Regions of England

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Regions of England

Statistical regions
Category
Administrative region (1)
Location  England

Created 1994

Number 9

Additional status ITL 1 region

European constituency (1999–
2020)
Populations 2,669,941–9,180,135

Areas 1,572–23,836 km²

Government Local authority leaders' board (6)

Elected assembly (1)
None (2)
Subdivisions Non-metropolitan county (25)
Metropolitan county (6)
Unitary authorities (79)
London boroughs (33)

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The regions, formerly known as the government office regions, are the highest tier of
sub-national division in England, established in 1994.[1][2] Between 1994 and 2011, nine
regions had officially devolved functions within government. While they no longer fulfil
this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes.
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were superseded by International Territorial Level (ITL) regions ("ITL 1 regions").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
regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, established in
the 1940s for statistical purposes.
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. 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.

Contents

 1History
 2Regions as areas of administration
o 2.1List of regions
 3ITL 1 statistical regions
 4City regions
 5Subdivisions of England
 6Notes
 7References
 8External links

History[edit]
See also: Historical and alternative regions of England
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.

East of
England
London
South East
South West
East
Midlands
 West
Midlands
Yorkshire and
the Humber
North
East
North
West
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.
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]
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%
of
Me pop
dia ulati
% n on
cha gro clai %
nge ss min as
Lar
fro an g at
Na Popu Populati gest
m nu Inco Au
me[ latio Area [29]
on urb
pre al me gu
28]
n[29] density[29] an
vio ear Sup st
area
us nin port 20
yea gs or 01
r[29] (£) JSA
201 (Au
9[30] gust
2012
)

South
South 9,217,26 +0.51 19,072 km  (7 481/km  (1, 32,12
5.4% Hamps
2 2
3.0%
East 5 % ,364 sq mi) 250/sq mi) 0 hire [note
1]

Londo 9,002,48 +0.61 1,572 km2 (60 5,701/km2 ( 38,99 5.3% 10.1 Greater

n 8 % 7 sq mi) 14,770/sq m 2 % London
i) Built-
 %
of
Me pop
dia ulati
% n on
cha gro clai %
nge ss min as
Lar
fro an g at
Na Popu Populati gest
m nu Inco Au
me[ latio Area[29] on urb
pre al me gu
28]
n[29] density[29] an
vio ear Sup st
area
us nin port 20
yea gs or 01
r[29] (£) JSA
201 (Au
9[30] gust
2012
)

up
Area

Greater
Manch
North 7,341,19 +0.67 14,108 km2 (5 520/km2 (1, 28,13 10.4 ester
5.3%
West 6 % ,447 sq mi) 300/sq mi) 7 % Built-
up
Area

East Southe
of 6,236,07 +0.56 19,116 km2 (7 326/km2 (84 30,34 nd
3.5% 6.2% Urban
Engla 2 % ,381 sq mi) 0/sq mi) 5
nd Area [note
2]

West 5,934,03 +0.56 12,998 km2 (5 457/km2 (1, 28,53 5.1% 9.2% West

Midla 7 % ,019 sq mi) 180/sq mi) 6 Midlan
nds ds
 %
of
Me pop
dia ulati
% n on
cha gro clai %
nge ss min as
Lar
fro an g at
Na Popu Populati gest
m nu Inco Au
me[ latio Area[29] on urb
pre al me gu
28]
n[29] density[29] an
vio ear Sup st
area
us nin port 20
yea gs or 01
r[29] (£) JSA
201 (Au
9[30] gust
2012
)

Conurb
ation

Bristol
South 5,624,69 +0.45 23,836 km  (9 236/km  (61
2 2
28,65 Built-
3.3% 6.8%
West 6 % ,203 sq mi) 0/sq mi) 4 up
Area

Yorks West
hire Yorksh
and 5,502,96 +0.43 15,405 km2 (5 357/km2 (92 27,83 ire
5.2% 9.3%
the 7 % ,948 sq mi) 0/sq mi) 5 Built-
Humb up
er Area

East 4,835,92 +0.66 15,625 km2 (6 309/km2 (80 28,00 4.2% 7.7% Notting

Midla 8 % ,033 sq mi) 0/sq mi) 0 ham
nds Urban
 %
of
Me pop
dia ulati
% n on
cha gro clai %
nge ss min as
Lar
fro an g at
Na Popu Populati gest
m nu Inco Au
me[ latio Area[29] on urb
pre al me gu
28]
n[29] density[29] an
vio ear Sup st
area
us nin port 20
yea gs or 01
r[29] (£) JSA
201 (Au
9[30] gust
2012
)

Area

North 2,669,94 +0.45 8,579 km2 (3, 311/km2 (81 27,18 11.6 Tynesi

6.1%
East 1 % 312 sq mi) 0/sq mi) 7 % de

130,311 km2 
Engla 56,286,9 +0.55 432/km2 (1, 30,66 8.32 Londo
(50,313 sq m 4.45%
nd 61 % 120/sq mi) 7 %[31] n
i)

ITL 1 statistical regions[edit]

Main articles: ITL 1 statistical regions of England and International Territorial Level
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.

City regions[edit]
This section needs to be updated. Please help update
this article to reflect recent events or newly available
information. (October 2020)
Main article: City region (United Kingdom)
In its later years, the Labour government adopted the concept of city regions, regions
consisting of a metropolitan area and its hinterland or travel to work areas. Two such
areas were considered for giving statutory powers: Greater Manchester City
Region and Leeds City Region. However, this was later discontinued as a result of the
May 2010 general election. The new Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition
government did agree to the creation of the Greater Manchester Combined
Authority and West Yorkshire Combined Authority in 2011, with all other proposals and
the regional development agencies being subsumed into the local enterprise
partnerships.

Subdivisions of England[edit]
Main article: Subdivisions of England
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 parished. 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.