Manchester Governance and AGMA

[WatcherZero]

While I agree the current consensus model works the general public do feel that AGMA/GMCA arent directly accountable and we dont have a strong figurehead (Leese/Lord Smith seem to compete for the role but neither really gets national recognition nevermind internationally). A mayor would also be able to sort out disputes between councils, e.g. one council pushes something while neighbouring council goes to secretary of state to try and block it and probably Boris most vital role, having to force through the building of something that no district wants (e.g. landfill, power station) by being able to impartially judge the most suitable location.

[neil]

Greater Manchester updates its 2020 sustainable vision
25th March 2013

GREATER Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has refocused its strategy to ensure that the city region’s economy continues to see sustainable growth.

The updated Greater Manchester Strategy, which builds on the original plan published in 2009, has been adapted in response to the longer and deeper than expected recession as well as reductions in public sector funding.

The underlying vision of the strategy remains the same – that by 2020 Manchester city region will have pioneered a new model for sustainable economic growth where prosperity is accessible to everyone.

The strategy has two main themes: economic growth and public sector reform.

GMCA said creating the right conditions for growth includes ensuring Greater Manchester is well placed to meet the needs of businesses in an evolving economy; shaping an area where people want to live, with the right transport connections; making the most of the area’s existing science and technology assets and strengthening Manchester’s world ranking as a place to live, invest in and visit.

It added that public agencies also need to take a Greater Manchester-wide approach to helping residents become more self-sufficient, reducing demands on public services.

Measures such as the negotiation with government of a Place-Based Settlement would allow the current costs of providing services to be managed more effectively, tackling issues such as worklessness and realising major savings while improving outcomes for residents, it said.

Lord Peter Smith, chair of the GMCA, said: "This strategy is vitally important for Greater Manchester’s future success. So rather than being set in stone it has to adapt to changing circumstances to ensure the region reaches its full potential.

"We want to firmly establish ourselves as one of Europe’s premier city regions, a distinctive place that competes on the international stage for investment, jobs and talent. But we also need to ensure Greater Manchester is a great place to live and work, with every resident able to contribute to – and benefit from – that prosperity.”

Mike Emmerich, chief executive of New Economy, added: "It’s vital to understand that the Greater Manchester Strategy is much more than a document for occasional reference. Its aspirations should be embedded within the culture and approach of all the city’s agencies, whether public or private sector.

"The targets of the updated strategy include some highly ambitious yet achievable outcomes, which are to be met by 2020. These include a 50%increase in the number of jobs created, a 22% reduction on the dependency on out-of-work benefits, and the building of 61,000 new homes.

"New Economy will be engaging with businesses and public agencies to help align their strategies and ensure that the city remains on its course to economic growth and prosperity.”

The full strategy document can be read here: http://www.agma.gov.uk/gmca/gms_2013

[urbnist]

Anyone hoping for big things from the Heseltine review - and the government's response - would be advised to read this incisive piece of analysis.


from David Marlow's blog at Regeneration and Renewal

Is there a big hole beneath the innovation ‘stone’ in government’s response to the Heseltine review?


There was the general self-congratulatory, uncritical mood we have come to expect in government’s response to the Heseltine review published on 18 March as an appetiser to the budget. In welcoming the report, Government announced they are ‘accepting in full or in part 81 of Lord Heseltine’s 89 recommendations’. As is so often the case, though, his lordship’s seemingly impressive strike rate begins to unravel on detailed examination.

The formal government response in Annex A actually only states ‘accept’ – presumably meaning ‘accepting in full’ – to sixty of the 89 recommendations (around two-thirds). And for the 15 directly pertaining to ‘local growth deals’, ‘accept’ only accompanies nine of them – just 60%. So a full 40% are caveated or rejected. And, taking a deeper look at the example of local leadership of innovation (which many regard as central to future local growth prospects in a global economy), even ‘accept’ means, de facto, enduring top down control of this vital agenda.

The role of the knowledge economy and innovation in local and regional growth is almost a sine qua non of growth strategy in advanced economies. Internationally, for instance, OECD studies of regional economic performance have found significantly higher levels of innovation activity (e.g. patenting, co-invention), R&D expenditure, and tertiary level qualifications in faster growing regions at all stages of their development (i.e. from less developed to most advanced). They have also suggested diminishing marginal returns to infrastructure compared to innovation intervention as a region progresses. This type of prescription is shared nationally in studies such as the Work Foundation’s analyses on the knowledge economy. And my colleagues at CURDS have produced persuasive argument on the role of the ‘civic university’ in regional growth – and have questioned whether current national policy incentivises or distracts from this.

What all these studies, and work like Parkinson’s piece on second tier cities in Europe, affirm absolutely is the need for strong institutional leadership and governance at the level of the city and/or functional economic area, able to effect and influence an integrated approach to growth and development. The inability of LEPs and LAs to position innovation and knowledge-economy at the centre of local growth strategies in cities and areas seeking to be globally competitive will leave a massive hole which no amount of single local growth fund is likely to fill.

So how does government’s response to Heseltine review add up on these considerations?

Government’s ‘Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth’ published by BIS in December 2011 was largely LEP-free, and some might have hoped for this to be redressed in the Heseltine review response. In para1.43 of the response, that strategy is mentioned as a major driver for inward investment and overseas marketing – and an explicitly national approach is endorsed with TSB, UKTI and RCUK the only participants explicitly mentioned. When the next paragraph reflects on Heseltine’s advocacy of ‘better connections to localities’, Government interprets this as ‘raising [LEP] awareness of TSB programmes and encouraging them to inform local businesses….and offering guidance to partners to align [their] activities with the national framework’.

When we get to the proposals (paras 2.17-29) for the single local growth fund (into which LEPs will bid competitively), government makes it clear that elements of housing transport and skills funding are important components of the fund (to be announced in the Spending Review in June). However, ‘there are some funding streams where the principles set out above point strongly to the majority of spend continuing at a national level. This is certainly (my emphasis) the case for innovation funding…’ In fact no evidence is offered for this assertion, and the five principles ‘set out above’ (para 2.19) are actually simplistic and judgemental rather than rigorous and independently verifiable. Covering its bases, the response then states ‘where local areas make the case that they can deliver better results if funding was devolved, then government will listen’. Having ‘listened’, it will be interesting to see what government actually does.

This centralist approach to innovation is somewhat replicated with tertiary and higher level skills. Although skills are nominally part of the single local growth fund, universities are tasked with contributing to LEPs rather than in any sense being tasked by them and local authorities. HEFCE is not mentioned at all, and the government retention of Higher Education Innovation Fund is explicitly located as a national activity.

Similarly when the report confirms that there are other sources of funding for LEPs – like PWLB infrastructure loans and EU structural and investment (EUSI) funds – no opportunity is taken to offer control or influence over innovation and knowledge economy programmes and instruments

[article continues] ...

[neil]

Empty shops renewal plan aims to home-in on £5m bounty
27 Mar 2013 14:35

The idea is to boost ailing town centres by building cheaper new homes in a bid to kick-start the housing market, and stop vacant buildings lying idle

Empty shops and offices could become cheap new homes in a multi-million pound bid to boost the housing market – and kick-start town centres.

Councils hope to net £5m of government cash to help stop vacant buildings going to waste.

But for the first time they plan to home in on business premises – rather than just boarded-up houses.

All the Greater Manchester councils have agreed to work together on the bid for money from the Homes and Communities Agency.

A report agreed by their 10 leaders says the HCA is likely to look kindly on schemes that bring shops or offices back into use at the same time as creating living space.

It adds: “Particular attention will be given to bids which include proposals to bring back into use empty commercial properties, or units in town centres, high streets and parades of shops.”

The move follows a successful bid 12 months ago for an initial £5m of funding to target 25,000 empty homes across the region.

It also follows the creation of a Greater Manchester-wide battle plan for the region’s town centres.

As the MEN revealed, councils are creating their own high street regeneration pot.

Those plans include creating new housing in town centres including Bury, Ashton and Stockport.

If secured, however, the latest grant could not be used as a quick fix for half-empty town centres.

The report says: “The funding is not intended to tackle widespread abandonment. There must be evidence of demand for the housing that will be created.”

Eamonn Boylan, the combined authority’s lead chief executive for planning and housing, said: “I am confident this is a strong bid.

“We are in continuous discussion with the Homes and Communities Agency and I am confident that the Greater Manchester bid is a strong contender for this further funding opportunity.”

Further details of exactly what schemes would benefit from the money are expected at the next meeting of the 10 leaders in April.

[VDB]

Related

MEN

Hill Biscuits to create 45 new jobs

3 Apr 2013 05:45

A biscuit maker will create 45 new jobs after becoming the first firm to be granted a loan by the Greater Manchester Investment Fund.

The £102m Fund, which was founded last year to help companies expand, has lent £276,000 to Asthon-under-Lyne-based Hill Biscuits to finance new production and packing facilities at its Tudno Mill bakery.

The company also plans to grow its product range, which includes digestives, custard creams and ginger nuts.

Managing director Steven Wetherby said: “We are delighted to be the first recipient of this loan funding.

“We are using it as part of our wider investment in a growth strategy to extend our product offering and client base.”

Greater Manchester Investment Fund is run by the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership and Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and targets schemes that drive job creation and economic growth.

It was launched in March 2012. LEP chair Mike Blackburn said: “The first loan investment of this fund to Hill Biscuits is really good news, but we would like to encourage more companies to submit an application and take advantage of the opportunities that are available.”

Tameside Council’s executive leader Coun Kieran Quinn said: “I am really pleased that Hill Biscuits are the first company to secure this loan funding in Greater Manchester and that they are creating 45 new jobs for local people, 80 per cent of whom had been unemployed for over a year.”

Hill Biscuits was founded in 1855 when John and Sarah Hill, of Dukinfield, opened a shop in Ashton-under-Lyne.

It was taken over by confectioner Rowntree’s, before a management buyout in 1980.

[urbnist]

Article extract from R&R

Cable downplays higher estimates of promised Whitehall funding devolution

By John Geoghegan Friday, 19 April 2013

The amount of Whitehall funding to be devolved to business-led local enterprise partnerships will not reach the levels envisaged by Lord Heseltine in his economic growth report, said business secretary Vince Cable yesterday.

In his report, No Stone Unturned, Heseltine said up to £49billion of central government money could be put into a single pot that public-private LEPs could bid into.

Subsequently, Heseltine said the potential size of the pot had been underestimated in the report, and up to £70billion of funding could be included.

In its response to the report last month, the government said it would create what it called the Single Local Growth Fund and would include funding for housing, transport and skills. But the full level of the pot and its exact content would not be revealed until June's spending round, the government said.

...

"It's not a question of the government just handing over blobs of cash. That's the wrong way to think about it.

"I think the city deal model is a much better way of pursuing it. In some of the city deals the functions are being devolved.

"It's not an aggregate decision across the country, it depends on the negotiation."


In his speech, Cable said that in City Deals, Whitehall typically decentralizes decision-making and cities rely more on local income generation than central government funding, but cities have to "persuade" the government they have a "coherent plan" to deliver their demands.

...

[urbnist]

Article extract from R&R

Heseltine urges LEPs to 'revolt' against Whitehall for greater powers

By John Geoghegan Friday, 19 April 2013

Lord Heseltine has urged business-led local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) to 'revolt' against central government to demand control over powers and funding.

In a speech to the LEP Network annual conference in London yesterday, the former Conservative Party chairman said that public-private LEPs would have to "fight" Whitehall departments trying to protect their own interests and prevent funding from being devolved to the regions.

...

Heseltine’s conference speech came after business secretary Vince Cable told delegates that higher estimates of the potential size of the funding pot was "not where we’re at".

Talking about government discussions over the size of the single funding pot, Heseltine said: "There's an inevitable battle going on in Whitehall.

"There are those trying to protect their own interests. So frankly, you'd better start protecting yours.

"Lobby your MPs, and use the local and national media to drive your campaign.


"This is not about giving in gently, which local communities have done for far too long.

"You have to go out there and fight for it."

Heseltine also said that LEPs needed to show a "strong entrepreneurial flavour" in their bids as well as commitment and enthusiasm.

...

[neil]

From the businessdesk

'Empower cities to drive growth' says CBI chief Cridland
3rd May 2013

By Chris Barry - Editor, North West

JOHN Cridland, director general of the country's largest business lobbying group CBI, says he can see genuine signs of recovery in the economy.

Speaking at a dinner in Manchester hosted by Ernst & Young's North West senior partner Simon Allport and attended by business and local authority leaders, Mr Cridland backed the Government's localism agenda - which devolves funding and decision making to cities - and measures to boost housebuilding as a key tools to further drive growth in the regions.

In a wide-ranging presentation which touched on key issues such as skills to funding and energy policy, he said last week's GDP figures had given a hint that the economy is slowly moving forward.

On the GDP figures he said, despite the political and media excitement over the numbers, the reality was that the economy had been "pretty flat" over the last year, and beyond a symbolic level there was not a huge difference between 0.3% growth and a 0.1% contraction.

He said the figures did give a hint that the economy may be slowly and steadily improving: "It is the first quarter, where without the Olympics or Diamond Jubilee, where it has smelled like genuine organic growth".

Taking recent improved data from manufacturers and exporters, a rally in confidence in the US, and a euro zone which despite the recent Cyprus crisis was "not as bad as it was", he "took a punt" and estimated that the economy may see growth of 1% this year.

"If this is right this would be one of the best in Europe and would have been achieved from a flat start."

He said the CBI's members were behind the Government's austerity regime, but did question whether there is a clear growth strategy - particularly as it is made up of 225 "priorities".

Although exports have been hit by the weakness of demand from the euro zone - which accounts for 50% of British overseas trade - he said exports to markets outside the euro zone had increased 33% from Q1 in 2007.

While this was posiitve and vital to rebalancing the economy, he said it was crucial to keep selling British goods and services to emerging middle classes in fast growing economies.

"I was with the Prime Minister on a trade mission to India earlier this year. We are the 19th biggest exporter to India and we ran the country for a hundred years - Switzerland is seventh - so it shows the ground we have to make up."

He said London was a "micro economy" fuelled by international money, and it is less a case of a "North-South divide, but London and the rest".

"We need more than one world class city - and we still have some way to go to make sure other parts of the country have a route to growth.

He backed Lord Heseltine's report on how to drive growth in other parts of the economy, but said resources should be focused toward maximising the strengths of local areas rather than by "trying to even-up growth by displacing it from fast-growing parts of the country to other locations".

He said regional cities could drive growth and praised Manchester's strong civic and business leadership.

"The important thing to achieve this is to persuade Whitehall to let go and hand decision-making power and funding to the cities where strong civic and business leaders can do more than committees of people in London."

"Manchester is the prime example of what can be done - it is a transformed city."

On the question of LEPS - business-led Local Enterprise Partnerships - he said the coalition should not replicate the mistakes of the previous government which gave the regional development agencies "too wide and too disparate a mission".

He welcomed the measures to drive growth by building more houses as it would have an immediate impact by boosting the ailing construction sector and create more jobs for low skilled young people.

"This will change the dial on growth", he said by increasing consumer confidence and domestic demand.

[WatcherZero]

http://www.agma.gov.uk/cms_media/fil...l_services.pdf

Manchester Council wants to bid for share of a government fund for innovative local authority practises to run a pilot on setting up a best practise advisory body in Greater Manchester to standardise process, advise and co-ordinate the holding of all types of elections across the county as well as possibly colletivise the voter registration process. Its possible Cumbria may join the pilot to test the proposed systems in a two tier authority.