Examinatin of Witnesses (Questions 340-359)
COUNCILLOR JOHN
JOYCE, MR
JOHN HAWKINS,
MR NEIL
SCALES, MR
KEITH BARNES,
MS MAGGIE
MOONEY AND
MR ROBERT
CRAWFORD
15 MAY 2006
Q340 John Cummings: If you were requested
to submit evidence today, would that evidence be rather different
to the evidence you have already submitted?
Councillor Joyce: It possibly
would be, because we are very, very pleased about the direction
we have been taking since 12 months ago, where we thought we were
in a bit of a mess. We are far more advanced now, and it is more
understood by the partners in the sub-regional context than ever
before.
Q341 John Pugh: Every region has
at least three spanking new strategies—at least three: regional
economic strategy, regional spatial strategy, regional transport
strategy. It has all been done in a little bit of a hurry. What
efforts have been made to make sure that all these strategies
fit neatly on top of one another and are mutually consistent?
Mr Barnes: Eighteen months ago
the three agencies, that is the RDA, the Assembly and the Government
Office, got together with that very question in mind: how do we
align a whole range of strategies that were in production? First,
we recognised that we needed to focus on a handful of key issues,
which were the foundations and the themes that linked across.
We have worked continually together since that time. Wherever
we can, we have used the same evidence base to underpin the development
strategies, and earlier last year we even did joint consultation
exercises because, as you quite rightly say, going out with separate
strategies confuses people. There is the bit about how we put
those consultation exercises together and to try to weave the
story line and ask intelligent questions of intelligent people
in the region so that we could use their responses. The testimony
in terms of success was probably the joint production of the regional
funding allocation documents, which had easily flowed from those
work streams, and there was not the need to do a separate piece
of work, as we had done early with the REDs for the Treasury in
support of previous comprehensive spending reviews. Those are
the sorts of mechanisms that we have put in place. The one strategy
that is approved, which is the RES, manages to address a lot of
the transformational economic issues but is much more spatially
aware and sensitive to other strategic themes than previous RESs.
We have now got to work collaboratively again because we are out
at consultation with the RSS to achieve exactly the same with
the RSS in the weeks and months ahead.
Q342 John Pugh: Would it be unfair
to suggest that you can incorporate in the future a greater degree
of accountability because although, to be fair, there has been
consultation, the general impression might be that a lot of these
strategies are hatched by the great and the good, or the usual
suspects, depending on how you want to talk about them? I have
certainly attended consultation meetings that have had very good
presentations from very able people, which left about five minutes
at the end for feedback.
Councillor Joyce: Indeed.
Q343 John Pugh: Do you think there
is scope for significant improvement in that direction?
Councillor Joyce: That is one
of the most important points we have been able to pick up on.
What is the point in taking a completed plan out of consultation
on a Tuesday afternoon this week, having agreed that next week
is the main committee? We do it all in councils; I am used to
doing that; consultation means I have spoken to somebody and Monday
means we have taken the decision. We have to move away from that.
The North West Regional Assembly is responsibility for the RSS.
It has reflected the Regional Economic Strategy and its priorities,
and because we have worked together with people we believe that
the strategies are being interrelated, and that is what we need
to do. If you have a plan and I have got a plan, we must have
the same direction of travel, looking for the same outcomes. As
Keith said, the RFA has proved that we have done a job for allowing
the strategies. If you want to look at a practical example of
that, where we have worked very well together, it is on our transport
plans for the North West of England.
Q344 John Pugh: If you look at the
regional transport strategy, it is to nobody's great surprise
that the greatest per capita spend is in and around Manchester.
Many cynics would look at the process as being hatched from within
Manchester, and would not be altogether surprised by that. Do
you think there are significant weaknesses in the way the regional
transport strategy has evolved this time?
Mr Scales: As far as the Regional
Economic Strategy is concerned, we have made sure that the local
transport plans are fully embedded in that; they have 10-year
visions with 5-year delivery, and we submitted them recently to
the Department for Transport through Government North West on
31 March. As far as it being Manchester-centric, John Pugh, we
are in a position where there has been a bidding process—not
a very clear bidding process because there are no real schemes
in a regional transportation strategy because we do not have guidance
on that—but we are searching for poly-centric, not uni-centric,
and therefore we are spreading our transportation strategy across
the region in the right way. We have to be careful about what
we say in terms of the Northern Way being too much of a Manchester/Leeds
axis because Merseyside is a gateway and not a cul-de-sac; so
we have to make sure that we have our project put forward, but
still on a transparent basis—so far as we can see so far.
Q345 John Pugh: You seem to be stressing
the need for something that will fit within a regional strategy;
but is there not a problem here? If a scheme is £5 million
or more—and an awful lot of sub-regional schemes are—they
may not necessarily score as "must do" regional schemes,
and therefore exist in a kind of strange limbo almost indefinitely.
I am sure that in Carlisle that must be a crucial point. Very
few schemes in Cumbria will have massive cross-regional significance
but they may have enormous significance for people in Cumbria
and equally Merseyside.
Councillor Joyce: Can I answer
that directly?
Q346 Chair: We would quite like Cumbria
to answer.
Councillor Joyce: Sorry—it
is one we have made as a representation as a regional Assembly.
Maggie Mooney: Can I say something
about Cumbria? As a district council we do not have statutory
responsibility for transport for our communities; the county has
that—here you go with the tension in two-tier authorities.
Therefore we are consulted and we lobby. Now that we have Carlisle
Renaissance—and a big element of that is about movement—transport
plus walking and cycling, so we are pulling it all together—we
want to have more clout in it, so we are developing a movement
strategy for Carlisle. We are seven miles away from Scotland.
Of course we go across the region, and other communities do—we
realise that—and sometimes we feel hemmed in by Cumbria
as a county council, although I know that is another issue. But
we feel that sometimes we need to do more than be consulted; we
need to be there for our community's sake. We have big physical
projects for Carlisle. This is what we want for our infrastructure,
and I am pleased to hear from John that it is getting much better.
Councillor Joyce: Can I just make
one response? The North West Regional Assembly recognised that
as one of the faults in the transport plan and the process that
came forward. Through Keith, I hope we have made representation—and
I do believe he will confirm it—to the Department for Transport
that the £5 million ceiling was too low because of the very
aspects of local plans that could not be incorporated in it. We
think the Department for Transport should have raised that figure.
Someone has even suggested that it should be £30 million.
I would not suggest that, but it should have been much more than
£5 million because if anybody is trying to put a road in,
£5 million does not go far at all in this day and age. We
thought it was a restriction, and we think that many, many plans
could have been incorporated in it. We have made representation
to the Department for Transport.
Mr Scales: I think Government
has now changed the criteria and is saying that we have to find
10% through local sources, which is injecting realism into it,
because there are only so many schemes you can do at 5 million
or above. If we work within the local transport plan process a
lot can be done within that as long as the strategies are properly
aligned with the regional economic strategy, the spatial strategy
and everything else. I think there is a case, Dr Pugh, for an
expanded PTE area, both for our PTE and for Manchester to use
the Transport for London model, which has worked really well.
You can see "Transport for Merseyside" and "Transport
for Greater Manchester".
Q347 John Pugh: Would you go so far
as to say it would have a distinct funding pot for sub-regional
transport schemes?
Mr Scales: I think that would
work; and then you have local decisions, local solutions to local
issues by local people.
Mr Barnes: In terms of process,
the Regional Transport Strategy is out for consultation at the
moment because it is part of the RSS process. On behalf of the
Department of Transport we prioritised some £5 billion worth
of schemes that had been built into the pipeline working with
the Assembly and RDA we agreed a realistic set of schemes that
could be funded, and took those to the Department for Transport.
In doing that, we learnt an awful lot about the nature of generation
of transport schemes in the region and their true priorities,
as opposed to small Political priorities. And there was a lot
of good debate about how, if the exercise were to be repeated—we
have talked about the £5 million threshold—what changes
would be really helpful. What came through that was a real sense
of leadership particularly amongst the new regional executive,
in terms of grabbing hold of a difficult issue. I hear what you
say about which schemes were in the framework, but that framework
was agreed by all the representatives from the sub-regions in
the North West, as well as the RDA.
Q348 John Pugh: To be fair, Mr Barnes,
they had to agree it pretty quickly, did they not? It is a stage
between document and people, and had they said to you at that
point, "no, we do not like it; go away and do it again",
you would be in serious trouble with the Department for Transport.
Mr Scales: We could not say!
Q349 Mr Betts: How many significant
city regions does the North West have, and what makes those city
regions significant; and how important are they for the future
of the region as a whole?
Councillor Joyce: We have recognised
three city regions in the North West of England: Preston and central
Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside; but outside those
areas we do think there are some influences that need to take
place. We recognise that away from those three major areas there
are the Carlisles, the Crewes, and the Chester area and Lancaster.
We are recognising that it is not as clear-cut as people are saying
about three city regions. We need both, the city regions and the
regional assemblies and RDAs and Government North West to deliver
many items across the North West of England.
Q350 Mr Hands: I am not familiar
with all the population figures of the various cities, but what,
for example, would define Preston and central Lancashire as having
the potential for being a city region, but other similarly sized
large towns in Lancashire not being able to be, for example Blackpool?
Councillor Joyce: I will work
my figures out and somebody can contradict me, but I chair the
Regional Fire and Rescue Management Board and my figures are based
on the Fire Authority. In Greater Manchester we have a 2.8 million
population; in Lancashire it is 1.2 million; in Cheshire it is
just below 1 million; in Merseyside it is about 1.4 million, and
all over the Cumbria region it is about 600,000. If we take most
of the Preston area it is anything between 500,000 and 1 million.
Q351 Mr Hands: Is it purely therefore
a matter of population numbers?
Councillor Joyce: No, it is communications;
it is links with industrial background; it is linked with travel
to work—all those issues. It is not purely based on a city;
it is about the regional aspect and the sub-regionals around it.
That is my opinion.
Mr Crawford: Keith started the
conversation by reminding us that the North West is a hugely diverse
area, as are by definition all large geographical entities. Its
distinguishing characteristic in terms of gross value-added—and
that is increasingly the indicator of wealth creation—is
that it is increasingly dominated by Manchester, which has about
half of the gross value-added for the entire North West.
Mr Hawkins: It depends which indicator
you use, but between 40 and 50.
Mr Crawford: Behind that Merseyside,
and just behind that Lancashire as a whole. But the question goes
to the heart of the matter. All economic growth across the world
in developing countries—let me rephrase that. Much is increasingly
dominated by city regions, and if you align an arc through the
North West, the arc would run through Merseyside, especially the
City of Liverpool, through the area around Preston and back into
Manchester. The key issue is that private sector capital mobilisation
is occurring within that arc, and the simple challenge in the
North West, and for that matter in all the regions of the United
Kingdom is how you mobilise capital at a faster rate, private
capital, than we have been able to do for a generation? Although
we are catching up, private capital mobilisation is still not
fast enough to close the significant gap between London and the
South East and the rest; so the public sector is well over 50%
of the regional economy in Merseyside—I do not know the
figure for Manchester. That is fine, but clearly, by definition,
the long-run challenge, which is probably overdue, is how you
get more private capital. Private capital typically migrates into
city regional areas.
Q352 Mr Betts: At the heart of the
matter—and we might find a slight difference of view amongst
you on this one—is the issue of what we should be trying
to do try and remove and reduce disparities within regions. However,
if one of their prime objectives is to get the growth rate of
the North West up to something like the South East, then presumably
it will be the Manchesters and Liverpools that are responsible
for achieving that; and maybe in terms of an axis for growth it
is a link between Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and
Sheffield that is going to be the primary force for driving up
the growth in the north. What happens in Carlisle, for example,
is not going to be that relevant in terms of the total growth
rate.
Mr Barnes: Equally, we are challenged
and charged with seeking to make sure that Carlisle and Cumbria
realise their full economic potential. That is why we are saying
that a one-size-fits-all policy does not work in a region like
the North West that is as diverse as it is. In percentage terms
you are quite right, and the RES and everything else we need to
do is about how we release the engines of economic growth in the
south of the region. But also we have sufficient resources and
the right sort of policies to make sure Carlisle, West Cumbria
and Barrow fulfil their potential.
Councillor Joyce: One area we
are missing at the moment that has not been mentioned—and
it would only be fair for me to mention it—is the Crewe
area, in the southernmost part of the North West Regional Assembly.
Most people who are rail travellers know what Crewe is; it is
the gateway to the North of England and the North West of England;
so we should be conscious that development needs to take place
down there—and coming up from the West Midlands. You have
got to be involved with those various partners, and you cannot
isolate any one area because the growth has to be taken together.
Mr Hawkins: I would not want to
get into any beauty contest about which city region is the most
important; the only thing I would say—and I suppose I would
say this, wouldn't I—is that given the strength of the Greater
Manchester economy, I do not think we are going to succeed in
closing the economic gap if the Manchester City region does not
continue to grow; but it is not the only city region in the North
West, and city regions are not only what the North West is. If
you look at the way we have operated within the regional Assembly,
it has got an executive board of three members of each sub-region.
When the issue of Cumbria and its declining GVA came up, there
was no dissention even from those members in Manchester in saying
Cumbria needed specific support. We recognised that we are part
of the North West and that different parts of the North West are
going to need different solutions. I do not see, and the elected
leaders that I am here representing do not see city regions as
declaring UDI from the rest of the North West.
Ms Mooney: Carlisle is on the
list to develop—a small city region—along with Chester
and Lancaster, and we are working with those two cities within
the historical city context, to support each other to get there
and put proposals together for small city region status. To some
extent we believe we are already a small city region. We are the
principal city in Cumbria. We would see ourselves, and so would
most of Cumbria, and south-west Scotland, as the principal commercial
admin, retail and cultural centre for the sub-region. That, together
with Carlisle Renaissance—we believe we can start pushing
for city region status for Cumbria.
Mr Crawford: It is wholly appropriate
that colleagues in parts of the North West will propose and defend
the interests of their city regions or localities, and that must
be right, but there is a lot we do not know about economic development.
What we do know is simple, especially in an economy that is dominated
by the public sector, as parts of the North West. Unless private
sector capital is mobilised quickly, then the gross value-added
advances, the creation of high-value jobs, which the RES and other
documents speak about, will not occur. Coming back to the question
posed earlier by Mr Hands: what is the nature of government intervention;
how do you facilitate private sector growth? The evidence is that,
given the scarcity of resources, the North West will be the same
as the rest of the UK over the next period of time, through the
CSR. There will be a limited amount of public capital going into
these areas. It should go to those areas where it is more likely
to lead to mobilisation of private capital; and that requires
a significant degree of specific investment around productivity
drivers from the physical in the form of infrastructure, through
to skills drivers, through to mobilisation of things like technology
centres built around universities and so on. Again coming back
to Mr Betts's question, city regions, almost regardless of what
government does—but it can happen faster with particular
kinds of government intervention—will be core economic drivers
for the United Kingdom as they are for every other developing
country. The danger is that one ignores that reality by seeking
to diversify and spread resources too thinly across wider areas.
However laudable and understandable that is, it will not work.
Q353 Mr Betts: The Northern Way is
an idea to link city regions together. The Assembly has stated,
"the development of concrete projects dealing with trans-regional
issues in the Northern Way has probably not been optimal."
Most people might think you are quite mellow in your comments.
Councillor Joyce: I think that
is quite right. Before I came a member of the North West Regional
Assembly many years ago I was part of the Trans-Pennine Group,
which is about the various transport plans all the way through,
and we were hitting brick walls everywhere we went, and we still
are. We have not been developing that. Therefore, there has to
be far greater clarity on what we want to achieve in the Northern
Way. How does it fit into the regional assemblies and into the
city regions? It seems to me at the moment that it does not know
where it wants to be placed and how it will influence decisions.
That is my personal opinion. I think there is a lot more work
to be done with the Northern Way.
Q354 Mr Betts: It might be a good
idea, but how can we get that more effective action and strategic
thinking? How can we achieve that?
Councillor Joyce: This is a personal
comment.
Mr Barnes: But it does create
an opportunity for the debate and the thinking to take place,
which was much more difficult before it was there. You are quite
right: now the challenge is for the Northern Way to focus on those
handful of critical issues that add value in the three regions
it is covering. But it comes back to the debate about the importance
of the Manchester/Leeds axis. We now need to test these ideas
through mechanisms like the Northern Way.
Q355 Mr Betts: There is not much
sign of it, say, feeding through into future transport policy
and plans and programmes. There is not much sign that any of that
thinking has been reflected through into what government proposes
to do.
Mr Barnes: I think it is embryonic,
but it is there if you actually look at—
Q356 Mr Betts: Embryonic—you
are still thinking about it.
Mr Barnes: Strategic thinking
is taking place, yes.
Q357 Mr Betts: This is a question
in two parts to AGMA, the Mersey Partnership and Carlisle City
Council: what do you think central government and the regional
agencies can do to produce the performance of your city region;
and to the Government Office and the RDA: what have you done and
what more could be done to improve their performance?
Mr Hawkins: There are a couple
of things there. The first thing is a recognition, when they are
making policy, that city regions are different possibly from other
parts of the UK. It is the point I made before about not having
a national policy spread evenly across the whole of the UK, but
it needs to be directed in different ways, depending on different
circumstances. For example, if you have a particular skills priority
in your city region, you ought to be able to focus on that, even
if it is slightly different from the national policy of the DfES.
I am not quite sure if you are allowed to use words like "bending"
but it is about bending funding or reviewing funding to focus
on sub-regional priorities, parallel to national priorities as
well. There is not enough flexibility in the system at the moment,
and that is one thing that could happen. The second thing, which
was discussed earlier, is to have more devolution of funding to
sub-regions, recognising their own priorities.
Ms Mooney: In terms of what we
need from the Government, things should be more joined up across
the Government departments. There should be flexibility on policies,
particularly transport and planning, funding for non RS neighbourhood
renewal fund areas and the hinterlands, and particularly support
for rural areas. We want clarity from the Government on what is
happening to rural areas. Are they going to be the passive beneficiaries
of support in city regions, or is this about real active involvement
and not just about people living there in terms of having very
active and energised businesses in rural areas. We are going through
that at the moment in Carlisle. It is about getting an idea of
what that support might be for city regions, almost in terms of
flexibility, that we could identify as getting more support in
terms of regional. That has probably been drawn out in earlier
discussions.
Mr Crawford: I agree with much
of what the first speaker had to say. It depends how radical the
Treasury feels like being on fiscal policy. There is little doubt
that the fastest mechanism for accelerating economic growth is
aggressive use of fiscal policy in one form or another—company
taxation or income taxation—but I suspect the Treasury will
not bite that particular one. We can get very specific, but we
do not do inward investment well enough in the North of England
in my view. We have to look very carefully at the impact that
has on city regions. Liverpool, Merseyside and Manchester particularly
have incredibly powerful international brands. The use of those
brands for the purpose of capturing foreign investment, which
will be a major mobiliser of economic growth, needs to be looked
at very seriously. The point was made about an autonomy and recognition
of different requirements—for example the Port of Liverpool
represents a major potential for bringing in enormous amounts
of capital. An issue I was looking at was what would make the
Port of Liverpool grow much faster than it would otherwise grow;
and what sort of government interventions would accelerate that?
That takes you into the area of planning for example, and differential
planning regimes can have an enormous effect on the ability to
capture and grow investment in regional economies.
Q358 Chair: If there were one thing
you wanted for Merseyside from the Government, what would it be?
Mr Crawford: Personally, I would
like the recreation of enterprise zones.
Mr Barnes: I think the question
was: what has the Government Office done to strengthen the performance
of city regions? Looking at the tools we have, I would focus on
our use of the ERDF and the ESF (European Structural Funds) particularly
in Liverpool and Manchester City, in terms of supporting some
large and transformational schemes, as well as on the ERDF/ESF
side, making sure that there is labour with the right skills to
fill the jobs as they come on-stream. One of the other major areas
that the Government Office has played in are the housing markets.
Housing market renewal areas in both conurbations and east Lancashire,
and on a smaller scale through the provision of NDCs. There is
a huge amount of transformation and change in terms of residential
stock that has been driven through by Government Office and its
partners. The third one is probably around the use of NRF, again
to make sure that the social aspects of the economy are properly
funded; and that whilst we are creating jobs in the centre of
Manchester, we are making sure that those jobs are available and
accessible to people a couple of miles away who are in greatest
need.
Councillor Joyce: We supplied
evidence to you that we support the Northern Way from the North
West Regional Assembly, but really we are looking to Government
for a couple of things. First, we are looking for it to give the
necessary resources through the CSR07, and second to make sure
that it is supported by all Government departments. We had a meeting
around the corner a fortnight ago, in Parliament Square, where
a number of departments came together. We discussed regional funding
and allocations and European funding. This is what we are looking
for; we are looking for Government departments to work together
so that we are delivering a common objective. We believe that
there are strands coming out of Government that are not quite
joined up. We believe the future is the city and the regions,
and the Government so far has been quite helpful. We think that
the changes at DCLG will not prevent the pilots happening, and
we would look forward to the pilots happening in the North West
Regional Assembly. If you say what should happen with the Northern
Way, I think we should have greater involvement with the Government
offices, the North West Regional Assembly and the North West development
agencies, because they seem a bit distant at the moment. They
need to come in, to a slight extent, from the cold. They seem
to be working just adjacent to us.
Mr Scales: On the Northern Way
and access to the Port of Liverpool, we are actually making a
bid to the Northern Way funds for that in order to improve freight
access. We are working very closely with partners and the new
owners of Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, which are now Peel.
It would help the Committee if I could give you a note on that
as a concrete example of something that is happening.
Chair: That would be very useful.
Q359 Mr Hands: In regard to the comparison
with London, it is noticeable that in the North West there does
not seem to be much enthusiasm for directly elected mayors. Do
you think there could be any enthusiasm for a directly elected
city region mayor; and if not, why not?
Councillor Joyce: From a personal
point of view I do not think there is any. There is one in particular,
but there was a resolution to try and elect a mayor in Crewe,
and that was defeated heavily. It did not get off the ground in
Liverpool, so it does not seem that there is that sense that they
want to go anywhere on that particular issue. Second, I do not
have any particular opinion on it. I do not know whether others
have. I am not trying to duck it; I just do not have an opinion
on that. If we were to have an opinion for the North West Regional
Assembly we would be quite happy at some stage to place that in
writing. I will take the question away and elicit information
from others.
Mr Hawkins: I will try not to
duck it either. It is not only in the North West where there does
not seem to be much appetite for elected mayors. The experience
within Greater Manchester has been that we have had an association
AGMA, which has been operating for twenty years, with some degree
of success. I would not pretend it is perfect, but the view of
the leaders has been that we should build on that structure for
two or three reasons. First, if you can develop city regions without
having primary legislation, which you would need for a city region
mayor, then that ought to have some attraction in Whitehall. Second,
the 10 local authorities within Greater Manchester are still going
to be the statutory bodies with responsibility for delivering
and commissioning services in their area; and the view of the
leaders within Greater Manchester has been that they do not want
to lose that direct link and democratic accountability between
what we develop at city regional level and what will still happen
at local authority level, and, given some other local government
policies at the moment, more development of neighbourhood consultation.
Chair: Thank you all very much. If anything
requires further augmentation, do submit additional written material.
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