Controlling, but clear and decisive. That was the style generally expected of the new prime minister. Instead, six months on, a state of indecision seems to pervade Whitehall.

First, we were going to have a rubbish tax. Then we weren't. The Government announced plans to remove excessive school balances. Then backed off. And, of course, there was the election that never was.

This uncertainty has now spread to plans to set up regional select committees. July's Green Paper on the Governance of Britain suggested such committees would ‘offer an important step forward in democratic accountability and scrutiny of the delivery of public services in the English regions'.

There were calls for council leaders to be co-opted on to the new bodies. It was an innovative suggestion to help with the scrutiny of the vast and complex web of regional decision-making which takes place with little public accountability.

But now, as winter closes in, there's no sign of the select committees, and every sign of the long grass! Earlier this month, all the leader of the House could suggest was that the matter be looked at by the House of Commons modernisation committee, an oxymoron, if ever I heard one!

One of the problems seems to be a reluctance of Labour MPs to serve on existing select committees, never mind 10 new ones. With the Government now in its 11th year, there are fewer ambitious backbenchers anxious to please the whips by doing a committee stint. And plenty of ex-ministers who will only go on a select committee if they can chair it.

Meanwhile, the only scrutiny is being carried out by the doomed regional assemblies and, if the North West Assembly is anything to go by, they want to wind themselves up well before the three-year deadline set by the Government.