Interesting Email

I was away on holiday over the last week, so apologies for not 'blogging'.

Coming back to the usual loads of emails, I found this request

Dear Colleague,

Can you help?

We have been approached by Go East to help recruit 10 representatives ...
Interesting to know the unelected government of the eastern region is asking for people assist them in their role. What is the jurisdiction of the regional office? They oversee the spending of tens of million pounds on housing, transport and planning but are unelected.

British citizens were asked whether they wanted another tier of government under the Your Region,Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions’ consultation - and the response was a resounding 78% 'NO', but we still have an unelected Government Office in the Regions - and Local Authorities must answer to them, whether we like it or not. The government has now said from 2010, their role will be transferred to the business-led regional development agencies.

Your views on this are welcome. Since the government did not abide by the result of the first referendum, should there be another referendum to establish whether to have an elected regional government? If the answer is still NO, shouldn't the regional offices be abolished - and let the power revert back to the Local Authorities instead...