Monthly Archives: January 2012

Regional Growth Fund still doesn’t add up…

By , Monday, 30 January 2012, 1 Comment

Regeneration and Renewal, and this blog in particular, has previously (November 2011) questioned government’s approach to Regional Growth Fund (RGF) and their claims for its effectiveness and value-for-money. There is virtually no transparency in the process by which applications have been appraised and approved, and scant assurance on the manner in which jobs created/safeguarded and private sector leverage have been calculated.

With bidding for the next round of funding (worth up to £1billion) due to be launched in February, it is now an appropriate moment to return to government to demand a transparency and accountability for RGF decision-taking and implementation that matches their rhetoric and purported values.

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’Unlocking growth in cities’…’Unlocking incoherence in government’

By , Tuesday, 17 January 2012, Be the first to comment

Clegg and Clark’s announcement of ‘new city deals’ in December 2011 was broadly welcomed as a positive outcome of the Core Cities Group engagement with the Localism Bill (now Act), and was presented as a radical opportunity for putting Government’s ambitions for local growth and decentralisation into practice. It provided some localism and decentralist seasonal cheer from our Minister for Cities AND Decentralisation (not forgetting ‘Big Society’ and ‘Planning Policy’) at the end of a long arduous 2011.

In the cold light of 2012, however, Government’s ‘offer’ (in ‘Unlocking Growth in Cities’) appears incoherent and incomplete. How can cities, LEPs and other local partners turn it into something that will actually do ‘what it says on the tin’?

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Avoiding ‘managed decline’ in 2012

By , Tuesday, 3 January 2012, Be the first to comment

The publication of 1981 Cabinet Papers discussing a strategy of ‘managed decline’ for Liverpool has caused considerable comment at the start of a year in which many places in the UK may well face this direction of economic travel. Beyond the controversial emotive terminology, what is most striking is development and regeneration’s enduring struggles with the relative balance between investing in success and tackling deprivation; and that tackling deprivation still needs to present a compelling case for interventions sustaining better futures as opposed to making present poverty bearable. How far might we see continuity and/or (transformational) change in 2012?

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