A significant part of next week's Budget will be a joint Treasury/Office of the Deputy Prime Minister paper on cities and a review of economic development and regeneration initiatives.

Communities minister David Miliband mentioned the paper last week at the ODPM's launch of The State of the English Cities - a progress report on 56 major towns and cities in England. The Budget will be a vital opportunity for the Government to set out the next stage of urban policy. Where next for our big cities, city-regions and regions? How far and fast is Whitehall willing to devolve financial powers? And how do we address the uneven growth of the last decade?

The State of the English Cities comments on the proliferation of initiatives in recent years at all levels of government, and calls for fewer, more strategic interventions. "The Government should do fewer, but bigger, more strategic things in future," it says. "Less means more."

This is what the new review is all about. Its launch was slipped into last December's pre-Budget report. Blink and you probably missed it (I nearly did). It's a review without a name at present, but I'm sure it will get one next week. The pre-Budget report said: "Improving sub-national economic performance and regeneration requires action across local areas, cities and regions. To reflect the strong links between these levels, it is important to review interventions on economic development and regeneration in a coordinated way to assess their effectiveness. This will be done in preparation for the Comprehensive Spending Review."

So this is a major review, part of the CSR, looking at a whole range of economic development and regeneration programmes. The CSR will set departmental allocations for 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11 and, as with all CSR work, it will take a "zero-based" approach to departments' baseline expenditure. That means a root-and-branch review, with a strong focus on rationalisation and prioritisation.

It will look at programmes such as the New Deal for Communities. There will be a hard look at the many different area-based initiatives at the city level. And at the regional level, the review will examine regeneration and other funding that is routed through regional development agencies (RDAs).

This will clearly be seen by some as a threat. But in truth, there are too many different programmes. So although there will be losers in the short-run, we do need a more streamlined set of priority programmes.

First, the Government should focus more on city-regions. They are the right level for strategic interventions on economic development - including regeneration, transport and skills. Regions are too big and local authorities are too small. RDAs will still have an important coordinating role to play, while councils should be encouraged to do more to work across boundaries.

Second, more funding programmes should be devolved down from Whitehall.

We need to move away from centrally-driven initiatives, with over-lapping targets and reporting mechanisms. Big city-regions would be a good starting point. Let's give them more control over the funding of transport, skills and regeneration to help them drive their own economic growth.

Third, all departments need to engage with the urban agenda, not just the ODPM. As Miliband has said: "All departments are regeneration departments." Fewer, more strategic, interventions are the way forward. The Review With No Name will, hopefully, provide the answers.