Persuading up to 30,000 civil servants to move out of London and into the provinces was never going to be easy. And so it has proved.

Gordon Brown confirmed last week that the final version of the Lyons report - named after Sir Michael Lyons, the director of the Institute of Local Government Studies at Birmingham University and the man charged with investigating all aspects of such a move - will be delayed until March. Whitehall is apparently resisting swapping Pall Mall for Preston or the Strand for Sunderland. And so it gives local authorities all around the country three more months of salivating at the thought of the jobs coming to their part of the world.

The property agent King Sturge has compiled a list of the best relocation destinations which will be included in Sir Michael's report. Practically every region has submitted evidence as to why it should be picked, all claiming that their patch is a veritable Garden of Eden, with no employment, transport, property, housing or quality of life problems. It's been rather like watching the class swot, hand in the air, pleading: "Me Sir! Me Sir! Pick me Sir! Please Sir!"

Some regions, of course, do have pretty good reasons why they should be picked. For instance, can anywhere compete with Teesside on office costs? Currently, civil servants in central London sit in offices that cost about £65 per sq ft. But if they plumped for Teesside, and the Teesdale office scheme, they would get a view of Stockton's nice new Baptist Tabernacle, as well as being just a short stroll over the Millennium Bridge to Poundland, Wilkinson's and the other delights of the Castlegate Shopping Centre, for just £15 a sq ft. A bargain.

But should we be hoping that the jobs come here? Perhaps not, if we want to be selfless and have the best interests of the country as a whole in mind. Here's why. In the North-East, our jobs add less than two-thirds of the value of work done in the South East.

"Value" roughly measures the wealth a person generates for the country or contributions to national output, and it comes to about £15,000 a year, not much less than a displaced junior civil servant might expect to be paid, and far less than their London salary. The result would be no, or only a small, contribution to the wealth of the country as the work done would be less economically worthwhile than if carried on in London. That could perhaps be the regions' next campaign: "For the good of the country, say no to Whitehall jobs."

Ian Reeve is Business Correspondent, BBC TV, North East and Cumbria.

* lan Reeve is Business Correspondent, BBC TV North East & Cumbria.

Published: 16/12/2003