Central government responses to governance change in the English regions

Abstract:

The consequence of recent devolution is that territories in the UK are now governed in different ways. Elected government has yet to be extended to the English regions but they, too, have experienced institutional change in the form of administrative decentralization. Regional governance should provide the opportunity for increased co-ordination of regional strategies but it is frustrated by lack of policy co-ordination within central government. Drawing upon recent interviews with Whitehall civil servants the article examines how government is responding to this challenge. It suggests that responses among central government departments to 'regional working' are far more diverse than had previously been realised and that there are considerable obstacles to more 'joined up' approaches to policies with a regional dimension. We conclude that while the government has made some progress in responding to the need to build a territorial dimension into its activities, the prospect of regional government will give rise to pressures for new government machinery to manage intergovernmental relations.