It only seems like yesterday that the East Midlands Development Agency closed its doors (only for a load of civil servants to walk in through the back and do something which bears a vague resemblance to some of its work).
Anyway, here we are four months on and Lord Heseltine is announcing proposals which also bear a startling resemblance to things regional development agencies used to do, putting tens of billions of government money in the hands of local organisations and devolving decision-making to local level.
What on earth is going on?
Well, some pigeons are coming home to roost for one thing. The coalition government's decision to scrap all of England's nine regional development agencies was the kind of one-size-fits-all politics which flew in the face of well-established regional variations in the economy.
It assumed, too, that all RDAs were an expensive waste of space. As Ken Clarke privately admitted even before the election, they were not. The RDAs in the north west, south and south west did not cover themselves in glory. Ours, however, grew into something professional and well-run. And the RDAs in Yorkshire and the North East made a vital contribution to their economies.
Whatever the government's numbers may tell us, it is questionable whether any money was really saved by closing them. Besides the costs of getting rid of people and unwinding contracts in some RDAs, these agencies contained valuable expertise about regional economies and an ability to get funding out into the economy (something this government has made a real horlicks of). This valuable asset was allowed to walk out of the door.
Government's theory was that local economies should be weaned off the state spoon and learn to stand on their own two feet. The first sign that this theory was wildly idealistic surfaced when Lord Heseltine (yes, him again) came up with the Regional Growth Fund, an acknowledgment that putting money into pump-priming business growth at regional level might not be such a daft idea after all.
We also had the emergence of Local Enterprise Partnerships, an attempt to encourage business to get involved in initiatives which might help develop their local economies.
And, of course, we've had a team of civil servants responsible for monitoring and advising on the implementation of government policy at regional level taking over the offices formerly occupied by emda.
Now, the eagle-eyed among you might just have spotted a bit of a theme here: organisations and initiatives involved in developing the economy at something other than a national level. We won't say regional because, of course, that has all stopped.
Sort of.
Let's stop being facetious for a minute. Lord Heseltine's announcement today is a big issue for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The brutal truth is that its Local Enterprise Partnership. D2N2, has struggled to make any kind of meaningful impression where it counts. It isn't the go-to organisation for business, councils don't rate it, MPs never mention it and Whitehall wonders what's happened to it.
LEPs were always going to struggle to gain traction because they had a budget around about the size of a packet of KP ready-salted. Yet some have managed to persuade local authorities they were worth backing (Northants got its hands on £2 million). The view is that D2N2 and others have failed to establish any authority.
Lord Heseltine's proposals suggest this needs to happen fast. He has clearly identified these organisations as a route through which government money could be channelled into regional economies. This is a major opportunity, therefore, for a business-led organisation to be in the forefront of investment decisions about their own economies.
D2N2 now has to demonstrate that it can grasp this opportunity and work with city and county councils in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire to get a fair share of the cash. This hasn't happened so far with the Regional Growth Fund (where the money the East Midlands got was way below other regions).
So D2N2 and our local politicians have some ground to make up.
Lord Heseltine's announcement suggests that government has effectively admitted that the work RDAs did was not a totally unaffordable waste of time, and that city regions can and should be real engines for growth.
Nottingham and Derby have an unfortunate and inglorious history of letting small-town political rivalry get in the way of grown-up cooperation. The view in business is that they need to get over themselves.
While Lord Heseltine's report represents a potentially big opportunity it is also a political headache. Coverage in the national newspapers today has offered an insight into the political nonsenses the report faces: not for the first time, the Guardian went into full-on 'challenge to the prime minister' mode, The Times - bizarrely - suggested the report's most significant finding was about Heathrow airport, the Telegraph reported the politics but not the detail.
Yet in doing so they more or less made Heseltine's point for him: an awful Westminster-centric myopia - there for all to see in the online era - has left political decision-making increasingly distant and increasingly irrelevant to regional priorities.
In other words, we have to grab what we can.
Wednesday 31 October 2012
Thursday 4 October 2012
Nottingham's Creative Quarter: It's better than b******s!
You might say it was when they talked about the money, or the skills, or the mentoring. And all of those things matter.
But for me the defining moment of the Creative Quarter workshop held in Nottingham was the moment when someone near the front delivered the judgement: “This isn’t bollocks.”
Too right.
I’m not being flippant (not much, anyway). This was unvarnished evidence that an audience of people who’ve seen economic initiatives come and go like trains in the night thought that Nottingham’s plans to develop a whole new quarter of the city actually made sense.
And so they should. For there are two key differences between the Creative Quarter plan and the now-wearily familiar CGIs of dreamboat developments that were wheeled out to wow us during the credit boom: this one’s tapping into an existing heritage – and it’s got money behind it.
Friday’s workshop at the Antenna creative hub saw people talk about Nottingham’s industrial past, the potential for social and environmental returns, inclusiveness, even the difference extending Nottingham’s political boundaries might make (yes, that one again).
But the single most important byte of information was contained on a Powerpoint slide flashed up by John Yarham, the City Council’s director of economic innovation. What did it show? £37 million for a venture capital fund, £20 million for a technology grant fund, £8 million of investment in infrastructure, money for start-ups, and business rate incentives.
As I’ve blogged before, when we talk about the creative quarter and the money lined up behind it, we’re really talking about a broad sweep of activities which range from programing, data analytics and life sciences through to creative design, digital content and media. All have knowledge at their heart, all have been present to varying degrees in the Nottingham economy for decades.
The audience at Friday’s event came largely from the creative design and media end of that spectrum. Some tuned in very quickly to the huge implications of the Creative Quarter initiative (Susi Henson, with some tough business experiences under her belt, spotted rent rises immediately), others were wondering how to connect with it, a few wanted to weld it to their own cultural cause.
It’s bigger than that, and the political and economic imperatives underneath it mean it will inevitably do some things a few people in the room won’t like. That’s business.
Yet there were some fascinating contributions to the debate about what Nottingham’s Commercial Quarter is going to be driven by. Adam Bird, the Esendex CTO whose idea of downtime is a quick 100 miles on a bicycle, banged on about business stepping up to the bar and collaborating in the name of economic progress.
This wasn’t woolly idealism, but the product of Bird’s own experience of what it takes to nurture an environment attractive to the techies which firms like his can collectively feed off.
This is about more than well-paid jobs: it’s about events they like to gather at, surroundings they feel at home in and facilities they value. It is understanding that these people look for a fulfilling way of life rather than a Perspex tech palace with ultraband bragging rights.
So it’s wrong to dismiss Bird’s approach as wishful thinking which ignores hard-headed commercial reality. It’s anything but: businesses who want to make the most of the commercial quarter – whether it’s being a part of it or selling services into it – need to understand that. Some of the businesses that grow or set up there will be familiar, traditional animals. Others may have a different cultural feel.
Councillor Nick McDonald, who leads the city council portfolio on jobs, skills and business, also made a number of interesting observations. The Creative Quarter has to deliver politically, and this is why it actually covers a broad range of business and a hefty chunk of the city – including Eastside, a stalled regeneration zone which should have been full of gleaming flats and offices by now if you believed the noughties CGIs.
It’s also the reason why a central component of the Creative Quarter/City Deal hooks into the massive issue of skills and youth employment. This is a nasty problem which has been darkening our corridors for far too long and all initiatives of this kind must have a component which answers the question: what does the future hold for our kids?
This tracks back to Adam Bird’s point: businesses cannot criticise an economy if all they’re going to do is take something out of it. If they think GCSEs are meaningless and don’t rate the skills of job applicants…well, do something about it.
While some involved in the workshop were nervous about attaching too much expectation to an initiative which, as Confetti's Craig Chettle put it, is still in the foothills, McDonald was happy to admit that Austin (home of ‘Keep it Weird’) was part of the inspiration, and pointedly said that Nottingham had been too inward-looking in the past and shouldn’t be ashamed to brag a bit.
There is, potentially, a massive amount to brag about at the moment. Besides the Creative Quarter and the wider City Deal, we have the tram expansion (£600m), the A453 widening (£140m), the transport interchange (£60m), the enterprise zone.
Very few cities can offer such a portfolio of opportunity for the next generation.
Nick McDonald said one of the reasons why the city had been shy about shouting about itself abroad was that overseas ‘jollies’ tended to up on the front page of the Nottingham Post.
The surprise would be if the opportunity presented by the Creative Quarter doesn’t make headlines at MIPIM and beyond. It’s a big story.
But for me the defining moment of the Creative Quarter workshop held in Nottingham was the moment when someone near the front delivered the judgement: “This isn’t bollocks.”
Too right.
I’m not being flippant (not much, anyway). This was unvarnished evidence that an audience of people who’ve seen economic initiatives come and go like trains in the night thought that Nottingham’s plans to develop a whole new quarter of the city actually made sense.
And so they should. For there are two key differences between the Creative Quarter plan and the now-wearily familiar CGIs of dreamboat developments that were wheeled out to wow us during the credit boom: this one’s tapping into an existing heritage – and it’s got money behind it.
Friday’s workshop at the Antenna creative hub saw people talk about Nottingham’s industrial past, the potential for social and environmental returns, inclusiveness, even the difference extending Nottingham’s political boundaries might make (yes, that one again).
But the single most important byte of information was contained on a Powerpoint slide flashed up by John Yarham, the City Council’s director of economic innovation. What did it show? £37 million for a venture capital fund, £20 million for a technology grant fund, £8 million of investment in infrastructure, money for start-ups, and business rate incentives.
As I’ve blogged before, when we talk about the creative quarter and the money lined up behind it, we’re really talking about a broad sweep of activities which range from programing, data analytics and life sciences through to creative design, digital content and media. All have knowledge at their heart, all have been present to varying degrees in the Nottingham economy for decades.
The audience at Friday’s event came largely from the creative design and media end of that spectrum. Some tuned in very quickly to the huge implications of the Creative Quarter initiative (Susi Henson, with some tough business experiences under her belt, spotted rent rises immediately), others were wondering how to connect with it, a few wanted to weld it to their own cultural cause.
It’s bigger than that, and the political and economic imperatives underneath it mean it will inevitably do some things a few people in the room won’t like. That’s business.
Yet there were some fascinating contributions to the debate about what Nottingham’s Commercial Quarter is going to be driven by. Adam Bird, the Esendex CTO whose idea of downtime is a quick 100 miles on a bicycle, banged on about business stepping up to the bar and collaborating in the name of economic progress.
This wasn’t woolly idealism, but the product of Bird’s own experience of what it takes to nurture an environment attractive to the techies which firms like his can collectively feed off.
This is about more than well-paid jobs: it’s about events they like to gather at, surroundings they feel at home in and facilities they value. It is understanding that these people look for a fulfilling way of life rather than a Perspex tech palace with ultraband bragging rights.
So it’s wrong to dismiss Bird’s approach as wishful thinking which ignores hard-headed commercial reality. It’s anything but: businesses who want to make the most of the commercial quarter – whether it’s being a part of it or selling services into it – need to understand that. Some of the businesses that grow or set up there will be familiar, traditional animals. Others may have a different cultural feel.
Councillor Nick McDonald, who leads the city council portfolio on jobs, skills and business, also made a number of interesting observations. The Creative Quarter has to deliver politically, and this is why it actually covers a broad range of business and a hefty chunk of the city – including Eastside, a stalled regeneration zone which should have been full of gleaming flats and offices by now if you believed the noughties CGIs.
It’s also the reason why a central component of the Creative Quarter/City Deal hooks into the massive issue of skills and youth employment. This is a nasty problem which has been darkening our corridors for far too long and all initiatives of this kind must have a component which answers the question: what does the future hold for our kids?
This tracks back to Adam Bird’s point: businesses cannot criticise an economy if all they’re going to do is take something out of it. If they think GCSEs are meaningless and don’t rate the skills of job applicants…well, do something about it.
While some involved in the workshop were nervous about attaching too much expectation to an initiative which, as Confetti's Craig Chettle put it, is still in the foothills, McDonald was happy to admit that Austin (home of ‘Keep it Weird’) was part of the inspiration, and pointedly said that Nottingham had been too inward-looking in the past and shouldn’t be ashamed to brag a bit.
There is, potentially, a massive amount to brag about at the moment. Besides the Creative Quarter and the wider City Deal, we have the tram expansion (£600m), the A453 widening (£140m), the transport interchange (£60m), the enterprise zone.
Very few cities can offer such a portfolio of opportunity for the next generation.
Nick McDonald said one of the reasons why the city had been shy about shouting about itself abroad was that overseas ‘jollies’ tended to up on the front page of the Nottingham Post.
The surprise would be if the opportunity presented by the Creative Quarter doesn’t make headlines at MIPIM and beyond. It’s a big story.
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