In a blog originally posted in January 2016, Rachel Laurence, Senior Co-ordinator, New Economy in Practice, at the New Economics Foundation, sets out the key findings from the NEF’s report on devolution. The report builds on research carried out with Dr Matt Wood, Deputy Director at the Crick Centre.
The leader of Birmingham city council this week argued for the creation of a “West Midlands sovereign wealth fund” – an idea that would see money raised from local government pension funds invested in housing and other local projects.
It’s exciting to see proposals like this that seek to tackle shortfalls in public infrastructure and housing investment, through creative long term use of public sector assets. Using assets as a way to generate long term revenue appears to be a much more efficient use of resources, than selling them off outright.
It also provides an opportunity for local communities to have a much more direct connection, as citizens represented by local government, both to how investment is prioritised, and how revenue is re-spent, than they do when major infrastructure investment is led purely by the private sector.
Image courtesy of Tom Parnell via Flickr
From our regular engagement with people working to improve local economies across the UK, it’s clear there’s an eagerness to connect their community focussed strategies into the regional level of economic development.
But there’s a recurring problem that the priorities of local communities – be it individuals’ prosperity, a more democratic decision-making process or the sustainable use of resources – don’t match up with the regional pursuit to rapidly increase their national growth contribution.
It must be possible to not just to overlay regional and city growth strategies with the kinds of socio-economic outcomes that matter most to communities, but to design regional economic strategies that deliver good community level economic outcomes in the first place.
Today we launch a new paper that argues devolution – done properly – offers an opportunity to pursue a new kind of regional economic development, and a new kind of economic governance.
But to make good on this promise, it has to be better equipped to do three crucial things:
- Stimulate the kind of economic development that will improve the prosperity of all communities within the devolved areas
Economic strategies that seek primarily to increase a region’s contribution to national growth, as measured through ’gross value added’ (GVA) – focus on the production of goods and services – usually, high-end growth industries – and the infrastructure or business support that facilitates this.
Yet these strategies do not necessarily help achieve any of the following objectives: a more equal distribution of wealth across the population; greater diversity of small and large businesses or sectors; high local investment from money spent in a local economy; strong flow of local population through local education and training into local jobs.
Rather than pursue those aims separately, through training and skills, business development or poverty-reduction programmes, they could be much more efficiently tackled if they were treated as an integral part of the regional economic strategy itself.
- Generate greater levels and control of revenue and capital for regional government
Current devolution agreements see retention of tight central controls over the grants paid to new combined local authorities, as well as over the levels of borrowing they are permitted.
This undermines the possibility of new, larger urban authorities being able to use any expansion of their tax base – for example through new powers to retain business rates – as leverage for ambitious regional development plans, paid for initially through borrowing. To fulfil many of the promises of devolution, some further relaxation of borrowing requirements, matched by greater flexibility in setting local tax rates, is crucial.
- Create meaningful democratic structures
Democracy is a missing link in the new devolution debate. It is essential that the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and groups of local authorities proposing devolution deals consider how to engage citizens and increase accountability, especially with deals being made on an ad hoc basis and the role of elected members at each level varying from place to place.
Clearer accountability structures would show where responsibility lies between combined authorities, local authorities and central government, and how citizens can hold each set of leaders to account. More meaningful structures for citizen participation could be built into the design and delivery of services, and the development of strategic visions and budget-setting, with clear channels of influence to policy making and accountability ties to representative institutions.
This would enable us to move away from the current situation where central government, which is supposed to be transferring power away from itself, paradoxically ends up with more power because of its role in granting concessions and monitoring devolution agreements.
Aspiring for an approach to devolution that does this is not wishful thinking. Devolution deals that fail to deliver on these aims risk moving our economy, and governance structures, in the opposite direction. We will be building on this body of work examining devolution from a number of angles, over the next year, so keep an eye out for more.
Biography
Rachel Laurence is the Senior Co-ordinator of the New Economy in Practice team at the New Economics Foundation, and works on connecting the diverse elements of NEF’s work to support a movement towards systemic economic change at local and regional level. This programme of work focusses on how the economy works, and can be transformed, at the hyperlocal, wider local, and regional level. It encompasses research on existing and emerging good practice; development of new models and approaches; and working with local and regional partners to connect and build capacity.
Rachel’s focus area include community economic development policy and practice, as well as regional political economy and strategy. Before joining NEF, Rachel worked on UK child poverty and welfare policy and programmes within Save the Children, in a variety of roles. Her work spanned policy, advocacy and campaigning, including managing 4in10, the London Child Poverty Network. Prior to this, Rachel worked in the refugee community development sector in Manchester on organisational capacity building, community campaigning, and welfare advice projects.
Rachel holds an MRes with distinction in Social Policy, for which her thesis examined public attitudes to work, welfare, and asylum. Outside of work, Rachel spends her time on local politics, parenting, and hunting down the good coffee spots in South London.
This blog was originally posted at http://www.neweconomics.org/blog
Note: this article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Crick Centre, or the Understanding Politics blog series.