Theregions of England, formerly known as thegovernment office regions, are the highest tier of sub-national division inEngland. They were established in 1994^[1] and follow the 1974–96 county borders. They are a continuation of the former 1940sstandard regions which followed the 1889–1974administrative county borders. Between 1994 and 2011, all nine regions had partlydevolved functions; they no longer fulfil this role, continuing to be used for limited statistical purposes.^[2]

Regions of England
Category	Statistical regions Administrative region (1)
Location	England
Created	1994
Number	9 regions North East North West Yorkshire and the Humber East Midlands West Midlands East of England London South East South West
Additional status	ITL 1 region European constituency (1999–2020)
Populations	2,669,941–9,180,135
Areas	1,572–23,836 km2
Government	Local authority leaders' board (5) Elected assembly (1) None (3)
Subdivisions	Two-tiernon-metropolitan county (21) Metropolitan county (6) Unitary authority area (62) London borough (32 Greater London, 1, City Of London)

While theUK was a member of theEuropean Union, they defined areas (constituencies) for the purposes of elections to theEuropean Parliament.Eurostat also used them to demarcatefirst level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) regions ("NUTS 1 regions") within theEuropean Union, which in 2021 were superseded byInternational Territorial Level (ITL) regions ("ITL 1 regions").

TheLondon Region has a directly electedMayor andAssembly. Six regions havelocal authority leaders' boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities. The remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders' boards.

In 1998,regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside London, which produced strategic plans and recommendations to local authorities. Each of the regions also had an associated (central)Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-timeregional minister within the Government.House of Commonsregional Select Committees were established in 2009. However, the chambers and select committees were abolished in May 2010, restoring these functions to the main tier of local government,^[3] with limited functions transferred to the regional local authority leaders' boards created in 2009. Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incomingCoalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011.

From 2011,combined authorities have been introduced in somecity regions, with similar responsibilities to the former regional chambers (and in some cases, replacing a regional local authority leaders' board on a smaller scale), but which also receive additional delegated functions from central government relating to transport and economic policy.

Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development. They had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding from the central government as well. These were abolished in 2012, with statutory functions returning to local authorities and central government; however, smaller scalelocal enterprise partnerships were voluntarily established to take on some functions relating to coordinating economic priorities and development.

After about 500 AD, England comprised sevenAnglo-Saxon territories—Northumbria,Mercia,East Anglia,Essex,Kent,Sussex andWessex—often referred to as theheptarchy. The boundaries of some of these, which later unified as theKingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. DuringOliver Cromwell's Protectorate in the 1650s, therule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England and Wales of similar size to the modern regions.^[4]

Proposals for administrative regions withinEngland were mooted by the British government prior to theFirst World War. In 1912, theThird Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament. The Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or "Home Rule All Round". On 12 September theFirst Lord of the Admiralty,Winston Churchill, gave a speech in which he proposed 10 or 12 regional parliaments for the United Kingdom. Within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would makenatural regions.^[5][6] While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a while widely anticipated and various schemes for dividing England devised.^[7][8] By the 1930s, several competing systems of regions were adopted by central government for such purposes as census of population, agriculture, electricity supply, civil defence and the regulation of road traffic.^[9] Nine "standard regions" were set up in 1946, in which central government bodies, statutory undertakings and regional bodies were expected to cooperate.^[10] However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s.^[11]

Creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. TheRedcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, which would see power devolved from central government.Edward Heath's administration in the 1970s did not create a regional structure in theLocal Government Act 1972, waiting for theRoyal Commission on the Constitution, after which government efforts were concentrated on a constitutional settlement inScotland andWales for the rest of the decade. In England, the majority of the Commission "suggested regional coordinating and advisory councils for England, consisting largely of indirectly elected representatives of local authorities and operating along the lines of the Welsh advisory council". One-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the "eight now [in 1973] existing for economic planning purposes, modified to make boundaries to conform with thenew county structure".^[12][13] A minority report byLord Crowther-Hunt andAlan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain (five within England), which would take over substantial amounts of the central government.^[14]

Some elements ofregional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards. In most of the standard regions, Economic Planning Councils and Boards were set up, comprising appointed members from local authorities, business, trade unions and universities, and in the early 1970s, these produced a number of regional and sub-regional planning studies.^[10] These institutions continued to operate until they were abolished by the incomingConservative government in 1979. However, by the mid-1980s local authorities in most regions had jointly established standing conferences to consider regional planning issues. Regional initiatives were bolstered by the 1986 GovernmentGreen Paper and 1989White Paper onThe Future of Development Plans, which proposed the introduction of strong regional guidance within the planning system,^[10] and by the Government's issuing of Strategic Guidance at a regional level, from 1986 onwards.^[11]

In April 1994, theJohn Major ministry created a set of ten Government Office Regions for England. Prior to 1994, although various central government departments had different regional offices, the regions they used tended to be different andad hoc. The stated purpose was as a way of co-ordinating the various regional offices more effectively: they initially involved theDepartment of Trade and Industry,Department of Employment,Department of Transport and theDepartment for the Environment.^[15] Following theLabour Party's victory in the1997 general election, the government createdregional development agencies. Around a decade later the Labour administration also founded theRegional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) with £185m of devolved funding to enhance councils' capacity to improve and take the lead in their own improvement.

TheMaastricht Treaty encouraged the creation of regional boundaries for selection of members for theCommittee of the Regions of theEuropean Union:Wales,Scotland andNorthern Ireland had each constituted a region, but England represents such a large proportion of the population of the United Kingdom that further division was thought necessary. The English regions, which initially numbered ten, also replaced theStandard Statistical Regions.Merseyside originally constituted a region in itself, but in 1998 it was merged into theNorth West England region, creating the nine present-day regions.^[16] The nine regions were used as England'sEuropean Parliament constituencies from 1999 until Britain'sdeparture from the European Union;^[17] and as statisticalNUTS level 1 regions. Since 1 July 2006, there have also been tenstrategic health authorities, each of which corresponds to a region, except forSouth East England, which is divided into western and eastern parts.

In 1998,regional chambers were created in the eight English regions outside London under the provisions of theRegional Development Agencies Act 1998.^[18] The powers of the assemblies were limited, and members were appointed, largely by local authorities, rather than being directly elected. The functions of the English regions were essentially devolved to them from Government departments or were taken over from pre-existing regional bodies, such as regional planning conferences and regional employers' organisations. Each assembly also made proposals for the UK members of theCommittee of the Regions, with members drawn from the elected councillors of the local authorities in the region. The final nominations were made by central government.^[19] Although they were publicly funded, one of the Regional Assemblies claimed not to be a public authority and therefore not subject to theFreedom of Information Act 2000.^[20]

As power was to be devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales without corresponding devolution in England, a series ofreferendums were planned to establish elected regional assemblies in some of the regions. The first was held inLondon in 1998 and was passed. TheLondon Assembly andMayor of London of theGreater London Authority were created in 2000. Areferendum was held in North East England on 4 November 2004, but the proposal for an elected assembly was rejected.

In 2007, a Treasury Review for new Prime MinisterGordon Brown recommended that greater powers should be given to local authorities and that the Regional Chambers should be phased out of existence by 2010.^[21] The same year, nineRegional Ministers were appointed by the incomingBrown ministry. Their primary goal was stated as being to improve communication between central government and the regions of England.^[22] The assemblies were effectively replaced by smallerlocal authority leaders' boards between 2008 and 2010, and formally abolished on 31 March 2010, as part of a "Sub-National Review of Economic Development and Regeneration". Most of their functions transferred to the relevantregional development agency and tolocal authority leaders' boards.^[23]

In June 2010, the incomingCoalition Government announced its intentions to abolish regional strategies and return spatial planning powers to local government. These plans include the withdrawal of funding to the existing eight Local Authority Leaders' Boards, with their statutory functions also being assumed by local councils. The boards in most cases continue to exist as voluntary associations of council leaders, funded by the local authorities themselves.^[24][25][26] No appointments as Regional Ministers were made by the incoming UK government in 2010.

These changes did not affect the directly electedLondon Assembly, which was established by separate legislation as part of theGreater London Authority. In 2011,Greater London remains administered by the Greater London Authority, which consists of an electedLondon Assembly and a separately electedMayor of London.

Following the abolition of the Government Offices in 2011, it was announced that the former Government Office Regions (GOR) would henceforth be known, for the purposes of statistical analysis, simply as Regions.^[27]

International Territorial Level (ITL) is ageocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of theUnited Kingdom for statistical purposes, used by theOffice for National Statistics (ONS). Between 2003 and 2021, as part of theEuropean Union andEuropean Statistical System, the geocodestandard used for the United Kingdom wereNomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics orNUTS. The NUTS code for the UK wasUK and the NUTS standard had hierarchy of three levels, with 12first level regions, which are currently mirrored by the ITL classification, of which 9 regions are inEngland. The sub-structure corresponds toadministrative divisions within the country. Formerly, the further NUTS divisions IV and V existed; these have now been replaced byLocal Administrative Units (LAU-1 and LAU-2 respectively).Between 1994 and 2011, the nine regions had an administrative role in the implementation ofUK Government policy, and as the areas covered by (mostly indirectly) elected bodies.

Local government in England does not follow a uniform structure. Therefore, each region is divided into a range offurther subdivisions. London is divided intoLondon boroughs and theCity of London, while the other regions are divided intometropolitan counties,shire counties andunitary authorities. Counties are further divided intodistricts and some areas are also yet further divided intocivil parishes. Regions are also divided into sub-regions, which usually group socio-economically linked local authorities together. However, the sub-regions have no official status and are little used other than for strategic planning purposes.

• Local Government Boundary Commission for England
• Dept of Communities and Local Government