister for the South West: Ben Bradshaw MP



• Minister for the East Midlands: Gillian Merron MP



• Minister for the West Midlands: Liam Byrne MP



• Minister for the East of England: Barbara Follett MP
  

This move is not as significant as many would have hoped, mainly because the above have bigger 'day' jobs, but it is a certainly a shift. However, some have met the news with considerably less enthusiasm than the NLGN, especially by those who remember what happened the last time government tried to inch towards regional government.

For example the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham, Daniel Kawczynski, told the West Midlands NO! campaign: “The Conservative Party is continuing to fight this government’s move towards regionalisation and I am deeply concerned at the appointment of ministers for the regions.

"What is more, I note that Gordon Brown has appointed a Birmingham MP as Minister for the West Midlands – yet again ignoring how much of the West Midlands is a rural area, whose interests are unlikely to be effectively represented by an inner city MP. This in itself demonstrates the nonsense of a regional system of government that does not reflect the diversity of an area.”

Exactly what the regional ministers' roles and responsibilities will be are as yet unclear - we are in the process of finding out - but this is probably a prelude to proposed changes in Westminster that will see Commons question time sessions for each of the regions, along the lines of those already held for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The other big news is that John Healey is now the new local government minister, taking over from Phil Woolas. This is more good news as Healey is considered a fan of devolution. For the moment however it's not apparent what fate has befallen Phil.

Link up through Facebook

LGC's acting editor Nina Lovelace is now listed on networking site Facebook, which puts people in touch with each other and lists details about people's career histories and interests. If any readers are interested in linking to Nina you need to go to the Facebook site and sign up. It is also a great way to link in with present and past colleagues and even people with whom you may have attended university or school.

Goodbye Sandy, welcome Simon

Well, it's the end of an era. This week sees Lord Sandy Bruce-Lockhart step down as chairman of the Local Government Association, and as exclusively revealed by LGCnet on Friday, Sir Simon Milton will be taking over.


Lord Sandy has been, in LGC's opinion, an extremely effective chair and is obviously well respected in both in central and local government circles. LGC's political editor Nick Golding interviewed Lord Bruce Lockhart ahead of him stepping down, which readers can see in detail in the forthcoming July 5 issue. Without giving too much away however Lord Bruce Lockhart had some strong words to say about how the government handled the publication of Sir Michael Lyons' report.

He said: "When they've commissioned a report that had taken five years of work and a very large amount of people's time, to reject the bulk of its recommendations with 24 hours is, I think, disgraceful."

Meanwhile, what do we know about Sir Simon Milton? He set out his stall on what he wanted to do as chair exclusively in LGC last month, which is archived online for LGCnet subscribers. For non-subscibers however here is a summary of his three main priorities:

"We must have a relentless focus on council performance in terms of service quality and value for money. Nobody should be able to claim that councils aren't up to the job. I would look to create a performance board at the LGA with a commissioning role that would lead to a significant reshaping of the currently confusing array of support bodies.

We must take responsibility for generating local solutions to problems rather than waiting for Whitehall guidance. Collectively, as a sector and across the political parties, we have some of the best brains in public service. I want to make better use of them as one-size-fits-all Whitehall solutions rarely work.

Finally, we need to promote and celebrate the importance of local democracy and not just local services. We need to re-connect local democratic institutions with the people they serve. That means listening to the public on issues like weekly rubbish collections."

Nick Golding is interviewing Sir Simon on Monday however so we hope to have some more detail then on how he now intends to go about achieving these, working in partnership with chief executive Paul Coen.

Added by Nina Lovelace