Debate of the Regional Development Agency

On the 11th of June Kraków held the first national debate of the Regional Development Agency about “Regional Development Agencies within the framework of new regional policy” organised by the Małopolska Regional Development Agency.

The discussion was attended, among others, by Professor Michał Kulesza, Waldemar Sługocki, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Regional Development, Janusz Sepioł, senator of the Republic of Poland, Jacek Woźniak, Director of the Department of Regional Policy at the Marshall’s Office of the Małopolska Region, and the authorities of Regional Development Agencies from all over Poland.

The guests were welcomed by the Krzysztof Krzysztofiak, President of the Board of MARR, who read out the letter of Marshall’s Marek Nawara. The Marshall’s emphasised that even today we stand in front of the vision of Małopolska after 2013, and appreciated the initiative of organising a discussion about the future of business environment institutions in Poland by the Małopolska Regional Development Agency. The Marshall’s also stressed the role of MARR whose participation in the formation of the region’s vision is very important.

Professor Michał Kulesza The first speaker was Professor Michał Kulesza who joined the debate via a LED display. His speech entitled “Subsidiarity and decentralisation. Regional Development Agencies in the concept of the territorial self-government reform” touched upon three issues:

• Principles of shaping regional policy at the time after the territorial self-government reform:

The Professor emphasised that the self-government reform replaced the hierarchical network system that envisaged the good cooperation of all entities. What counts in this model of public governance is communication that leads to the determination of optimum solutions. This is the operational principle of the system of regional policy management in Poland that assumes the priority of higher purposes but also the independence of self-government authorities with regard to the determination and execution of development policy.

• What the self-government can do?

The Professor asked the following question: “Is the self-government allowed to do only what is strictly “provided for in the law”? In his opinion: No. If it were like this, there would be no need for the reform of administration whose essence is the self-government units’ ability to deal with the interests of local communities within the boundaries specified by the law.

• What should be the Agency’s role in shaping regional policy?

The role of the Agency is to participate in the works on regional development policy of the voivodeship whose principles are adopted and executed by self-government authorities. The Agencies should, therefore, support the authorities in the works on the preparation of local development strategies and the works on the acquisition of funds for their execution.

Senator Janusz Sepioł
The next speaker was Senator Janusz Sepioł. His speech was titled “20 years of partnership. Agencies – self-governments. Barriers, successes, failures.”

Senator reminded that 2010 is the year of local democracies when we remember about the 20 years of functioning of self-government in the new formula. These 20 years included successes and failures of public administration. The Senator said that if one prepared a ‘white book’ of the last twenty years and placed the Regional Development Agencies there, this history could be divided into three periods:

• 1993 – 1998 “Agencies without regions,”
• 1999 – 2004 “Regions without money but with Agencies,”
• 2005 – 2010 “Agencies without mission.”

The Senator summed up his speech with the following statement: “Today we need a new type of Agencies.” In the present formula, “Agencies without mission” do not stand a Chance. That is why measures should be allowed to be taken towards the specialisation of their activities and creation of companies that would deal, for example, with development activity, create industrial parks and support social cooperatives. The Senator predicted that we were waiting for the time of liquidation and parcelling out of today’s agencies, and consideration of new areas of activity.

Krzysztof Krzysztofiak, President of MARR
The third speech was delivered by Krzysztof Krzysztofiak, President of the Małopolska Regional Development Agency. The President presented the characteristic features of Regional Development Agencies in Poland, the principles of their operation and methods of financing. He said that today Regional Development Agencies largely focused on services for entrepreneurs, granting of loans and guarantees, management of technological parks and acquisition of EU funds.

He argued that in the present period of EU funds expenditure the regions’ authorities had not sufficiently used the potential of Regional Development Agencies, with the exception of the Pomorskie and Mazurskie voivodeships, creating special departments for grant servicing.

The President asked the following question: “Quo vadis, Agency?” and presented the key problems affecting Agencies’ operation, including insufficient material resources, politicisation, no legal (statutory) regulations concerning their activities and too narrow specialisation.

At the end he presented MARR’s priorities and the vision of Company’s operations in the next few years. He said that MARR chose innovative entrepreneurship, loan funds, development investments and economic promotion of the region.

Professor Janusz Zaleski
“Institutions of regional development support in the EU” ran the title of the speech delivered by Professor Janusz Zaleski, President of the Wrocław Regional Development Agency. The Professor presented the principles of operation of the multi-level governance concept in the management of regional development policy in Europe which is characterised, among other things, by huge diversity of national models and operation in the public governance model with the preservation of the subsidiarity, partnership and additionality principles.

The Professor also pointed to 10 problems affecting the operation of institutions of regional development support:

• Legal form – commercial law companies or foundations,
• Commissioning of tasks in the form of tenders,
• Strictly political ownership supervision,
• Convincing the tax offices that expenditures are revenue earning costs,
• No possibility to transfer resources for statutory activities by public authorities,
• Insufficient capital injection,VAT duty,
• Treatment of the agency as an organisational unit of a public shareholder,
• Limitations resulting from public aid,
• Problems with the lack of partnership between shareholders, including the observance of minority shareholders’ rights.

The Professor also presented conclusions and recommendations for Agencies for the next few years. He said that the HR and intellectual potential of these institutions should be utilised, new regulatory solutions introduced and the actual public-private and public-public partnership cared for as a basis of their operation and management.

Jacek Woźniak, Director at the Marshall’s Office
How to stimulate the region’s development through the strengthening of regional development institutions? This question was asked by the Director of Regional Policy Department at the Marshall’s Office of the Małopolska Region, Mr. Jacek Woźniak, at the beginning of his speech entitled: “Regional Development Agencies – a tool for execution or an addressee of new regional development strategy.”

Director Jacek Woźniak pointed out that Poland was characterised by the multiplicity of regional development institutions, but their number did not affect the quality of tasks executed by them. The Director said that Regional Development Agencies differed from other institutions performing similar tasks because they should be instruments of regional policy, and later he posed the question if the voivodeship needed them? In his opinion: Yes, because a region would function effectively if some of the tasks were commissioned to external entities leasing the key issues to the Voivodeship Authorities.

External units are often able to perform some public tasks more effectively. The Agencies of the future should function as a partner for the Voivodeship self-government on the ‘outsourcing’ basis and as an administrator of EU funds. It can be achieved on condition of meeting several conditions: clear division of roles and tasks, financial stability and favourable regulatory system.

To sum up, Director stated that: “there is some future for Regional Development Agencies but it is only conditional, only for the best and not always and everywhere.”

Tomasz Parteka, Director at the Marshall’s Office
The next speaker, Tomasz Parteka, Director of the Regional and Spatial Development Department at the Pomorskie Marshall’s Office, presented the role and importance of Regional Development Agencies against the background of regional development support institutions.

The Professor discussed the principles of operation of the system of institutional regional development support in Poland. He stated that in our country there was practically no scientific research on the activities of Agencies and regional development monitoring. He pointed to the necessity of taking advantage of experiences in the creation of regional policy, and presented the example of the United Kingdom that had effectively used EU funds for this purpose. In his opinion Poland could implement the British practice of the transfer of lands by self-governments to Agencies, e.g. of degraded areas to regional development institutions that could regenerate and manage these areas.

The Professor suggested new institutional solutions to be introduced in Poland that included the building of new institutions based on solid organisational, financial and operational foundations: Regional Partnership Institutions whose goal would be to support regional development of the voivodeship in the economic and social aspect.

Krystyna Gurbiel, Deputy President of the Board of PSDB Sp. z o.o.
The next speech delivered by Ms. Krystyna Gurbiel, Deputy President of the Board of PSDB Sp. z o.o., was entitled: “Regional Development Agencies, a tool for execution or an addressee of the new economic development strategy of the country.”

At the beginning the President pointed that there was no single document of the national development strategy, but we were at the time when works on its preparation were in progress. This plan would envisage the creation of a new system of development management, reduction of the number of strategies and their hierarchisation. Within this hierarchy there would be prepared long- and short-term National Development Strategy and nine development strategies, including Strategy for innovativeness and effectiveness of the economy, Strategy for the development of human capital, and National strategy for regional development.

The President presented the role of Agencies in development management policy and considered their place in the concept of the National Development Strategy. In her opinion the Agencies should concentrate measures executed as part of various policies valid for a given region. The Agencies should also support the Voivodeship Authorities and the Marshall’s Offices in the execution of tasks related to regional development and sectoral policies.