Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-152)
17 SEPTEMBER 2003
RUSSELL GARD,
TERRY SCUOLER,
DR PETER
WHITE, TERRY
MORAN, AND
CHRISTINE HEATON
Q140 Chris Mole: Is there a thematic
approach across the borough that you could be suggesting?
Dr White: Not necessarily thematic.
There has been a history of lack of co-ordination on regeneration
initiatives, both area based and others. One of the things we
are very keen to do in Oldham is to try and get much more clarity
of purpose behind all these efforts. That is one of the things
that the Ritchie report referred to specifically, that there was
not a clear guiding vision. If we can get some agreement on where
we are trying to get to I think these things then slot into place.
Q141 Chris Mole: Given that it is
borough-wide, that creates an opportunity to bring people from
different communities together. Is that something that you could
put into your guidance to the schemes that you are funding in
Oldham and similar places?
Dr White: It is part of our approach
now.
Q142 Chairman: Is there not a danger
that instead of having perhaps Fitton Hill pitted against St Mary's
or somewhere else in Oldham, all you do is pit Oldham against
Rochdale?
Dr White: No. To go back to what
I said before, we have been very up-front about our priority areas
and the places that we have mentioned today are all in those priorities,
so although it is competitive in one sense it is not saying, "You
will get some but only at the expense of another authority".
It is not that at all. I am not even sure that resources are the
key issue, to be honest. It is better use of the resources which
may be more important.
Q143 Mr Clelland: How successful
have SRB programmes in Oldham been at creating sustainable regeneration?
Dr White: It is probably too early
to say. I think there is only one that is actually finished. The
other three are ongoing and, from memory, the last one finishes
in 2007. They are long term programmes, so it is a bit early to
say.
Q144 Mr Clelland: There has been
some criticism, has there not, in the newspapers,—not that
I believe everything I read in the newspapers—that, "A
£20 million regeneration budget award seems to have had little
cosmetic effect. A subsequent £53 million boost from the
New Deal has added little to the blighted community". Would
you subscribe to that or is that just newspaper exaggeration?
Dr White: I would not go completely
with that view but it is fair to say that the success of both
time limited and area limited initiatives has been frustrated
by the fact that usually they are operating in a bit of a vacuum.
The whole point initially with the Single Regeneration Budget
was to try and join things together. In a way it has become rather
detached from a lot of other activity.
Q145 Mr Clelland: Do you measure
the effect of SRB schemes in promoting social cohesion?
Dr White: Yes, and that is something
we now do on all our schemes. It is part of our response to our
obligation under the Race Relations Act. We have included in our
appraisal of any scheme in the region, not just in Burnley or
Oldham, its impact on social cohesion. That is now part of our
approach.
Q146 Mr Clelland: What lessons have
you learned from that?
Dr White: I think the fairly obvious
one is that we were not very good at it to start with. Traditionally,
economic initiatives were assessed on economic criteria, pure
and simple. That was the traditional Treasury approach. To try
and broaden that approach you have to take other factors into
account. It is not just social cohesion; it is sustainability,
it is environmental impact and so forth. It is quite difficult
but we are getting better at it.
Q147 Chairman: You are getting good
at doing them just as you are abolishing them.
Dr White: I meant that we were
getting better at doing the appraisals.
Q148 Chris Mole: Dr White, we heard
from the Oldham Strategic Partnership Chair this morning. How
well do you feel that the Local Strategic Partnership is engaged
with the local communities in their areas?
Dr White: It is difficult for
us to form a view because we are not as close, obviously, as local
partners are to the ground. As I said before, this is a long term
process and I would not want to hurry into snap judgments about
any particular Local Strategic Partnership at this stage. They
have got a lot of work to do and they start from different positions
of strength. In some areas there is a much longer tradition of
working together as partners. It is a long haul and it should
be judged on a longer term basis.
Q149 Chris Mole: Do you have a feeling
for the difference between the levels of community cohesion in,
say, Oldham and Rochdale?
Dr White: Not on any objective
basis, if I can put it that way. We have no way of measuring that.
It is very much a case of feel. Certainly, if you take the extent
of disturbances as a barometer of cohesion, although it is not
totally reliable, then yes, probably things in Oldham are not
as coherent as they are in Rochdale. Having said that, there were
other minor disturbances, as you know, over different bits of
the north west in the same period.
Q150 Chris Mole: Job Centre Plus
works across the region. Is that something you might have a view
on?
Mr Moran: LSPs are very important
to us. It means that we are engaged at the appropriate level for
where business may be presenting opportunities for us. There is
a mixed bunch of LSPs. I will invite Chris to say a little bit
about businesses in Oldham, but LSPs are very important to us
because at one level that gives us the exposure that we need to
both public and private organisations which may not yet be seen
as an important, key opportunity for providing the source of labour
that we could, and I reinforce that every time I have the opportunity.
Q151 Chris Mole: Would you dare make
a comparison between Rochdale and Oldham?
Mr Moran: I am not sufficiently
knowledgeable about the differences.
Q152 Chris Mole: Perhaps Christine
could give her experience of the partnership working in Oldham.
Ms Heaton: Between Oldham and
Rochdale I think Rochdale is slightly more advanced in some of
the things that they are doing, in that the economic partnership
in Rochdale has already produced a strategy. We are currently
working in partnership with Rochdale and I know that partnership
is looking quite closely at how we move things forward around
training and so on. The economic partnership in Oldham is still
in its infancy. There have only been two meetings and it has not
got moving yet. From my perspective that is the view. One of the
other things is partly to do with the evidence we submitted. Jobcentre
Plus is a relatively new organisation and it takes time for us
to get round to people and make them understand our wider remit,
so unfortunately we have been missed out of things where we could
probably have added value. That is changing now because I have
had a couple of productive meetings with the local authority and
we have been working with them at how we can fit in so that we
can work together in more of a cohesive way so that we move forward.
Chairman: On that note can I thank you
all very much for your evidence.
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