Recommendation 17

The Government’s claims for Places for Growth imply that it expects there to be an appreciable difference in mindset between policy officials employed in London and those in regional offices, and a corresponding change to policy. However, the responsible Minister was not able to pinpoint how policy advice drafted in a regional office would be different from that drafted in Whitehall. Even where some staff in regional offices may be more likely to have different educational and professional backgrounds, the majority of policy officials are likely to be university graduates wherever they are based given current recruitment criteria, with a certain broad shared framework of intellectual values and approaches this tends to imply. It remains unclear, both as to what changes Ministers want to see in the policy advice they receive from officials, and how the fact of basing more officials in regional Hubs will achieve these changes. The Cabinet Office should publish details of its understanding of how the location of officials influences the advice they provide, setting out how exactly it expects recruiting staff to regional offices will lead to tangible differences in policy development and improvements to the welfare of citizens and communities.