No government in at least the last 50 years has made more of its efforts to decentralise, to hand power back to locally elected leaders. Sadly,
ministers seem to not just be handing over new powers, but new blame
as well.

Part of this decentralisation process is motivated by a genuine desire to strengthen "communities", part of it is a by-product of a rush to dismantle the regional infrastructure in which the last Labour
government invested so much, and part of it is a chance to provide a cover for at least some of the blame involved in council spending cuts.

Key ministers scrapped regional bodies, slashed council grants and said, "Yes, you have less cash, but you can do with it as you wish".

They handed councils the power of general competence, meaning if the law doesn't prohibit it, they can do it. But at the same time the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles handed himself more than 140 new powers with which to regulate councils.

Look a little deeper and you can see that the coalition has possibly even discovered it didn't know what it had until it was gone. The axing of One North East, of Government Office North East and anything with the 'R-word' attached has created a communications problem which even those distant, London-based civil servants have now recognised.

Sir Bob Kerslake, the new head of the civil service, is the permanent secretary with whom Mr Pickles set about delivering on his plans for elected local mayors, for local enterprise partnerships and the un-ringfencing of Government grants.

He is also the man who appointed David Rossington, finance director at the Department for Communities and Local Government, to be the key civil servant for North East councils.

It means the region has the ear of a senior Whitehall man, a move needed as its councils try to restructure themselves in light of savage spending cuts. Spending chiefs here can raise with him, for example, the work needed to convince the Treasury to hand over significant borrowing powers to allow regeneration projects to go ahead.

He has then a say over how tens of millions of pounds in public funds will be spent, though he has never been elected to office.

One of Mr Rossington's roles is chairing the London-based body overseeing the region's European regional development funding - a body that had to be created centrally after the Coalition scrapped development agency One North East.

Also on that panel is Tom Smyth, Vince Cable's answer to the question: What do we do without Government Office North East?

Mr Smyth is part of Bis Local, the regional branches of the Department for Business created in an almost noticed attempt to clear up the mess left behind in the coalition's regionalism purge.

Typically, Bis North is based in Leeds. Mr Smyth and his sub-branch is based on Gateshead's Team Valley and by all accounts is as accommodating as his role allows.

Speaking at an academic research event in Durham, he said the region had a lot going for itself, always a good sign, but warned it had to stop complaining and looking for help.

Not quite the "get on your bike" approach of certain Tory ministers, and certainly grounded in reality, but probably a little harsh.

What Messrs Smyth and Rossington represent then is a Government admittance, a secret one, that the North East works as a region.

The problem now is that the Coalition appear reluctant to trust the North East to carry out this regional role in what might be called "the right way". And for that to happen, Conservative Central Office would like to see a different type of decentralisation, one that involves a lot more Tory seats in the North East.

Until then councils can look forward to less cash, more blame, and little choice in the matter.

Adrian Pearson is regional affairs correspondent at The Journal

What Messrs Smyth and Rossington represent is a Government admittance the North East works as a region