I admit that seeing the look on all the socialites faces when they have to move outside of their little bubble would be quite satisfying…especially as they think we are still in the dark ages….

Surprising that all the major advances seem to come out of the North…..

In terms of ‘regional skills shortages’, hmph. First, they’re not as big as the political rhetoric tends to suggest (mainly because the economy outside the London and the South East is typically quite undynamic).

But yes, you’re right that the problem I allude to is partly one of people moving to where the money is – but it’s also a problem that those remaining then work in the public sector. In order for your proposal to have a beneficial effect, it would have to substantially reverse that flow of people to London more than it increases the demands on the higher skilled workforce.

But that ain’t gonna’ happen. The reason why public employment is quite evenly distributed among the regions is that most of it is in local government and in regional offspring of central departments. The additional numbers employed in London that you could move out probably aren’t that big anyway, and you’re also assuming that London’s labour market isn’t strong enough that the supply couldn’t just trigger more demand – bearing in mind that a large number might choose to stay in London and the South East anyway, given that their lives are there.

In terms of its long-term effects, the examples of Washington, Canberra, etc., show that a political capital city does not an economic dynamo make.

http://archive.thisisyork.co.uk/2002/11/28/277302.html

Apparently Norman Macrae and Alastair Burnet proposed the idea in 1962. I plead ignorance on the grounds that I wasn’t born then.

Blimpish – I don’t follow your logic. Wouldn’t commercial property benefit from the increased demand brought about by shifting the government?
Isn’t the regional skills shortage brought about by people moving south because that’s where most of the senior jobs are, both in the public and private sector?

Given the objections coming up at the moment, though, you might be better moving the Square Mile to Elizabetha and leaving Westminster where it is. Assuming that the Square Mile would let itself be moved, of course…

In some of those northern towns well over 50% of employment is by the state..

But the bigger problems are about the economic consequences. Phil E rightly points out the distorting effects of regeneration: I remember being told two years ago by a regeneration official that over the next decade most provincial cities seem set to become so dependent on public funds that unsubsidised commercial property wouldn’t have much of a chance.

At any rate, despite the presence of the departments’ HQs in London, public employment is pretty evenly spread, with London under-represented if anything. Public administration workers as % of the employed workforce ranges from 26% (East) to 32% (North East), with London (27%) below the national average (28%). (2005 LFS data)

There’s a bigger problem here though – that the public administration workforce absorbs higher skilled workers in areas which don’t have many of them. If we compare the public administration workforce with those holding Level 3+ qualifications (e.g., 2 A-levels or above), we see that London has the smallest share – only 50% compared to a whopping 67% in Wales or 71% in the North East.

Does this matter? Damn right it does. Labour markets in places like Wales and the North East are dominated by public employment, making it difficult to find people to staff higher-value businesses. If this effect carried on, taking central government out of London could serve to exacerbate the North-South divide over the longer term.

Oh and I for one am unashamedly Anglo centric – I’d like it to be an exclusively English affair.