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)
|
Highest tier of sub-national division in England
Regions of England
|
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|
Category
|
- Statistical regions
- Administrative region (1)
|
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Location
| England
|
---|
Created
| |
---|
Number
| |
---|
Additional status
| |
---|
Populations
| 2,669,941?9,180,135
|
---|
Areas
| 1,572?23,836 km
2
|
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Government
| |
---|
Subdivisions
| |
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The
regions of England
, formerly known as the
government office regions
, are the highest tier of sub-national division in
England
. They were established in 1994
[1]
and follow the 1974?96 county borders. They are a continuation of the former 1940s
standard regions
which followed the 1889?1974
administrative county
borders. Between 1994 and 2011, all nine regions had partly
devolved
functions; they no longer fulfil this role, continuing to be used for limited statistical purposes.
[2]
While the UK was a member of the
European Union
, they defined areas (
constituencies
) for the purposes of elections to the
European Parliament
.
Eurostat
also used them to demarcate
first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) regions
("NUTS 1 regions") within the
European Union
, which in 2021 were superseded by
International Territorial Level
(ITL) regions ("ITL 1 regions").
The
London Region
has a directly elected
Mayor
and
Assembly
. Six regions have
local authority leaders' boards
to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities. The remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders' boards.
In 1998,
regional chambers
were established in the eight regions outside London, which produced strategic plans and recommendations to local authorities. Each of the regions also had an associated (central)
Government Office
with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time
regional minister
within the Government.
House of Commons
regional Select Committees
were established in 2009. However, the chambers and select committees were abolished in May 2010, restoring these functions to the main tier of local government,
[3]
with limited functions transferred to the regional local authority leaders' boards created in 2009. Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming
Coalition Government
, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011.
From 2011,
combined authorities
have been introduced in some
city regions
, with similar responsibilities to the former regional chambers (and in some cases, replacing a regional local authority leaders' board on a smaller scale), but which also receive additional delegated functions from central government relating to transport and economic policy.
Regional development agencies
were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development. They had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding from the central government as well. These were abolished in 2012, with statutory functions returning to local authorities and central government; however, smaller scale
local enterprise partnerships
were voluntarily established to take on some functions relating to coordinating economic priorities and development.
History
[
edit
]
Background
[
edit
]
After about 500 AD, England comprised seven
Anglo-Saxon
territories?
Northumbria
,
Mercia
,
East Anglia
,
Essex
,
Kent
,
Sussex
and
Wessex
?often referred to as the
heptarchy
. The boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the
Kingdom of England
, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During
Oliver Cromwell
's Protectorate in the 1650s, the
rule of the Major-Generals
created 10 regions in England and Wales of similar size to the modern regions.
[4]
Proposals for administrative regions within
England
were mooted by the British government prior to the
First World War
. In 1912, the
Third Home Rule Bill
was passing through parliament. The Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or "Home Rule All Round". On 12 September the
First Lord of the Admiralty
,
Winston Churchill
, gave a speech in which he proposed 10 or 12 regional parliaments for the United Kingdom. Within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make
natural regions
.
[5]
[6]
While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a while widely anticipated and various schemes for dividing England devised.
[7]
[8]
By the 1930s, several competing systems of regions were adopted by central government for such purposes as census of population, agriculture, electricity supply, civil defence and the regulation of road traffic.
[9]
Nine "standard regions" were set up in 1946, in which central government bodies, statutory undertakings and regional bodies were expected to cooperate.
[10]
However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s.
[11]
Creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-
Second World War
British governments. The
Redcliffe-Maud Report
proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, which would see power devolved from central government.
Edward Heath
's administration in the 1970s did not create a regional structure in the
Local Government Act 1972
, waiting for the
Royal Commission on the Constitution
, after which government efforts were concentrated on a constitutional settlement in
Scotland
and
Wales
for the rest of the decade. In England, the majority of the Commission "suggested regional coordinating and advisory councils for England, consisting largely of indirectly elected representatives of local authorities and operating along the lines of the Welsh advisory council". One-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the "eight now [in 1973] existing for economic planning purposes, modified to make boundaries to conform with the
new county structure
".
[12]
[13]
A minority report by
Lord Crowther-Hunt
and
Alan T. Peacock
suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain (five within England), which would take over substantial amounts of the central government.
[14]
Some elements of
regional development and economic planning
began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards. In most of the standard regions, Economic Planning Councils and Boards were set up, comprising appointed members from local authorities, business, trade unions and universities, and in the early 1970s, these produced a number of regional and sub-regional planning studies.
[10]
These institutions continued to operate until they were abolished by the incoming
Conservative government
in 1979. However, by the mid-1980s local authorities in most regions had jointly established standing conferences to consider regional planning issues. Regional initiatives were bolstered by the 1986 Government
Green Paper
and 1989
White Paper
on
The Future of Development Plans
, which proposed the introduction of strong regional guidance within the planning system,
[10]
and by the Government's issuing of Strategic Guidance at a regional level, from 1986 onwards.
[11]
Regions as areas of administration
[
edit
]
In April 1994, the
John Major
ministry created a set of ten Government Office Regions for England. Prior to 1994, although various central government departments had different regional offices, the regions they used tended to be different and
ad hoc
. The stated purpose was as a way of co-ordinating the various regional offices more effectively: they initially involved the
Department of Trade and Industry
,
Department of Employment
,
Department of Transport
and the
Department for the Environment
.
[15]
Following the
Labour Party
's victory in the
1997 general election
, the government created
regional development agencies
. Around a decade later the Labour administration also founded the
Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships
(RIEPs) with £185m of devolved funding to enhance councils' capacity to improve and take the lead in their own improvement.
The
Maastricht Treaty
encouraged the creation of regional boundaries for selection of members for the
Committee of the Regions
of the
European Union
:
Wales
,
Scotland
and
Northern Ireland
had each constituted a region, but England represents such a large proportion of the population of the United Kingdom that further division was thought necessary. The English regions, which initially numbered ten, also replaced the
Standard Statistical Regions
.
Merseyside
originally constituted a region in itself, but in 1998 it was merged into the
North West England
region, creating the nine present-day regions.
[16]
The nine regions were used as England's
European Parliament
constituencies from 1999 until Britain's
departure from the European Union
;
[17]
and as statistical
NUTS
level 1 regions. Since 1 July 2006, there have also been ten
strategic health authorities
, each of which corresponds to a region, except for
South East England
, which is divided into western and eastern parts.
In 1998,
regional chambers
were created in the eight English regions outside London under the provisions of the
Regional Development Agencies Act 1998
.
[18]
The powers of the assemblies were limited, and members were appointed, largely by local authorities, rather than being directly elected. The functions of the English regions were essentially devolved to them from Government departments or were taken over from pre-existing regional bodies, such as regional planning conferences and regional employers' organisations. Each assembly also made proposals for the UK members of the
Committee of the Regions
, with members drawn from the elected councillors of the local authorities in the region. The final nominations were made by central government.
[19]
Although they were publicly funded, one of the Regional Assemblies claimed not to be a public authority and therefore not subject to the
Freedom of Information Act 2000
.
[20]
As power was to be devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales without corresponding devolution in England, a series of
referendums
were planned to establish elected regional assemblies in some of the regions. The first was held in
London in 1998
and was passed. The
London Assembly
and
Mayor of London
of the
Greater London Authority
were created in 2000. A
referendum
was held in North East England on 4 November 2004, but the proposal for an elected assembly was rejected.
Abolition
[
edit
]
In 2007, a Treasury Review for new Prime Minister
Gordon Brown
recommended that greater powers should be given to local authorities and that the Regional Chambers should be phased out of existence by 2010.
[21]
The same year, nine
Regional Ministers
were appointed by the incoming
Brown ministry
. Their primary goal was stated as being to improve communication between central government and the regions of England.
[22]
The assemblies were effectively replaced by smaller
local authority leaders' boards
between 2008 and 2010, and formally abolished on 31 March 2010, as part of a "Sub-National Review of Economic Development and Regeneration". Most of their functions transferred to the relevant
regional development agency
and to
local authority leaders' boards
.
[23]
In June 2010, the incoming
Coalition Government
announced its intentions to abolish regional strategies and return spatial planning powers to local government. These plans include the withdrawal of funding to the existing eight Local Authority Leaders' Boards, with their statutory functions also being assumed by local councils. The boards in most cases continue to exist as voluntary associations of council leaders, funded by the local authorities themselves.
[24]
[25]
[26]
No appointments as Regional Ministers were made by the incoming UK government in 2010.
These changes did not affect the directly elected
London Assembly
, which was established by separate legislation as part of the
Greater London Authority
. In 2011,
Greater London
remains administered by the Greater London Authority, which consists of an elected
London Assembly
and a separately elected
Mayor of London
.
Following the abolition of the Government Offices in 2011, it was announced that the former Government Office Regions (GOR) would henceforth be known, for the purposes of statistical analysis, simply as Regions.
[27]
List of regions
[
edit
]
Regions of England (2021)
Region
|
GSS code
|
ITL code
|
Land area
[28]
|
Population
[28]
|
GVA
[29]
|
GDP
[30]
|
(km
2
)
|
(%)
|
People
|
(%)
|
Density
(/km
2
)
|
Total
(£ billions)
|
Per capita (£)
|
Total
(£ billions)
|
Per capita (£)
|
North East
|
E12000001
|
TLC
|
8,581
|
7%
|
2,646,772
|
5%
|
308
|
£56.5
|
£21,340
|
£65.0
|
£24,575
|
North West
|
E12000002
|
TLD
|
14,108
|
11%
|
7,422,295
|
13%
|
526
|
£196.0
|
£26,411
|
£220.3
|
£29,681
|
Yorkshire and the Humber
|
E12000003
|
TLE
|
15,404
|
12%
|
5,481,431
|
10%
|
356
|
£133.4
|
£24,330
|
£151.8
|
£27,692
|
East Midlands
|
E12000004
|
TLF
|
15,624
|
12%
|
4,880,094
|
9%
|
312
|
£118.4
|
£24,261
|
£134.2
|
£27,505
|
West Midlands
|
E12000005
|
TLG
|
12,998
|
10%
|
5,954,240
|
11%
|
458
|
£146.1
|
£24,530
|
£164.6
|
£27,649
|
East of England
|
E12000006
|
TLH
|
19,116
|
15%
|
6,348,096
|
11%
|
332
|
£171.4
|
£26,995
|
£193.3
|
£30,442
|
London
|
E12000007
|
TLI
|
1,572
|
1%
|
8,796,628
|
16%
|
5,596
|
£487.4
|
£55,412
|
£526.5
|
£59,855
|
South East
|
E12000008
|
TLJ
|
19,072
|
15%
|
9,294,023
|
16%
|
487
|
£301.5
|
£32,443
|
£336.2
|
£36,174
|
South West
|
E12000009
|
TLK
|
23,836
|
18%
|
5,712,840
|
10%
|
240
|
£149.8
|
£26,219
|
£169.3
|
£29,628
|
England
|
E92000001
|
|
130,310
|
100%
|
56,536,419
|
100%
|
434
|
£1,760.4
|
£31,138
|
£1,961.2
|
£34,690
|
ITL 1 statistical regions
[
edit
]
International Territorial Level (ITL) is a
geocode
standard for referencing the subdivisions of the
United Kingdom
for statistical purposes, used by the
Office for National Statistics
(ONS). Between 2003 and 2021, as part of the
European Union
and
European Statistical System
, the geocode
standard
used for the United Kingdom were
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics
or
NUTS
. The NUTS code for the UK was
UK
and the NUTS standard had hierarchy of three levels, with 12
first level
regions, which are currently mirrored by the ITL classification, of which 9 regions are in
England
. The sub-structure corresponds to
administrative divisions
within the country. Formerly, the further NUTS divisions IV and V existed; these have now been replaced by
Local Administrative Units
(LAU-1 and LAU-2 respectively).
Between 1994 and 2011, the nine regions had an administrative role in the implementation of
UK Government
policy, and as the areas covered by (mostly indirectly) elected bodies.
Subdivisions
[
edit
]
Local government in England does not follow a uniform structure. Therefore, each region is divided into a range of
further subdivisions
. London is divided into
London boroughs
and
one county
, while the other regions are divided into
metropolitan counties
,
shire counties
and
unitary authorities
. Counties are further divided into
districts
and some areas are also yet further divided into
civil parishes
. Regions are also divided into sub-regions, which usually group socio-economically linked local authorities together. However, the sub-regions have no official status and are little used other than for strategic planning purposes.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Local government geography and history
, Department for Communities and Local Government. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- ^
"A Beginners Guide to UK Geography (2023)"
.
Open Geography Portal
. Office for National Statistics. 24 August 2023
. Retrieved
9 December
2023
.
- ^
"House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 May 2010 (pt 0001)"
. Publications.parliament.uk. 27 May 2010
. Retrieved
24 November
2010
.
- ^
Little, Patrick (2012). "Major-generals (act. 1655?1657)".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/95468
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
Local Parliaments For England. Mr. Churchill's Outline of a Federal System, Ten Or Twelve Legislatures
, The Times, 13 September 1912, p.4
- ^
G. K. Peatling, "Home Rule for England, English Nationalism, and Edwardian Debates about Constitutional Reform" in "Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies", Vol. 35, No. 1. (Spring, 2003), pp.71?90.
JSTOR
4054518
- ^
In 1917 the
Royal Geographical Society
debated a paper by C.B. Fawcett that detailed 12 provinces he considered to be the "natural divisions of England". Detailed boundaries were proposed with regional capitals designated on the basis of the possession of universities or university colleges. C. B. Fawcett,
Natural Divisions of England
in
The Geographical Journal
, Vol. 49, No. 2. (February 1917), pp. 124?135
JSTOR
1779341
- ^
In 1919 Fawcett expanded his paper into a book entitled the
Provinces of England
, and a similar system of regions was proposed by G.D.H. Cole in
The Future of Local Government
in 1921. In 1920 the
Ministry of Health
published its own proposals for 15 provinces, subdivided into 59 regions
E. W. Gilbert
,
Practical Regionalism in England and Wales
in
The Geographical Journal
, Vol. 94, No. 1. (July 1939), pp. 29?44.
JSTOR
1788587
- ^
E. W. Gilbert, "Practical Regionalism in England and Wales" in "The Geographical Journal", Vol. 94, No. 1. (July 1939), pp. 29?44.
JSTOR
1788587
- ^
a
b
c
Paul N. Balchin and Lud?k Sykora,
Regional Policy and Planning in Europe
, Routledge, 1999
, pp.89?100
- ^
a
b
Urlan Wannop,
Regional Imperative: Regional Planning and Governance in Britain, Europe and the United States
, Routledge, 2002
, pp.8?30
- ^
Whitehall powers would go to Scotland, Wales and regions, but no full self-government. The Times. 1 November 1973.
- ^
More freedom for Scots, Welsh in proposals to region regions. The Times. 1 November 1973.
- ^
Dissenters urge plan for seven assemblies. The Times. 1 November 1973.
- ^
Devolution and British Politics. Chapter 10. English regional government
: Christopher Stevens
- ^
"National Statistics - geography - government office regions (GOR)"
.
ONS
. 10 May 2002. Archived from
the original
on 7 June 2002
. Retrieved
27 June
2022
.
- ^
"United Kingdom Election Results"
. Election.demon.co.uk
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
"Regional Development Agencies Act 1998"
. Opsi.gov.uk. 1 February 2013
. Retrieved
7 February
2013
.
- ^
Committee of the Regions
? Appointing the UK delegation
Archived
21 August 2006 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"South East Regional Assembly: Policy on access to information"
. Webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. 28 May 2010. Archived from
the original
on 28 May 2010
. Retrieved
7 February
2013
.
- ^
HM Treasury Press Release 79/07
? 17 July 2007
Archived
8 August 2007 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Regional Ministers at Government Offices webpage
. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
Archived
18 February 2009 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
eGov monitor ?
Planning transfer undermines democracy
. 29 November 2007
Archived
19 February 2008 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"In Full: The projects axed or suspended by government"
.
BBC News
. 17 June 2010
. Retrieved
24 November
2010
.
- ^
"Scrapping regional bureaucracy will save millions ? Newsroom ? Department for Communities and Local Government"
. Communities.gov.uk. 17 June 2010
. Retrieved
24 November
2010
.
- ^
"1 Horse Guards Road"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 24 November 2010
. Retrieved
24 November
2010
.
- ^
ONS: Regions (Former GORs)
. Accessed 8 August 2012
- ^
a
b
Park, Neil (21 December 2022).
"Estimates of the population for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland"
.
Office for National Statistics
. Retrieved
25 August
2023
.
- ^
Fenton, Trevor (25 April 2023).
"Regional gross value added (balanced) per head and income components"
.
Office for National Statistics
. Retrieved
14 August
2023
.
- ^
Fenton, Trevor (25 April 2023).
"Regional gross domestic product: all ITL regions"
.
Office for National Statistics
. Retrieved
15 August
2023
.
External links
[
edit
]