Tag Archives: growing places fund

The case for a ‘local growth pact’…

By , Friday, 11 May 2012, Be the first to comment

One of the most striking political contrasts of early May was between Presidential elections in France and Local Government elections in England. In France we had M.Hollande elected on a turnout over 80% whilst in England we struggled to achieve 32%. One of the most striking economic policy contrasts is between M.Hollande’s priority to agree a European Growth Pact, and a Queen’s Speech in the UK widely reported as NOT providing the ‘answer to growth’.

Perhaps it is facile to link these contrasts. However, given the publics’ undoubted economic concerns, surely IF local political leaderships were putting forward radical, decisive and credible economic growth propositions, these would be of significant public (electoral?) interest. So, is there now a case for ‘local growth pacts’ (to match M. Hollande’s continental ambitions)? And, if so, what might these look like and how might they be delivered?

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Making Local Economic Sense of the Budget…

By , Monday, 26 March 2012, Be the first to comment

My last blog questioned ‘What are LEPs for’, and made suggestions about how to organise to deliver different LEP roles and functions. Last week’s budget was somewhat disappointing in helping to clarify these important issues. Government is still (in Vince Cable’s own words) ‘lacking a compelling vision of where the country is heading’, and nowhere is this more evident than in government’s approach to local economic growth.

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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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Rebalancing is dead – long live the Growing Places Fund!

By , Wednesday, 9 November 2011, 3 Comments

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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