Steve Richards: Manchester gets its supercasino, but who really knows how it won?

Elected politicians hand over their powers to independent quangos out of fear of vilification

So Manchester gets the super casino. Blackpool licks its wounds. Greenwich despairs. The Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, is ubiquitous.

She went to the Commons to make a statement on the decision and then toured the studios to inform viewers and listeners why one location had been chosen rather than another. For Ms Jowell this was a pivotal moment. For months there has been much highly charged speculation about which site would win. At last here she was making the announcement we had been waiting for.

Except it was not like that at all. Ms Jowell did make a statement and she did answer questions from jubilant MPs from Manchester and disappointed backbenchers from the areas that had got the thumbs down. She also responded to the broadcasters' questions in a series of interviews. Yet she did not have anything to say. She could not have anything to say. She was not involved in the decision. Indeed, she proclaimed her lack of involvement.

It was an independent body known as the Casino Advisory Panel that gave the go-ahead for Manchester. Ms Jowell had only received its report on the morning that the announcement was made. She was a messenger rather than a mighty elected minister. Here she is answering one question in the Commons: "From a brief reading of the report it is abundantly clear that Manchester will very much put social responsibility at the centre of the proposal..."

A brief reading does not leave her well placed to give authoritative answers. Ms Jowell was almost as much a surprised onlooker as everyone else. At one stage she stated powerlessly: "I am aware that Blackpool is disappointed." Such an impotent awareness is unlikely to comfort those in Blackpool who had high hopes their moment had come.

So who did wield the mighty powers in this decision? The members of the Advisory Panel were Professor Stephen Crow, Christopher Collison, James Froomberg, Neil Mundy and Deep Sagar. I am sure they were eminently qualified for the task in hand. Indeed in the introduction to the report they declare: "Between us we have a wealth of both private and public-sector professional and practical knowledge, experience and expertise..." No doubt this is the case. But how many of you have heard of Messrs Crow, Collison, Froomberg and Co? When did they appear on the Today programme or in the newspapers? Ms Jowell was everywhere on the day of the announcement and yet she had only briefly read the report. Professor Crow was hardly anywhere to be seen and yet he and his colleagues wrote the report and took the decisions.

The decisions were contentious too. The report concludes that Manchester was "in need of regeneration at least as much as the others represented". Some would argue that Manchester has had at least its fair share of regeneration in recent years compared with some of the other bidders. The report goes on to argue that the "regeneration benefits for Blackpool are unproven". Yet there are experts who suggest that the benefits for Blackpool are more proven than in the case of the other options. As for Greenwich, the report has doubts whether "additionality" (presumably they mean the super casino) would enhance existing regeneration.

Perhaps the advisory panel is right in every case. This is not a column about the merits of the judgement or indeed about the wider problems that will arise from the Government's artless promotion of gambling as a cheap way of regenerating poor areas. My concern is with the way decisions are made and who is held to account. Here was a classic example of an increasingly common phenomenon in which politicians are accountable despite having given their powers away to an anonymous panel.

As a result the elected minister is unable to explain the thinking behind what has taken place. In his report in yesterday's Independent, Colin Brown quotes a former minister as stating: "Greenwich came out top in the initial assessment. Manchester came bottom. There are real questions about why this has changed." As far as I can tell, nobody has answered the questions.

The democratic imbalance has perverse consequences. In this case the activities of John Prescott were so intensively scrutinised that we know he got a cowboy's hat when he visited the ranch of Philip Anschutz, the owner of the Dome. All hell broke loose in parts of the media about Mr Prescott's trip to the ranch although he had no power over the decision as to which site would be chosen for the casino. In contrast, if a member of the Casino Advisers' Panel had adorned one of Mr Anschutz's Stetsons - which I am sure they have not - none of us would know about it, although it is the panel that wields the power.

Elected politicians hand over their powers to independent quangos partly out of fear of vilification: "Do not blame us. We are only implementing decisions made by others." Sometimes the transfer of power is supremely effective. Gordon Brown's decision to make the Bank of England independent was largely a political act in order to secure trust in relation to Labour's economic competence. But quite a lot of the time, pivotal decisions that affect all our lives are taken by people who are unknown, hidden away in quango land.

The imbalance was most vividly highlighted when an anonymous official ruled that the elected Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, must be suspended from office because of a trivial spat with a journalist. The decision was revoked ultimately, but even so it seemed for a short period as if one official could overturn the recent verdict of the electorate. I cannot remember the name of the official. Yet we could all list the names of elected politicians with considerably less power.

Part of the solution isfor the media to pay more attention to those who exert immense hidden power. But the problem is more challenging. As the former cabinet minister Charles Clarke has argued, the revival of a local democracy should be a central objective of Labour as it seeks to renew itself in office.

Another former cabinet minister, Alan Milburn, has also made thoughtful speeches on empowerment and accountability. He plans to make one soon on reformed structures for the NHS in which he envisages a new role for local councils. Mr Milburn is rightly wary of Mr Brown's embryonic proposal to set up an independent board to run the NHS, another example where elected ministers would become messengers for anonymous officials. "I have only read briefly the report from the board, but I can announce it has decided that there is no need for further changes to the NHS."

In the end it is very simple. Those who take the decisions must be held to account for them. Otherwise, more often than not the wrong decisions will be made.

s.richards@independent.co.uk