§ Mr. CabornTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what functions his Department carries out at the regional level; where the regional offices are located in710W each of the regions; what staff are employed and at what grades; what proportion of his Department's budget is spent in each of the regions; and what geographical boundaries determine his Department's regions.
§ Mr. Chris PattenThe regional offices of DOE (Central) perform a general representational role, involving liaison with local authorities and other bodies, and also carry out a number of executive functions in the housing, planning and urban policy fields. These include, for example, on housing distributing resources through the housing investment programme (HIP) system and establishing housing action trusts (HATs); on planning, advising on strategic planning, handling the approval of structure plans, and issuing decisions on certain types of planning appeals and other casework; and on urban policy, promoting urban development corporations (UDCs), liaising with local authorities on the urban programme (UP), participating in (and in some cases providing the secretariat for) city action teams (CATs), and processing applications for derelict land grant (DLG).
DOE(C) has nine regional offices, in the north, north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside, east midlands, west midlands, eastern region, south-west, south-east and London. In addition there is a task force based in Merseyside. The geographical coverage of each region and the location of the main office is as set out in table A.
I will write to the hon. Member with regard to the PSA at a later date.
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Table A A Location and geographical boundaries of DOE(C) regional offices Counties covered Main office North West regional office Northumberland Tyne and Wear Newcastle-upon-Tyne Durham Cleveland North West regional office Lancashire Manchester Greater Manchester Cheshire Cumbria Merseyside (planning work) Yorkshire and Humberside regional office North Yorkshire Leeds West Yorkshire South Yorkshire Humberside East Midlands regional office Derbyshire Nottingham Nottinghamshire Lincolnshire Leicestershire Northamptonshire West Midlands regional office Staffordshire Birmingham Shorpshire West Midlands Warwickshire Hereford and Worcester Eastern regional office Norfolk Bedford Suffolk Essex Cambridgeshire Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire Hertfordshire South West regional office Cornwall Bristol Devon Dorset
Counties covered Main office Somerset Avon Wiltshire Gloucestershire South East regional office Oxfordshire London Berkshire Surrey Hampshire Isle of Wight Kent West Sussex
Table B: Staff in post in DOE regional offices by grade (or equivalent grade) on 1 February 1990 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 SEO HEO EO AO AA Total NRO 1.0 — 2.0 1.0 9.0 10.0 13.0 22.0 25.0 8.0 91.0 NWRO 1.0 — 2.0 3.0 15.5 9.0 23.0 29.0 47.5 24.0 154.0 YHRO 1.0 — 2.0 1.0 10.0 15.0 14.0 21.0 22.0 13.5 99.5 EMRO — 1.0 — 2.0 7.0 10.0 11.0 17.0 23.0 13.0 84.0 WMRO 1.0 — 3.0 1.0 11.0 6.0 17.5 23.5 29.5 3.0 95.5 ERO 1.0 — 2.0 1.0 11.0 7.0 11.0 16.0 10.0 6.0 65.0 SWRO 1.0 — 1.0 2.0 8.0 5.0 12.0 13.0 14.0 4.0 60.0 SERO 1.0 — 3.0 1.0 10.0 10.5 13.0 27.0 16.0 1.0 82.5 LRO 1.0 — 3.0 2.0 18.0 7.5 24.0 33.0 24.0 1.0 113.5 MTF — — 2.0 — 6.0 5.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 1.0 47.0 Total 8.0 1.0 20.0 14.0 105.5 85.0 149.5 212.5 222.0 74.5 892.0 The proportion of the Department's central administration vote spent in each of the regions in 1989–90 is set out in table C.
Table C DOE Regional Offices Administrative expenditure as a percentage of the DOE (C) Central Administration Vote (1989–90) Per cent. NRO 1.01 NWRO 1.56 YHRO 1.11 EMRO 0.82 WMRO 1.07 ERO 0.76 SWRO 0.69 SERO 1.01 LRO 1.32 MTF 0.55 Total 9.90