Memorandum by Dr Peter Tyler & Colleagues,
SRB National Evaluation Team, Cambridge University (GRI 09)
THE NATURE
OF THE
PROBLEM BEING
ADDRESSED
Opinion as to what constitutes a local area
regeneration problem can vary considerably but there are often
a number of inter-related elements. The area concerned usually
has a weakened economic base (perhaps as the result of the closure
of a large employer in the area concerned). There are large concentrations
of unemployed and socially disadvantaged residents and a poor
physical environment often characterised by a high degree of physical
dereliction. Once underway the problem seems to have a momentum
of its own passing from one generation to the next. It is the
cumulative nature of the decline that is the problem and a central
question has to be why adjustment does not occur to remove the
economic, social and physical imbalances. The persistence of the
problem is perhaps the most worrying aspect. The problems of the
most depressed areas appear to be resistant to solution by market
forces and the operation of mainstream programmes operated by
Government.
THE RATIONALE
FOR AREA
BASED REGENERATION
INITIATIVES (ABIS)
A number of arguments have been put forward
as to why over the last 30 years or so it has been appropriate
for successive governments to use area based initiatives to do
something about the problems faced by depressed areas. The rationale
for intervention has been that ABIs are needed to overcome market
and public sector failures that are preventing the regeneration
of the areas concerned although it is worth highlighting at this
stage that there has been considerable diversity of opinion as
to what is the appropriate "geography" for the intervention.
There has also been a very intense debate as to whether geographical
concentration per se is, in itself, an important factor
in the perpetuation of social exclusion at the local level with
some arguing that it plays a relatively minor role relative to
the socio-economic characteristics of an individual or their family.
Whatever the precise size of the contribution it does seem that
at the very least there are likely to be adverse peer group pressures
and demoralisation that further exacerbate attitudes and the ability
to embrace/change in the neighbourhoods that are affected.
THE TRADITIONAL
FORM OF
INTERVENTION
A wide range of national area based initiatives
have operated across the United Kingdom. In England ODPM (formerly
DoE and DETR) has been responsible for the largest number of ABIs
although virtually all other Departments have operated some form
of policy and DTI has traditionally been responsible for regional
policy. Throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, many of
the regeneration programmes were heavily focused towards land
and property led economic regeneration (examples being Enterprise
Zones and Urban Development Corporations). These programmes had
the objective of overcoming land and property market failure,
particularly in the inner cities. DoE was also mainly responsible
for Urban Programme that began in 1969 with the main objective
of seeking to provide financial support for investment in urban
areas.
However, by the early 1990s there was a move
to supporting comprehensive area based initiatives that sought
to tackle the economic, physical and social elements of the problem
simultaneously since a considerable body of research indicated
that focusing on any one or even two of these dimensions alone
would not be sufficient to remove the problem. City Challenge
was the first real departure from the traditional reactive, project
driven approach that had been followed previously and it encouraged
competitive bidding for regeneration funds from those agencies
who it was felt should lead regeneration.
City Challenge was followed by the Single Regeneration
Budget (SRB) in 1994. The key and innovative features of SRB was
that it sought bids for local area regeneration from local partnerships
forged by the public, private, community and voluntary sectors.
There were no restrictions on what objectives or spatial areas
were eligible. The "boundary-less" approach was a radical
departure from the previous twenty years and was designed to ensure
flexibility so that areas that were beginning to experience difficulties
could make an early response that might help to avoid the deep
rooted and entrenched problems experienced by areas like the inner
cities. Moreover, multifaceted regeneration schemes were supported
that could be delivered over some seven years. Regeneration schemes
could also be thematic in that they were designed to encourage
innovative responses to particular aspects of the problem and
assist mainstream departments as appropriate.
Towards the end of the 1990s further changes
have occurred to the policy landscape. The New Deal for Communities
initiative placed emphasis on tackling multiple deprivation in
deprived areas by focusing particularly on poor job prospects,
high levels of crime, education underachievement and poor health
in neighbourhood areas of between 1000 and 4000 households with
up to £60 million available in each area over a period of
up to ten years. NDC has been launched in 39 areas but there are
no plans for any more. More recently following the cross cutting
review of Government Intervention in Derived Areas (GIDA) under
the Spending Review 2000 it has been argued that mainstream departments
should seek more actively and aggressively to channel their resources
into meeting the needs of deprived areas, particularly in the
domains of jobs, crime, health, education and housing-so called
"bending the mainstream". Public Service Agreement targets
have been set following the publication of the National Strategy
for Neighbourhood Renewal Action Plan in 2001. To assist in the
achievement of these targets it was also announced that there
would be a Neighbourhood Renewal Fund that would provide funds
to Local Authorities in the 88 most deprived areas to help with
the process of improving public services.
However, it was still believed that there was
a need for local partnerships to work to "join-up" and
co-ordinate local regeneration endeavour and the chief vehicle
envisaged to facilitate this was the Local Strategic Partnership
(LSPs). LSPs have begun to roll out across the 88 Districts in
England drawing upon, in many areas, the extensive partnership
capacity building established by SRB and other regeneration programmes
amongst the key local players.
The Spending Review in 2000 also identified
the key role of RDAs in encouraging economic regeneration at the
regional level and they were further empowered by the receipt
of new and flexible resources available from April 2002 in the
form of the Single Pot.
WHAT DOES
THE EVIDENCE
INDICATE ABOUT
THE ACHIEVEMENTS
OF ABIS?
Although there has clearly been significant
variation in achievement at the local level it is possible to
draw the following broad conclusions about what ABIs have been
able to achieve:
— There are specific features of land
and property markets in depressed areas that necessitate action
by Government as a precursor to sustainable regeneration at the
local level and a range of initiatives operated by Government
have been cost effective in this respect;
— Partnership working remains essential
to the delivery of local area regeneration and has been enhanced
enormously over the last ten years, particularly as a result of
SRB and other similar initiatives elsewhere in the United Kingdom;
— Many of the factors that are important
in bringing about social exclusion originate in the labour market
and there has been much success in integrating local labour market
policy with other local initiatives in tackling social exclusion.
However, much more remains to be done, particularly in relation
to welfare to work and reintegrating individuals into mainstream
labour markets;
— There is a considerable body of evidence
that area based initiatives have contributed to the attainment
of regeneration outcomes by combining physical regeneration (eg
developing sites, refurbishing buildings etc) with people related
regeneration (eg providing skills training, community facilities
etc), designing schemes that take account of changes in wider
urban areas (eg the impact of transport initiatives in local labour
markets), forging transport improvements and other links between
deprived neighbourhoods and other areas where job opportunities
are available, providing support for local businesses and training
initiatives and bringing about changes in housing tenure and in
particular secure the conditions for profitable private sector
house building.
— There are many good examples of community
involvement in building "bottom-up" solutions.
There has been less success in relation to:
— Mainstream bending to more evenly
meet the needs of deprived areas has been patchy and hesitant
and this reflects the rigidity of existing mainstream funding
priorities at the local level. There has been relatively poor
targeting by mainstream providers to deprived areas and Standard
Spending Assessments do not effectively compensate urban areas
for the higher costs involved in tackling social exclusion. There
has also been a lack of incentive and opportunities for residents
of deprived areas to move from welfare to work and poor take-up
of programmes by residents of deprived neighbourhoods. Problems
have been exacerbated by poor coordination of mainstream programme
spending and the more prosperous areas have managed to exert pressure
to keep their level of relative service provision. Public sector
spend in deprived areas has often simply "compensated"
disadvantaged residents in deprived areas and maintained the "status-quo".
— Achieving long term sustainable solutions
remains the big problem. For too many years there has been little
change in the ranking of the most deprived areas with a tendency
for "fixed-effects" which means the past ranking largely
explains what we might expect it to be in the future. This cannot
be seen as an acceptable outcome. Clearly, significant changes
are required in the allocation of public resources to the deprived
areas and the involvement of the private sector. In this respect
the evidence suggests a role for ABIs to enhance the achievements
of mainstream providers by improving the co-ordination of their
regeneration activities, promoting a more strategic approach to
their area based activities and assisting in the provision of
effective partnership working that involves genuine community
partnership involvement. The ABIs also need to be sensitive to
the continued need to build involvement of the private sector
in local regeneration-too long absent in many areas in the United
Kingdom at the level required. A range of imaginative policy tools
are now available to assist in involvement, particularly using
fiscal incentives.
Against this background the need for comprehensive
regeneration initiatives to tackle geographical concentrations
of social exclusion has probably never been greater. The evidence
points to the need for area-based policies to improve the environment
and physical characteristics of the areas concerned so that they
become attractive places to live and invest in. Initiatives are
also required to help mainstream providers to focus and target
their resources on those in need and to obtain further engagement
from the private sector so that the vicious circle of relative
decline in the areas concerned can be broken. In England whilst
there are clear advantages to the development of Local Strategic
Partnerships there must be some concern about how effective these
bodies can be without some substantial change in the way in which
mainstream resources are currently allocated. Unless there is
aggressive "top-slicing" of central mainstream budget
to meet the needs of deprived areas it is likely to remain an
uphill task.
Further, in England the recent abolition of
SRB does need careful monitoring in at least two key respects.
The first relates to the involvement of the community and voluntary
sector in local neighbourhood based regeneration. SRB funding
has been used actively to reach down into deprived neighbourhoods
and it is not at all clear how adequate resources will be available
from the LSP/Neighbourhood Renewal Fund despite the existence
of the Community Empowerment Fund. Community groups operating
at this level would seem to be particularly vulnerable unless
they are in a New Deal for Community area. Secondly, there are
concerns as to a possible loss of momentum in engaging the private
sector in regeneration at the local level. Much remains unknown
as to how well the RDA Single Pot approach might fill the gap
but it is worth mentioning that the SRB approach has been shown
to be good at involving the private sector in local area regeneration.
It offered a flexible response through a wide range of diverse
and innovative approaches to secure and match funds. It is not
obvious that this flexibility has been retained.
Dr Peter Tyler, Angela Brennan, Steve Stevens,
Monica Otero-Garcia and Colin Warnock, SRB National Evaluation
Team, Cambridge University.
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