Background
10. On 22 August 2006, Cabinet considered a paper entitled, "Boosting the Impact of Regional Economic Development". The paper identified the need to update regional policy to reflect changes since the introduction of the Regional Partnerships Programme (RPP) in 20001 while building on the aspects of the RPP that have worked well.
11. Cabinet agreed to refresh the framework for regional policy to ensure it remains aligned with the government's overall goals for economic development. Cabinet also noted that a number of changes to the current RPP will be required to give effect to the refreshed approach, including:
- the number of regions for the purposes of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) funding will be consolidated from 26 to about 14;
- strategy and capability funding will be revised to get more focus on building capability to undertake strategic planning for economic development;
- Major Regional Initiative (MRI) funding will be revised to generate high quality large scale projects through contestability, and ensure alignment with other funding streams (with Ministers making final decisions on grants following advice from the NZTE board); and
- recognising the role of government agencies other than NZTE in regional economic development and, where possible, ensuring these activities are aligned with regional economic development strategies.
12. I was asked to report back with detailed proposals on each of these items by 1 December 2006 [CAB Min (06) 31/4 refers]. This report back was subsequently deferred to 28 February 2007 to allow for further departmental discussion. This paper responds to the report back requirement.
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