The Government is to revamp its regional economic development policy in a drive to get better national outcomes.
Economic Development Minister Trevor Mallard said the Regional Partnerships Programme set up six years ago was now working in a different environment.
It was the Government's main regional economic development programme andgave regions guidance and funding to develop and get sustainable economic growth strategies started.
It was set up to attack low growth and low employment but these had improved and now the priority was to make New Zealand globally competitive, Mr Mallard said.
"Regional economic development should be seen as a blending of local needs and goals with the national priority to transform the New Zealand economy," he said in speech notes to the Economic Development Association of New Zealand in Dunedin today.
The Government has proposed consolidating the 26 regions to 14 larger areas.
Mr Mallard said 26 partnership regions was too many for the size of the country.
"It is certainly too many for government to participate in if the relationships are to be of the quality that I expect."
Other proposed changes to the policy included:
* Concentrating funding on building the capability to develop substantive regional economic development strategies, and
* contestability of large scale funding under the Major Regional Initiative programme.
Mr Mallard told the conference contestability would ensure that the government was supporting the best projects from a national perspective.
"This will involve a pool of funding, decision making probably twice a year."
The funding would be considered in light of what other agencies and organisations were getting, he said.
"It will mean a shift from a regional entitlement approach to one where the contributions to your region can make to national priorities is a much more important factor," he said.
Under the partnership scheme the Government provided grants for strategic planning; building the economic development capability of regions -- both got up to $100,000 every three years, and Major Regional Initiatives -- up to $2 million every three years.
The partnership included local government, business representatives, iwi, economic development agencies, educational institutions, community organisations and central government.
