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Departmental Grants

Volume 455: debated on Thursday 18 January 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what projects were funded under her departmental budget line “Development of English Regions”; and what proportion of such funding was spent on administration. (115710)

Table B1 of the 2006 Annual Report from the Department for Communities and Local Government sets out the Department's resource and capital spending.

The budget line “Development of English Regions” under each of these principally records ODPM’s contribution to the work of (i) the English regional development agencies (in 2004-05 £758.1 million capital, £420.7 million resource); (ii) the London development agency (in 2004-05 £170 million capital, £106.9 million resource); and (iii) the voluntary regional assemblies (in 2004-05 £14.1 million resource).

The specific activities and expenditure to which these amounts relate are detailed in the accounts of the bodies concerned. They contributed to the Department's Public Service Agreement 2 target to

“make sustainable improvements in the economic performance of all English regions by 2008 and over the long term reduce the persistent gap in growth rates between the regions, demonstrating progress by 2006”.