South East Forum For Sustainability

CURRENT SITUATION

 South East England Partnership Board (SEEPB)

• Has now been dissolved; all remaining staff were made redundant on July 31st.
• The work on the Regional Strategy has been discontinued; supporting evidence will be archived by GOSE and made available (probably through SEEC) to local authorities.
• SEEPB functions are being transferred where appropriate (e.g. secretariat for the Thames Basin Heaths Joint Strategic Partnership now resides with Surrey Heath District Council).

 South East England Councils (SEEC)

• South East England Councils (SEEC) was established in April 2009 to represent the views of local authorities in the South East. SEEC represents over 95 per cent of the 74 councils across the South East and is chaired by Cllr Paul Carter (Conservative, Leader of Kent County Council). Cllr Louise Bloom (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh Borough Council) is Vice-chair. SEEC has a wide remit, which includes providing effective representation of local authority interests on regional, national and international bodies; scrutiny of the activities of regional bodies; and a forum for the consideration and determination of regional issues, including strategic policies and investment priorities.
• SEEC has one member of staff to support their activities and meets regularly once a month. The next meeting is on the 10^th September.
• Details about SEEC activities can be found at: www.secouncils.gov.uk

 South East Strategic Leaders (SESL) & South East Strategic Chief Executives (SESCE)

• SESL has evolved from the ‘South East County Leaders’ group, formed in 2006 to promote county interests during the SE Plan EiP. SESL comprises local authority Leaders; SESCE is a parallel group of Chief Executives. These two groups cover an extended area (the old SERPlan area) and membership (county, district and unitary authorities)
• SESL aims to deliver an ambitious programme of joint policy development and lobbying at all levels – national, regional and local. Specific aims are to:
  • influence national and regional policy
  • establish networks and key contacts at the regional and national level
  • offer support and an innovative policy forum for joint working across the South East
  • raise the profile of the South East Strategic Leaders and their work
  • The group works by issuing news releases and producing common ‘South East’ positions on key policy initiatives of the coalition government (see http://www3.hants.gov.uk/sesl.htm). In effect, this is the closest thing there is to an active regional body. Hampshire CC provides support services (including an area on their website); Surrey CC Leader and CEO were elected in July as chairs of SESL and SESCE, respectively.

 South East England Development Agency (SEEDA)

• Closure of all the RDAs has been announced
• Local authorities have until September to submit proposals for replacement ‘Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs)’ So far it looks as though each county wants to set up their own LEP.
• The Public Bodies Bill which will provide the legislative basis for abolishing RDAs and any other public body will be introduced in the autumn, but Royal Assent is not expected until summer 2011 at the earliest. Government has not yet decided the closure time line for RDAs although it has set up a backstop date of 31st March 2012.
• SEEDA has a programme budget cut of £28.2 million for 2010-11
• SEEDA still has a programme budget of £79m to spend this financial year and is working with partners and stakeholders to achieve the most for the region’s economy from this .An outline of the budget priorities (and cut backs can be seen in a letter from Pam Alexander on the SEFS website):

 Government Office of the South East (GOSE)

• Eric Pickles announced in July the Government’s intention in principle to abolish the remaining eight Government Offices of the Regions across England, although final decisions will be made at the end of the Spending Review in the autumn
• The GOSE websites has been merged with a Government Office Network website (http://www.gos.gov.uk/).

 The Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review

• Will be announced on 20th October 2010.
• A public consultation (for public sector workers and the public generally) was launched on 24th June 2010 asking for views on where cuts should be made.

Regional Government Departments & Agencies

• Most government departments will be expected to cut budgets by an average of 25% over the next 3 years
• Defra and the Defra family (Natural England, Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency) will be affected. The Environment Agency is undergoing a major structural review and is expected to merge its Southern Region and Thames Region, but there will are more/bigger changes anticipated for EA. Natural England has merged its South East and London regional offices. This is likely to be a temporary/transitional measure since it appears that NE will be ‘de-regionalised’ (in part responding to the switch from regionalism to localism, in part in response to the expected 30-40% budget cut). Forestry Commission is planning for at least 30% cuts and will not have any money for programme work or partnerships.
• There are suggestions that CABE & English Heritage might be merged.

South East Regional Rural Board, Rural Forum for the South East & Sustainable Food and Farming Board

• The SE Rural Board will not meet again and is to amalgamate with the Rural Forum assuming the RF agrees.
• Rural Forum has finance up until the end of March 2011 (Defra has paid GOSE the £20K towards the operation of the Forum for this financial year) and so does the Sustainable Food and Farming Board. However their futures are under review by ministers. The Rural Board is closing immediately because of the demise of SEEDA who run its secretariat.
• The Government has announced that they agree with the principle and themes within the Food 2030 document and are currently working on a suitable implementation plan, and considering how the regional boards could help with its delivery. This is now being referred to as the Food Strategy.
  • The Rural Forum next meets on 15th September 2010 and the next meeting with the new minister is scheduled for 21st September 2010

South East Rural Community Councils (SERCC)

• SERCC have appointed an Interim Chief Executive, Neil Casey
• With the existing political uncertainty about regional structures and delivery, the SERCC Board are using the opportunity of an interim executive appointment to undertake a review of the organisation over the next three months.
• During this review SERCC will continue to deliver all its projects.
• Council for Rural Communities has been disbanded

South East Region Technical Advisory Body for Waste (SERTAB)

SERTAB meetings are planned for the autumn with a workshop due to take place on the 4th October to consider the “SERTAB__Role_and_Action_Plan“. It has also been proposed that a SERTAB response is collated and sent to DEFRA on its “Path to Zero Waste economy” consultation. Hampshire County Council is currently supplying secretariat for SERTAB.

Sustainable Development

• DEFRA is withdrawing funding from the Sustainable Development Commission at the end of the current financial year.
• DEFRA SD Unit will take SD forward, assuming it survives DEFRA cuts.
• The government is due to radically reform the planning system on the basis of the Open Source Planning green paper. The aim is to “decentralise and streamline the planning system and allow it to focus on promoting sustainable development that local communities want.”
• The Planning System changes are (according to the DCLG Structural Reform Plan) due to take place over the next year and be in place by April 2012
• Planning Policy Statements – According to the Open Source Planning green paper the need for existing Policy Statements (and PPGs)  ”will be evaluated and those required will be re-ordered and aligned in order to reflect the national priorities, as determined by Parliament. The result will be a series of short and focused guidance notes describing how specific aspects of the planning system will operate to deliver the government’s agenda and setting out minimum environmental, architectural, economic and social standards for sustainable development. These will support the overarching National Policy Framework
• All revisions of PPSs has been halted; the PPS on Regional Spatial Strategies has been withdrawn.

Other Regional Environmental Fora

• East Midlands Environment Link  is organising a meeting of all regions to discuss:
  •  What is the function of future regional environment links and how do we fit with the new architecture?
  • What will be the future of strategic planning?
  •  How, in this new structure, can we help maintain gains around sustainable development?
  • How do we respond to Big Society thinking and maintain strategic perspectives?
  • North West Environment Link – Is hoping run an event in the North West on the challenges and opportunities to the environmental VCS of the big society concept, and also to have at least introduced themselves to the new LEPs to see if they can develop some kind of working relationships with them.

NEED FOR REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK IN SOUTH EASTERN ENGLAND

The view amongst SEFS P&EC members (and some external organisations to SEFS) is that even with the demise of regional level planning policy as we know it, there is still a need for a strong, SE (or wider) network of environmental organisations to ensure:

1)     Information sharing

2)     Support and overview policy input to help those working at sub regional/local level

3)     Liaison with remaining regional bodies (SE England Councils, SE Strategic Leaders and SE Strategic Chief Executives).