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Biography

James has been part of the English Regions Devolution Monitoring project with colleagues in Manchester since the beginning of 2007. Led by University College London’s Constitution Unit, this is a long term research initiative funded by the ESRC and Ministry of Justice. He is also engaged in a variety of related research projects on regional and sub-national governance. In 2008/09 he is researching the evolution of the local institutional architecture within the emerging Multi-Area Agreements and their links to central government’s sub-national governance agenda.

In 2008 he has completed research on the involvement of voluntary and community organisations in the North West in the delivery of public services, a survey of local authorities’ sustainable economic development activity, and formative evaluation of local initiatives addressing worklessness. More recently, he has been closely involved in the national evaluation of Community Charters, part of the UK Government’s programme for Community Empowerment, funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government.

James gained his PhD in 2007 from the School of Environment and Development at Manchester University. The PhD explored the implementation of the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders in a number of Northern English cities, and in particular examined the creation of urban ‘mixed communities’, as well as the level of involvement of local people in redevelopment. Between 2001 and 2003 he was part of the local evaluation team for the three Greater Manchester New Deal for Communities schemes as part of the national evaluation of NDC for the then ODPM.

Main research interests:

• Regional and City-regional Governance
  
  
• Neighbourhoods, Communities and Regeneration
  
  
• Housing Market Renewal and Housing Policy
  

Selected publications:

Burch, M., Harding, A. and Rees, J. (2009, forthcoming) Explaining the contradictions in the UK Government's spatial development policy, International Journal of Public Sector Management

Rees, J. ‘Urban Housing Market Restructuring and the Re-casting of Neighbourhood Governance’ in Durose, C., Greasley, S. and Richardson, L. (eds. 2009, forthcoming) Changing local governance, changing citizens, Bristol: Policy Press

Rees, J. and Headlam, N. (2009 forthcoming) ‘City-regional Formations in the UK: examining the Local Governance Architecture’ (also to be presented at AAG, Las Vegas, March 2009)

Burch, M., Harding, A. and Rees, J. (2008) ‘The English Question’, in Hazell, R. (ed.) Constitutional Futures, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Burch, M., Harding, A. and Rees, J. (2008) 'The English Regions and London’, in Trench, A. (ed.) (2008) State of the Nations 2008: Into the Third Term of Devolution in the United Kingdom, Exeter: Imprint Academic

Rees, J. (2008) Who Delivers Services? A study of involvement in and attitudes to public service delivery by the VCS in the North West of England, IPEG/CfLG

Robson, B., R. Barr, K. Lymperopoulou, J. Rees & M. Coombes (2006) A Framework for City-Regions Working Paper 1: Mapping City-Regions. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister