Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
mittee (TfGMC)—where the 33 councillors elected from the 10 local councils on a
proportional population basis, administer the running of the system and make poli-
cy recommendations to the main council. The development of the GMCA has been
helped by national legislative acts in 2011 and 2012 that allowed increased func-
tions for some cities. These new initiatives meant that the GMCA no longer gets
investment from the national government only a project-by-project basis; instead it
gets a block grant, enabling it to choose how to spend the money, with an incentive
to get a proportion back if the investment can be seen to lead to employment growth.
In addition, money for housing investment, and for low carbon initiatives, have
been made available by the British government for the region to administer, while
finance to increase the number of apprentices and skill development is administered
by the region, as are local business hubs, which are designed to allow the region to
promote its own economy through advice to firms and grants based on local needs.
So the GMCA has absorbed new powers, by administering functions that are usu-
ally controlled by the national state. The authority also has a series of commissions
responsible for making recommendations and reports for the main council, such as
the New Economy, Planning and Housing, Health, Public Protection, Investment
and Efficiency. Members of these commissions are not just drawn from local coun-
cillors, but also from businesses, voluntary organizations and other groups. Hence
these commissions are designed to open the structure of governance to a variety of
influences and advice. However, the GMCA does not control all regional services
in the area; the new authority has no powers over several other agencies that operate
in the region, such as Police or Fire and Rescue. However, these so-called Partner
Agencies have access to all the reports of the various councils and committees and
may attend meetings as observers, a process designed to create an open regional
partnership of regional bodies. In addition the main co-ordinating council has an
associate membership whereby representatives from neighbouring councils can at-
tend when matters of general interest are discussed, although they cannot vote. The
result is a complex and layered structure of governance at the city-region level, not
a simple one-unit structure controlling all functions, or an advisory regional body.
These four examples show the range of variation that exists in city-regional gov-
ernances. What is common is an emphasis upon process and change, rather than
rigid structures, often with different levels of empowerment, and attempts to cre-
ate more open, collaborative approaches, instead of closed systems of government,
although the frequent lack of mandatory powers usually creates problems in ef-
fectiveness. It is worth noticing that in most cases there was a history of collabora-
tive effort between government units in these areas before the current city-region
structures were established, which helped to create at least a partial metropolitan
or city-region consciousness that provides support for regional actions over paro-
chialism. However, these examples are still relatively unique cases, for there are
also many failures in attempts to create city-regional governance, especially effec-
tive ones. Janssen-Jansen (
2011
) has described how the city of Amsterdam in 1995
voted down a plan by the national government to create a new province anchored
by the city, one of four previous attempts to form regional agencies within the gen-
eral area, although with different numbers of units. The creation of the Amsterdam
