some service resumed

Well I am back, due to popular demand. Well I found someone had left a few comments and so felt duty bound to start writing stuff again (Thanks Neil Craig!).

Actually I found there wasn't much I could write about because I was working in a Regional Development Agency and in a more senior role than when I started the blog so found little time, and it was all a bit daft that I couldn't write what I really really thought.

Now I have left the RDA and am in a new job as an economist, still concerned with regional, local and urban economic development, and I will have loads to blog about. As well as being able to reveal who I am. Not that I am famous or anything.

RDAs - the insiders view

So what did I think of England's RDAs? well I could really go to town on criticising the one I was in but I will begin a lengthy session of blogs with my immediate observations:

- they get far too many tasks and have far too wide remit
- they cash they have can't fulfil their remit
- the political expectations and pressures far outweigh the realistic prospects
- having said that RDAs aren't as dynamic or creative as they have the potential to be
- to many have become public service providers rather than catalysts for change
- too many private sector staff parachuted in with no idea of how to work in government. RDAs are creatures of government first and foremost, and they must get up to speed with best practice quickly. No time for someone to learn the job from scratch
- too many initiatives are political pet projects, and have tenuous links at best to economic development

I have loads more. I once wrote a ph.d on economic development agencies, so you could say I can talk about it with a fair bit of knowledge. I will publish stacks more on this don't worry (as if!)...