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Regional Development Agencies to be scrapped (23rd June 2010)

The nine regional development agencies (RDAs) across England are to be scrapped, Budget documents show.

The projects, set up by the Labour government, were established to work with local businesses to help development, employment, business efficiency and skills.

They are to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships in a process that will begin with a White Paper, to be published later in the summer.

RDAs employ about 3,400 people.

A spokesman for one of those affected, the South West RDA, said it accepted the plans and recognised "that funding available for economic development work will be more limited in the next few years given the need to tackle the public deficit".

No figures on potential savings from the changes were available.

The organisations had received criticism from some for failing to close regional divides.

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