Introduction

During the 1990s, ‘local governance’ became the dominant paradigm through which local political processes are studied. The concept of local governance acknowledges that local government is no longer the dominant institution in local politics (see Chapter Seven). Rather, it is one organisation among many collaborating in a complex framework of governing (John, 1997, p 253). Within the local governance debate, there has been considerable scholarly interest in regeneration partnerships, particularly the relationship between local authority and business elites. This chapter joins that debate, arguing that partnerships are evidence of a governing strategy aimed at giving central government greater leverage over local politics. To use the terminology of Rhodes (1999), regeneration partnerships are top-down or hierarchical institutions, rather than bottom-up institutions characterised by networking and trust.

According to the Local Government Association (LGA), regeneration is the “promotion of the social, economic and environmental well-being of an area” (LGA, 1998). This is an inclusive definition of regeneration, in which education and the environment are inseparable from economic development. This chapter therefore looks at the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB), which encourages multidimensional regeneration projects, and recent initiatives in the sphere of education (see also Chapter Twelve). While the partnerships in question often involve community representatives, church leaders and voluntary sector groups, the focus is specifically on interactions between local authority and local business elites, the relationship at the heart of partnership initiatives over the past decade. The chapter argues that, with important differences in emphasis, New Labour is following an evolutionary policy trajectory based on the direction established by the previous Conservative governments in the early 1990s. Hilary Armstrong, Minister for Local Government and Regions in the first (1997-2001) Labour government, has commented that “it is vital that we lose the skills of battle and find the skills and organisation of partnership” (see Stoker, 1999, p 17). However, this chapter will conclude that central government policy initiatives, while they have succeeded in generating bureaucratic partnerships, have inhibited the development of collaborative synergy. The chapter further argues that local regeneration partnerships are part of a centralising tendency, where central government is trying to increase its influence over those actors it sees as having a part to play in regeneration. If ‘New Labour’ is serious about partnerships with local government, it will have to relax financial controls and allow much greater freedom for local people to determine the goals they wish to pursue.