Regional strategies - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 306

Regional strategies were encouraged to be 'aspirational but also realistic'. RTPs
are independent statutory bodies and it was for them to set their budgets and agree
priorities. Where additional funding or other intervention was sought from the Scottish
Executive ,the strategies needed to make the case to Ministers.
RTPs already have the power to give grants or loans for any purposes that will
contribute to implementation of the RTS. However the 2005 Act also enables them
to apply for executive functions, linked to the RTS, which may be transferred to them
from an existing authority or operated concurrently. RTPs will also be able to act as
agents of some or all of their constituent councils or of Scottish Ministers. Clearly the
level of expenditure anticipated in the RTS will reflect the position taken on possible
transfer of functions. The Strathclyde Regional Partnership is unusual in this respect
since from the outset it has assumed the passenger transport functions of the former
Strathclyde PTE (the only one in Scotland).
Regional strategies require the approval of Scottish Ministers which will have
regard to both the preparation process and content. It was envisaged that Ministers
would approve or return a submitted RTS within three months. In the event a
change of political control of the Scottish Parliament in May 2007 (to the Scottish
Nationalists) stalled this aim. In the new Government's first budget it was announced
that the capital grant for RTPs (worth £35m in 2007/08) would in future be paid
to their constituent local councils and would not be ring-fenced. (An exception was
made in the case of the Strathclyde Partnership because of its direct operation of the
Glasgow Underground and other services formerly provided by the PTE.)
The effect of this was that RTPs would need to make their case to each constituent
local authority for them to forward their share of the government grant. In practice
this means influencing the Single Outcome Agreement which these authorities
have to negotiate with the Scottish Government - the equivalent of the Local Area
Agreement in England (19.8).
Meanwhile the regional strategies remain in their unapproved state. It has been
reported that Government officials were critical of the submitted documents for
lacking a realistic view of available funding (LTT 484). This is unsurprising since the
Director of the South-East Partnership acknowledged that even if his RTP succeeded
in extracting from constituent councils the same amount as had previously been
received directly this would only amount to £29m over the subsequent three years
whereas the RTS had identified a capital spend of £131m!