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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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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I must admit I still always feel a shiver down my spine, a lump in my throat, and a need to temper watery eyes, when my favourite Xmas Number One of all time – the original Band Aid version from 1984 – comes on. In a somewhat more prosaic context, I suspect many economic development professionals will have similar feelings about 2011 when they reflect back on government’s approach to the subject area we love and into which we put our professional energies.
In recent years the race to become Xmas Number One has pitted manufactured (un)reality-show pop-floss against edgy, darker musical and social statements. Similarly, in 2011, the Coalition’s superficial lip-service to local growth and development is countered by the much more problematic, perverse experience of practitioners in our cities and communities. Indeed, major features of 2011 bring to mind a number of Xmas Number Ones of both the superficial and the edgy variety.
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I am sorely tempted to represent the news that, shortly before the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, a tanker carrying more than 23 tonnes of Marmite had overturned and shut a section of the M1, as an allegory for government’s approach to development and regeneration. However, although the shutting down of strategic swathes of the economy, following an event for which the authorities accept no responsibility and consider largely beyond their control, reads-across pretty well; the Marmite branding (‘you either love it or hate it’) is more problematic. I personally love Marmite, but I am yet to find anyone prepared to make a similar assertion with respect to Osborne’s sub-national growth strategy. Nevertheless, if we all have to live, for the foreseeable future, with an unpleasant mess, how do local leadership teams make the most of it, and are there any opportunities we need to target during the clean-up?
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The Growing Places Fund (GPF) prospectus, published this month, brings to mind the proverb about not ‘looking a gift horse in the mouth’ (especially in an era of public austerity). This can be the only reason why large parts of the country – especially in the North, West Midlands and ‘far’ South West – are not up in arms about it. For the GPF is the antithesis of Government’s professed objective of ‘rebalancing’ the economy geographically (from the ‘London mega-region’ to the rest of the country). Even as someone who never really believed that government had a coherent approach to ‘rebalancing’, the brazen flaunting of the death of its geographical variant has taken me aback. More pertinently, though, will LEP and Local Authority recipients outside the London mega-region meekly welcome this ‘trojan horse’ of GPF largesse?
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The respite from economic gloom and global crises provided by last week’s announcement of £950m of Regional Growth Fund (RGF) Round Two ‘successes’ is both opaque and misleading. Nick Clegg expressed his ‘delight’ that ‘this boost to business will jump start growth and create jobs that last in the places that really need it’. Labour responded with critiques of the size of the fund (one-third of the previous RDA budgets), and the shambles of the sign off process in DBIS that means very few of the 45 Round One approvals from April are yet to receive their awards. A more thorough look at the RGF data from government raises even more fundamental concerns.
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I do not recall Regeneration and Renewal (or Planning for that matter) celebrating great musical performance. However, I like to take at least one long walk per week, listening to my MP3 on shuffle/random mode. With the clocks going back next weekend, and the first frosts of the season upon us, it was entirely appropriate that my MP3 picked out ‘Autumn Leaves’ and the particularly beautiful version sung by Eva Cassidy on her 1996 ‘Live at Blues Alley’ album. And I do wonder and worry whether, with government’s approach to local economic growth, we are now in the autumn of local economic development as we knew it.
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Local economic leadership teams need a local industrial policy. This case, and how to set about achieving it, is likely to be at the forefront of a workshop – ‘Delivering Local Policies for Manufacturing’ – hosted by the institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at Cambridge University this week[1]. With bold leadership and sustained commitment a credible industrial strategy can be formulated, agreeed and can deliver economic growth in local economies.
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It is fair to say that most comment on sub-national growth and development during 2011 (including in this blog) has focused on cities – most particularly London and the eight Core Cities. However, the Government Growth Review Phase Two, announced in June 2011, included the rural economy as one of six topics to be addressed. What should rural businesses and local leadership teams be feeding into the review in advance of expected rural economy announcements in the Autumn statement?
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When I was Chief Executive of EEDA, I was never sure whether my change of mood as summer moved into autumn was an onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or the expectation of attendance at Party conferences.
Whilst these events may be something of an unwelcome distraction for some delegates, they are good economic news for the cities which host them. For instance, the LibDems at Birmingham next week (17th September) are estimated to bring 8000 delegates, 1600 media and £10-£12m of visitor spend to the city. The Labour Party conference has been reputed to bring double the number of delegates and about £18m of spend; whilst the Conservatives may raise that figure to £20m.
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