Regional government, or no government?
Do you know the name of your local councillor? Or do you even know which party is in control of your local council? What about the name of more than one single member of the European parliament representing your region?
If you don't, then you will be forgiven for your lack of engagement. There's a lot of it about. We are rightly angry about the increase in council taxes, as we have every right to be, but we do very little about it.
In an age when we work harder than we have ever done before, it has proved difficult to attract people of vision to the business of government, local or national. Politics has appeared to attract the same kinds of people that hold the non-jobs the burgeoning public sector has created. What most senior politicians think about local councillors would be unprintable in a respectable magazine as this one. The results of this are also seen in the way local government works in practice. Most councils, good and bad, are really run by the tightly-knit cabinet surrounding the elected leader. Probably a committed and diligent member of the community, in truth. The ones I have met appear to be genuine in their quest to regenerate and improve their cities or towns.
Like central government, the cabinet takes most practical decisions at a borough or a city level. The chief executive, often a dynamic civil servant with a sense of vision, drives much of the detailed policy.
So it must seem odd that at a time when most people - most businesses - are not engaged with government, that there is an opportunity to vote for regional government in this country.
It's easy to sympathise with those who rail so passionately against plans for an elected regional assembly as they can trot out self-evident popular totems like the image of a talking shop full of politicians. One can't help but escape from the feeling that they are actually making an argument against any government at all.
Yet we now have a real chance to get the governance we deserve. By linking the possibility of a regional assembly for the North West to a shake-up of the current muddle of unitary authorities and county councils makes such good sense. It is a process that business should support because it cuts public sector waste. A regional assembly with a small number of elected members for a region of this size can punch its weight at every level.
Like it or not, we already have unelected regional government. The powers afforded to the Northwest Development Agency and the Government Office for the North West are considerable. There has been a welcome cutting of duplication in business support services and a concerted effort to use its single pot of funding to link transport improvements to business development objectives. There is a will at leadership level to cut wastage, which may fall short of our wish for a bonfire of the quangos, but is the best we can hope for.
But while those entities have a degree of autonomy to deliver policy and to co-ordinate resources in the region, on an international stage they suffer from a lack of mandate from the people.
Business has chosen to engage with the regional development agencies, with some positive results. Let us assemble.
Michael Taylor, editor
When insider was offered a lunch with Tom Bloxham and Johnathan Falkingham of Urban Splash we jumped at the chance. Especially as it involved a flight to Austria to celebrate the delights of Graz, European Capital of Culture 2003.
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